With The Holidays Looming, Students are Reminded Not To Drink and Drive

Don\’t drink and drive this holiday season.

Driving drunk anywhere is no joke. In fact, driving drunk is downright stupid. Drive drunk in Canada? You would have to be nightmarishly stupid. Canada takes its drunk driving laws very seriously and so should you.

I want to share with you a very special story, before I go into the specifics about drunk driving laws in Canada. I was a personal home health aide for a number of years, before I returned to University. I worked with a young girl for several years. She could not move her legs. The movement in her arms was severely limited. She could no longer speak because her jaw was permanently broken. This former patient of mine was hit by a drunk driver, when she was twelve years old. She was walking home from school. She was hit at 3 o’clock in the afternoon and thrown 300 feet in the air. That afternoon was the last time she ever stood upright. The last day she ever fed or showered herself. The last day she would be able to use a toilet. That is correct, to this day, some 20 years later she is completely incontinent. And the guy who hit her, never served a day in jail. He got to go on with his life. The child he hit, was a talented singer and sketch artist. Her life and the lives of everyone who loved her, as good as ended that day. Never drink and drive, the lives you may destroy are not simply your own.

Ok. Enough of the segue. Here are the facts. If you should get caught driving drunk in Canada, there are a number of restrictions to keep you from doing it again. There is a mandatory penalty of one thousand dollars for a first offense. If you should harm or kill someone you face a minimum of ten years to life in prison. For second and third offenses you will go to jail, that is the mandatory penalty. Should you get caught within eighteen months of a first conviction, you face a mandatory penalty of five years.

In Canada, if you refuse a field sobriety test, you will go to jail. police may also opt to take you to a hospital for a blood or urine test, to test the level of alcohol or drugs in your system. If you refuse the test, Canada will prosecute you the same as if you were driving drunk or under the influence of drugs.

Your best, and only protection, is to have a designated driver. If no one wants to be the designated driver, plan on taking some kind of public transportation. Drunk driving is never, never worth the risk.

You may want to talk with your parents. Your parents might agree to pick you up, bring you home, and save the ‘discussion’ for the morning after. You have options. You’re smart. You made it to postsecondary studies, after all. Use your head before drinking and before you have no other option, than getting behind the wheel.

Canada, in her wisdom, takes drunk driving seriously. And so, should you.