Recently there was a five-time repeat drunk driver who was busted again. This repeat drunk driver was not allowed to drive for nine more years. The problem is, what stops people who have lost their licence and are under suspension from driving? Nothing. Licence suspensions and fines for this group do not work. Until we take away the physical ability of driving a vehicle after drinking by installing alcohol ignition interlock screening devices in all newly built vehicles, people will keep drinking and driving.

Innocent people will keep getting killed and injured. Impaired driving will remain the leading criminal cause of death in our country. You can’t drive your vehicle after drinking if your vehicle won’t start. That’s what the interlock does. It prevents a person from starting their vehicle if they have been drinking.

Nissan has developed a concept car equipped with multiple features designed to detect the driver’s state of sobriety that also activates a range of preventative measures. They also started testing an on-board breathalyser system, where an interlock mechanism immobilizes the vehicle if the driver’s breath indicates the presence of alcohol above a specified level.

If all car manufacturers won’t step in and take action, and car manufacturers like Nissan will, maybe this will finally send a strong message to all car manufacturers that they also have a role to play in preventing people from starting their vehicle if they have been drinking. Nobody wants drunk drivers on the roads.

Drinking drivers continue to pose a very serious threat to every single person who uses our roads. Impaired driving is the number one criminal cause of death in our country. A total of 80,000 Canadians are charged with impaired driving every year. In Ontario, about 16,000 people are charged annually with drinking and driving. Impaired drivers kill, on average, four people every day and injure almost 190 in Canada as the direct result of the lethal combination of drinking and then driving.

Impaired driving deaths and injuries are not accidents. Permanent alcohol ignition interlock screening devices in all vehicles will put a tremendous dent in the carnage caused on the roads by people who persist in driving after drinking.

Drinking and driving costs our communities and society a terrible price in the loss of life, loss of productivity, cost of medical expenses and property damage. These are the tangible costs.

Everyone pays for those who drink and drive.

What’s less easy to quantify is the heart-rending anguish families go through when a loved one is killed, or the heartbreak they feel when their parent or child is taken away from them because of someone’s sheer irresponsibility. A large portion of the population believes it is okay to drink and then get behind the wheel.

The costs are too high  (human lives) for all automakers and our government not to take the initiative.

Doug Abernethy,
Ontario RAID - Report All Impaired Drivers,
Orillia