Road Laws Tougher but...

I'd have to say that Canadians are some of the worst drivers around. I've been to Mexico, the US, Latin America and nobody drives as aggressively as we do. The summer of 2007 was one of the worst summers for road accidents in recent OPP memory. Indeed, you see bad driving everywhere from people tailgating, speeding, driving way too slow, forming the impenetrable wall of cars in the middle lane on the 401, illegally overtaking, drunk driving, the list goes on. A new set of laws went into effect a week ago that would see people driving 50km/h over the limit, street racing, or driving aggressively have their license revoked for one week and their car impounded. Some say this violates due process of the law but others feel it will send a message to people. The OPP has said that they are averaging one impound every 30 minutes on Ontario roads. Some 150 cars were taken off the road at last check. In my opinion, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

It's rare you go out in your car now without having some sort of unpleasant experience due to dangerous driving. It seems drivers think they won't get caught or simply don't care. No matter how tough the fines are, people still do it. Case in point the deaths of two Brampton women last week at the hands of two young street racers driving daddy's cars. The women were killed when the younger brother attempted to illegally pass a dump truck on the gravel shoulder, and lost control. The incident triggered a chain reaction crash leaving two dead and a husband horrified as he watched his wife die. Now, you either have to be living under a rock to not know the OPP were out in full force targeting that kind of behaviour, or very arrogant to simply not care. They have been charged with criminal negligence causing death. The irony of the event is they received only minor injuries in the crash, likely because the one young man who caused the accident was driving an Audi, which are heavy vehicles that are built like tanks.

The problem with many of these dangerous driving cases once again happens in the courts. Take the case of the Toronto cabbie that was killed last year in a street racing incident. The two young men who killed him were given a slap on the wrist. Another incident that killed a Richmond Hill mother and father and the same kind of sentence was given. Once again, we have the tough laws there and the police are willing to enforce them, but the court system fails to treat such crimes seriously, even when guilt is proven far beyond reasonable doubt. I feel this is where things need to change. Until we get a court system that actually wants to apply the laws fairly, these incidents will continue.

Finally, we really do need more police on the road. Living in Halton, I rarely see the regional police patrolling the roads where as I see them all the time in Peel. The municipalities and regions are currently a road policing hole. There simply aren't enough cops out there enforcing the rules of the road. More need to be hired to do so. Also, the quota system should go for road infractions, in order to force police to target more serious vehicular offenders. Road safety should not be about how much money municipalities can make through fines.