OPP worries anti-drunk driving message not getting through
OPP lay multiple charges after a slew of incidents involving impaired drivers
Police and anti-drinking and driving activists are wondering what it will take to get their message across after a horrific weekend on the GTA's highways.
On Sunday night, 29-year-old mom Susana Dumitru was killed and her two-month-old son suffered life-threatening injuries after the car they were riding in was rear-ended by an alleged drunk driver on Highway 7, near Kitchener.
OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt said there were over 100 more impaired driving charges laid this weekend and a slew of incidents where alcohol was involved: officers arrested one impaired driver for doing more than 200 km/h on Hwy. 400, another driver crashed a vehicle into an OPP detachment's parking lot while fumbling with a GPS device, while several other drivers were involved in minor collisions.
Drinking and driving is totally preventable. You just have to plan ahead.- Dean Wardak, anti-drunk driving advocate
The deadly Kitchener crash, Schmidt told CBC Toronto, was "absolutely horrific." But the other incidents were also "a fatality waiting to happen."
"Alcohol in your system, it obviously changes the way you think about life," he said.
Dean Wardak, 24, is still struggling to walk years after a 2011 drunk driving crash. That night, Wardak went to a party and got really drunk, then walked home and got behind the wheel of his car. He didn't make it far before slamming into a tree at nearly 100 km/h.
"It looked like a bomb went off," he was told when he woke up from a coma.
As punishment, a judge ordered Wardak to deliver public speeches about the dangers of drunk driving, a role he's fully embraced. Wardak said he believes he's getting through to the students he speaks to — "they see me in the wheelchair and they know something went wrong" — but said he's troubled that others keep driving drunk.
"Drinking and driving is totally preventable. You just have to plan ahead," Wardak said.
Wardak is still relearning how to walk after his crash and he's still not able to live independently. He said he's forever thankful, however, that he was the only one hurt by his bad decision.
"I can't believe that poor family has to go through this," he said, referring to the fatal Kitchener crash.
OPP have laid over 6,500 impaired driving charges this year
Schmidt said overall, drunk driving numbers are slightly down this year, but there have still been over 30 deaths on Ontario roads where alcohol was a factor. Some 6,500 drivers, meanwhile, have been charged this year.
Still, drunk driving "should not be happening," he said.
Schmidt said what's needed is for everybody — whether its families or loved ones — to decry drunk driving to "whoever will listen to them," so it's not just advocates, police and the media.