Life lessons
Students weigh in on impaired driving; government announces legislation changes
That was the question on the minds of students at Waterford Valley High School Monday after the Newfoundland and Labrador Government announced changes to laws dealing with impaired driving.
How many more people have to be killed before society gets the message?
That was the question on the minds of students at Waterford Valley High School Monday after the Newfoundland and Labrador Government announced changes to laws dealing with impaired driving.
“People do it. They know it’s wrong and they are not supposed to do it, but yet they still do,” said Alan O’brien, a Grade 12 student.
“Nobody is sitting at home saying I am going to drink and then go drive, but at some point they do.”
O’brien said he is pleased the province is using a proactive approach to reach new drivers and warn them right out of the gate of the consequences of impaired driving.
He said the more regulations that can be put in play, and early, the more it will be a deterrent to those who may choose to operate a motorized vehicle while impaired.
Students at the school — some whom are just obtaining their learner’s permit, some who have yet to do so and some who are licensed drivers — gathered for an announcement by Service NL Minister Kathy Gambin-walsh that outlined changes to legislation that will be enacted Thursday throughout the province.
Gambin-walsh said there is a new zero-tolerance policy for drivers under the age of 22 that will have significant consequences for all drivers found to have anything more than a zero reading on any impairment check.
Those changes include a vehicle being impounded for seven or 30 days, depending on the registered reading. Those who have a minimal reading will have the vehicle impounded for seven days and those who have a reading of .07 or higher will have it taken for 30 days.
In addition, penalties will include having a mandatory ignition interlock devise installed on the offender’s car at a cost of $1,100, paid for by the offender, in order to get back their driver’s licence.
Those offences will cost the driver a three-year prohibition from driving for a second offence, and a third offence will result in a five-year ban.
“It will be hard to tell your parents the police have taken away their vehicle,” Gambinwalsh said.
“Be that generation who puts an end to impaired driving.”
Living with pain
A majority of students have yet to be affected by the outcome of bad decisions of others to operate a vehicle while impaired.
Others are not so lucky, such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving national president Patricia Hynes-coates, who lost her stepson Nicholas Coates to an impaired driver in August 2013.
“No one ever thinks it can happen to them,” Hynes-coates said.
“The loss of Nicholas was so senseless. It didn’t need to happen. A man made a selfish choice and changed my family’s life forever.”
Another person Nicholas Coates’ death had an impact on was Grade 12 student Liam Warren. He was a student at Beaconsfield Junior High in 2013 when Coates was killed.
“Nicholas’s mother taught at Beaconsfield while I was there. She was great working with the special-needs students and doing orientation there,” Warren said.
“It changed her when it happened. It changed the school and it certainly changed me, as I could see her pain,” he added.
Katherine Dibbon, a Grade 11 student, took her own strong stance.
“This is not a casual thing. It is important. We need to tell people that and make sure we say it in a strong way,” she said.
“It is horrible, disgusting that this happens and it always happens. It is unpredictable when it will happen. You never know. It could be tonight, could be tomorrow, but it always happens.”
“It changed her when it happened. It changed the school and it certainly changed me, as I could see her pain.” Liam Warren, Grade 12 student, Waterford Valley High School