by Cindy Smith
Editor
Education for the Driving Masses.com
ON -- It was a little after 6pm on Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 when an afternoon of drinks, food and tunes turned deadly on a winding, curving road for four people heading back to a cottage in Muskoka, Ontario.
The 20 year old driver behind the wheel of a late model Audi S4 failed to negotiate a curve while speeding along Penisula Road in Minett and slammed into the guardrail, crashing into the Joseph River. One occupant, Nastasia Elzinga, then 20, managed to survive the crash and swim to shore. Her friends, all knocked unconscious by the impact, remained strapped in by their seatbelts. All three men eventually drowned to death.
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An investigation into the crash would reveal that the driver, Tyler Mulcahy, was legally impaired. Later, it would be revealed that the group of four friends, Mulcahy, Elzinga and Cory Mintz, 20, and 19 year old Kourosh Totonchian had consumed a total of 31 drinks over the course of three hours at the Water's Edge Restaurant at the Lake Joseph Club.
It was a tragedy that rocked Muskoka and the Forest Hill community of Toronto. Three young people, with so much potential, were wiped from existence all because of a really bad choice.
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Tyler Mulcahy's father, Tim, wracked with grief and determined to prevent similar tragedies after learning his son had a history of speeding tickets purchased full-page newspaper ads in two Toronto dailies lobbying Premier Dalton McGuinty to implement sweeping restrictions for Ontario's young drivers.
A protest by young drivers waged on the social networking site, Facebook and in the media, forced the province to abandon one provision that would have limited the number of passengers in a car operated by a newly licensed driver, but the zero tolerance policy championed by Mulcahy would push through the legislature. The new law restricts all drivers 21 and under from consuming alcohol before driving. It came into effect this spring.
G1 and G2 drivers who are a first-time offender face a 30-day licence suspension and a repeat-offender loses the privilege to drive for 90 days. A third-time offender has to re-qualify for the right to drive in Ontario.
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But did this tragedy change the way the people in Ontario view drinking and driving? We won't know until 2011 when data collected for this year and next is submitted to Transport Canada.
Also under the new laws that came into effect in Ontario on May 1st, drivers caught with 0.05 to 0.08 percent of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood was no longer considered a "warn" under Ontario's Highway Traffic Act - where a 12-hour licence suspension used to be issued. Drivers now caught with a blood alcohol level between 0.05 and 0.08 have their licence suspended for three days. If caught a second time, the licence is suspended for seven days and the driver has to attend an alcohol education program. If caught a third time, the licence is suspended for 30 days, and the driver has to complete a remedial alcohol treatment program.
Drivers caught a third time will have an ignition interlock condition placed on their licence for six months. This means the driver cannot drive any vehicle that does not have an ignition interlock device installed. The roadside licence suspensions cannot be appealed and are recorded on the driver's record.
Looking at data collected on this website and its sister site, The Drunk Driving Masses.com, we've recorded media stories where over 210 suspensions have been handed out since the beginning of May but we're sure the number tops out higher, possibly in the thousands.
What we can't determine is how many of these suspensions were for drivers holding G1- and G2-class licences. The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), through its crimealerts.net communications website, has recorded at least 49 suspensions for G2 drivers under the age of 21 caught with a blood alcohol content of over zero. These statistics appeared in media releases recorded across the five regions of Ontario where the OPP have a police presence.
National road safety statistics tell us many drivers aren't afraid to break the law. And what's even more scary is when police officers tell me that for every driver they catch impaired, there's four more who managed to escape without penalty. The police can't be everywhere at every minute and on every road looking for impaired drivers. The onus relies on drivers themselves to obey the law. Obviously, many don't.
4,814 comments were submitted to this website from the past year from youth across this country (and their parents) claiming they know driving drunk is wrong but defended the practice saying everyone does it at least once because all teens do "stupid things", and "so did your mom, and your grandpa..." It's mind-boggling how these supposedly sane individuals will even try to justify what is considered a crime in Canada. It's like saying murder is okay if you only do it once and say you're sorry after.
MADD claims five out of every 10 licensed teen drivers has admitted to driving after knowing they consumed too much alcohol at least once. Over fifty percent of adults polled in the same survey, aged 19 to 25, admit to driving impaired at least once. Eighty percent of the same teens interviewed confessed they repeated the practice despite admitting they know drunk driving is illegal.
I record everything that happens on this site, the fatalities, the factors, the names of the accused, the names of the victims, the ages and places. I have the stories. I know that driving impaired will be a message that many will continue to ignore so long as parents - yes, parents - continue to defend the practice with the tired excuses that "kids will be kids" and "that's what kids do" and without punishment. Every driver in this province who flaunts the laws surrounding impaired must be a product of misguided parenting. I can't come up with any other reason. Somewhere along the way, either mom, dad or both dropped the ball when it came to teaching some of these people the dangers of consuming alcohol prior to driving. These people can't claim they didn't know driving drunk was illegal - the message has been around for 30 years - paraded into schools, emblazoned on beer ads, printed on alcoholic beverages and televised in hundreds of commercials. The only valid excuse any person can ever have is being deaf and blind but those people can't drive.
I, like thousands of people who subscribe to this website, have never driven after drinking, not even after one glass of wine or one bottle of vodka cooler. It's a choice guided by how I was raised. Alcohol was never consumed as a form of entertainment in the home I grew up in and I rarely saw my parents drink alcohol in front of me. My parents were responsible drinkers (too bad I can't say the same about smoking but that's another story ... ). I also never witnessed my parents driving after drinking in a social setting like a wedding, or even drunk. I was in my mid-20s when I finally saw my dad "happy" - his words, not mine. They always made decisions beforehand about who would drink and who would remain sober before a night out. Drinking to excess or even driving afterwards wasn't woven into my family fabric.
It's also a decision I made when I first got my licence. I had no choice in the matter at first because I was restricted by the class of my licence (G2) but when I obtained my full G, I decided to continue the practice, something that the law when it was introduced actually intended, that drivers who finished the levels of graduated licensing in Ontario would become more responsible drivers when it came to alcohol consumption. I guess I'm proof it worked to a degree.
Driving completely sober is something I do out of respect for myself and strangers. I need to be in control when I drive. I don't like to take chances and I don't like to take risks when driving as it's not just me on the road. I drink privately and responsibly. I make arrangements for when I do need a ride home and at no point in my adult life have I never had a place to stay after an afternoon or evening of drinking. I have also never gotten into a car with anyone who has been drinking.
We're out there. People who prove that the existing laws worked all along, even before these new laws were rolled out. Some of us make our choices because of the laws and other make our choices because of personal reasons or family dynamics, but it's the people below I worry about and the friends and parents who defend what they did, who make excuses for the impaired driving, what broke?
- P.E.I. driver, 23, dies in drunken crash
- Man killed by drunk driver, 43, in crash in Alberta Beach
- Turnbull, 25, given 4 1/2 years for killing Tony Degraw in a drunken crash
- Girl, 17, killed in Westman rollover. Alcohol involved
- Police release name of suspected drunk driver, 26, who killed three Sudbury-area teens walking home from bus stop
- Man loses fiancée and sister to suspected drunk driver. Two dead after late-night crash in Surrey after alleged drunk driver slams into car
- Crown seeks prison term for drunk driver, 26, in crash that killed Pat Gostlin in Oshawa
- Drunk driving charges laid in fatal hit-and-run in north Manitoba
- Alcohol believed to be a factor in single vehicle crash that killed teen passenger
- Darren Brooks, 41, charged in fatal crash near Camrose that killed Greg Shute
- Another night, again no seatbelts, again maybe alcohol, leaves three friends dead and a town in mourning
- Seven arrested for drunk driving in London just a week after impaired crash killed three
- Drunk driver kills three: Devon Tinus, Mason Berube & Dave Marshall in crash near London
- How much you wanna bet the people in the taxi were doing what the drunk driver who died should have done?
- 20-year-old Tony Blackburn killed in Surrey crash
- 18 year old Kurtis Rock charged in connection with hit and run that killed Vancouver couple Dr. Aneez Mohamed and Chanelle Morgan
- Police identify Calgary man killed by impaired driver while helping father in rollover crash
9 comments:
excellently done Cindy
d.
Very thought provoking especially your points about alcohol in the home and how parents use alcohol in front of their children.
My wife and I also never drank socially in front of our kids (now in their late 20s/early 30s) and I know from observing our children, they refrain from driving after drinking because they all have kids of their own and because we raised them to respect the law.
As teens, we know there was drinking going on but our kids knew to call us, sleep over or take a bus because we showed them the consequences of too much alcohol (newspaper articles I would cut out for them) and talked openly about these deaths (my kids knew the court cases I'd had where most were for impaired in the 80s and the damage these drunken idiots inflicted on families).
It's hard to believe that it has been a year, Cindy. Excellent job you are doing.
G1 and G2 drivers who are a first-time offender face a 30-day licence suspension and a repeat-offender loses the privilege to drive for 90 days. A third-time offender has to re-qualify for the right to drive in Ontario.
This reminded me of a comment I've been saving for some time. It relates to how, shall we say gently, the legal system treats offenders convicted of these offenses and worse.
I've heard the excuse used that harsh treatment of negligent or drunk drivers doesn't bring lives back, or destroying someone's ability to make a living is not teaching them anything. So a multiyear or lifetime driving ban is considered such "economic hardship" that it's rarely meted out or it is gingerly enforced.
So here's my question. Why do credit card companies have no problem imposing "economic hardship" on those declaring bankruptcy? But our courts, in the face of serious criminal conduct, can't do the same?
It can several years, as many as seven, to get your credit back and get loans or credit cards. Why can't a G1 or G2 violator be taken off the road until they are 25 or 30, no matter if they are 17 or 21. Who cares if they are forced to take the bus?
What is so complicated about harsh long term bans for these offenses? Or at least for those where criminal negligence causing injury or death have been proven? Surely a 10+ year ban has to make sense.
considering all the media attention this story got and the whole tim mulcahy marketing machine behind the new law, you'd think the major news outlets would have spun a story for the one year after. but only this site did. and this story went up late last night. i know because i read the site every night before bed. were u waiting to see if any other news would say something? it's good u did because what u proved is nothing's changed.
Paul. Can you write a letter to your MPP asking this, maybe an email? I'm curious about the response.
Hi JP,
It didn't get posted until just before midnight because Cindy had been working on the story for a few days and wasn't finished until well after 11pm. As an admin I can see her publishing times in the dashboard for this site.
As far as I know, we didn't realize other media outlets had nothing about the anniversary.
Katy, I'm going to do that, I think it's a great suggestion.
I also would like others to ask the same question of their MPs and particularly MPPs.
I'm going to ask the other admins to help draft the question and post it here, as such a letter to a political type should be written in less of a blog comment tone. But the gist of it is there. My understanding is that written letters get more attention as well.
But it's worth asking. Why are credit cards and loans easily suspended for up to 7 years, but driver's licences an untouchable "economic necessity"?
Cindy from your first post on this specific incident to this current one… you impress me in every way! You’re professionalism and dedication deserves to be commended and I personally thank you for being such a good and strong voice on the issue of safe driving. Keep up the great work... you and your team are awesome!
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