Make a plan for party-goers

There is a lot to celebrate in Atlantic Canada right now. The border restrictions between the provinces are loosening, with families reuniting at cottages and family homesteads after many months of separation.

So, it is no wonder that people have plans to gather (within the allowable limits) and toast the return to some kind of normal.

On the East Coast, as everyone knows, celebration usually goes hand in hand with alcohol. Sometimes — too often — revelry can turn into tragedy when the drinking happens without a plan to get home.

According to the latest data from Statistics Canada, there are more impaired driving incidents outside of metropolitan areas, and the collisions in less populated areas are also more severe and more likely to lead to death.

This does not come as a surprise to those of us who live in less densely populated provinces.

First, there are far fewer options for getting home after a house party in a rural setting. And those who do get in a vehicle with an impaired driver in the country will be travelling further distances at higher speeds than those who pile into a car after a night of drinking downtown.

Insurance companies that track impaired-driving occurrences also note many people who have had too much to drink have poor judgment about their own impairment and/or are too embarrassed to admit they couldn’t hold their liquor.

That’s where the bystanders and hosts come into play. We must stop letting people get behind the wheel when there is any question over their ability to control the vehicle. It must become as socially unacceptable to drink or use drugs and then drive as it is to smoke indoors or to go into close quarters without a mask.

Anyone who holds a gathering in a rural setting must put as much planning into how their guests will get home as they do picking the food and invitation list. If we think people will be drinking before they arrive, we have to plan for that, too.

On June 12, a grieving mother shared with Saltwire her family’s struggles since her son was killed in the prime of his life by a woman who downed 13 drinks before heading out on the highway to a dinner.

“‘Impaired driving causing death’ sounds so sterile,” Brenda Simmons, of Point Prim, P.E.I., wrote in a guest opinion one year to the day of her son, Jacob’s, death. “If someone were drunk and took a baseball bat to beat a complete stranger to death, we all would be horrified.”

Let’s do a better job of making even the notion of driving while impaired as unthinkable as beating someone to death. The onus is on all of us to make sure everyone gets home safely, or has somewhere to stay until it’s safe to drive home.