Safe driving message delivered to Brantford students

Source: Brantford Expositor

ONTARIO - Chris Bialas thought the timing was right to bring a safe driving message to the senior students at St. John's College.

Bialas, who is in his fifth year of study at St. John's, said the entire city was affected by the deaths in late September of 18-year-old Shawn McLaughlin and 17-year-old Ciaran Milmine. The Brantford teens, who were getting into a vehicle to leave a party on Burtch Road, were killed after being struck by an SUV.

A 17-year-old Six Nations male, who can't be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, faces numerous charges in the crash, including impaired driving causing death and criminal negligence.

Bialas wanted to let some time pass before suggesting to St. John's principal Rob Campbell that the school consider hosting a presentation intended to raise awareness of drivers and passengers under the age of 25 about the risks and consequences of aggressive and unsafe driving.

"I didn't want the presentation to affect (students) in a negative way," said Bialas.

About 700 Grades 11 and 12 students attended on Wednesday the iDrive Road Stories, a presentation that's a collaboration between the Ontario Students Against Impaired Driving, Student Life Education Company, Arrive Alive -Drive Sober, and Ontario's Ministry of Transportation.

The groups say that Ontario drivers, aged 16 to 24, are four times more likely to be in fatal collisions while speeding and three times more likely to be in fatal collisions while drinking and driving.

"When you're a teen, there's a lot of peer pressure to drink," said Matt Evans, OSAID's executive director. "That's when tragedies happen."

Evans also talks to students across the country about being comfortable intervening if they feel a friend is abusing alcohol.

He tells them about how he was devastated years ago when a 19-year-old friend who had a history of alcohol abuse fell from a roof and died.

"There is nothing worse than a teen dying," Evans said. "Maybe if I had said something to him, it wouldn't have happened."

St. John's was one of 10 schools across the province selected for the iDrive Road Stories program.