Is Death By A Motor Vehicle Somehow Different
If we had 8 shooting, stabbings or other violent deaths within a 12 hour period you could guarantee that the Feds, the Province and every news organizations across the country would be asking for immediate efforts to prevent this kind of thing from happening in the future.
And yet we had 8 deaths resulting from motor vehicle crashes in a 12 hour period, and it didn’t raise much of a fuss. Matter of fact you would be hard pressed to find the accidents in papers outside of the province.
That speaks to how we have come to treat deaths by motor vehicle. Is it acceptable to kill people on the highways, but not so when it comes to say a shooting?
We must get our priorities straight .
We know we have a problem on the highways but it has yet to receive the kind of attention that would come from other violent deaths and trust me, vehicle crash fatalities are violent deaths.
Just how many police do we have patrolling or highways and city streets? Obviously not enough given what has taken place.
We are told distracted driving is becoming a major problem with the motoring public, but little attention is paid to it.
Can you imagine if we for example had people driving down the roads with a rifle or hand gun hanging out the window what sort of attention that would bring? Yet every single day we see people with the phone to the ear or texting as they drive along the highway, and make no mistake in at least one of the 8 deaths last Thursday, it contributed to someone dying.
Driving is a privilege and how we treat others using the same roads and highways should always be top of mind. Is it that some think death by a vehicle crash is somehow different than being stabbed to death? The pain and suffering by the loved ones left behind is just as great, after all, death is death.
I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s’ opinion.
Comments
Well the obvious difference is that a stabbing or shooting is often premeditated or at least an intended crime. Rarely does someone in a vehicle intend to kill someone else, it’s usually poor choices or other external factors at play.
Does that make it okay? No. Does it make it harder to manage? Yes. There are thousands of cars on the road and you simply can’t stop everyone from making bad decisions. Increased traffic enforcement can play a role, but that costs money and/or it takes resources away from more “important” things (and budgets aren’t exactly increasing for stuff like that).
The most effective way to combat this, IMHO, is through a focused and sustained social campaign. It took years and decades to make drinking and driving and non seat belt use socially unacceptable and it wasn’t fines or tickets that did it. I was constant messaging, pressure and generational additunal changes. In some ways, the people texting and driving today are akin to the people from a foregone era who thought it was fine to have a few pops and then hop into their truck to head home. It’s going to take time, unfortunately.
The only other thought I have right now is to have manufacturers use the GPS functions in smart phones to disable texting or browsing functions if a certain speed is exceeded. There would be fallout (I couldn’t write this message sitting on a bus for example), but it could work . . .
I see more and more people pulled over to the side of the road to make or receive a phone call. That is encouraging. They are providing a good example to others to do the same.
However, it is discouraging to see so many vehicles with an N on the back, driving so much faster than other vehicles. I think much stricter enforcement of novice drivers must be taken. These afterall, are people who are still learning to drive and it seems they are developing bad habits right from the start.
Heavier enforcement of all traffic rules, I believe, is the answer. Just look at how drivers were behaving last weekend, when the enforcement was out in full force. It really made a difference.
One marked police car on the road really makes people sit up and take notice of their driving.
Unmarked police cars also have a huge impact on slowing other drivers down and making them pay attention. But we need to see the numbers out there.
Vancouver was able to stop nearly all amber light runners, simply by heavy enforcement. The same could be done all over.
Stop handing out driver’s licenses like they’re candy at Halloween. Make it more challenging to get and keep a license. And I don’t mean add more red tape.
Indeed axman… stop handing out drivers licences with the aid or an interpreter. I would think a basic handle of the English language in BC would be necessary.
I think a reason why the media doesn’t pick up on fatal car crashes across Canada is because it is a more common incident than anything else across this country regardless of how many people died. If it was a bus, a train, or a plane, naturally it would make national news but a two vehicle accident that killed several people happens more often than we all think therefore it’s consistent news. It would get boring to hear about it national wise. Local wise hell no, because it may involve someone we may know.
In the Fort St. John accident that killed four people, one was a retired Sask RoughRider from the 60s and 70s I believe TSN said. His name was Ken Reed. His wife also died and the other two were from Fort St John and only 22 years old.
Commit 1st degree murder with your car and lie about it, I doubt you would even see 1 day in jail, maybe a few points on your drivers license and that’s it.
I travel quite a bit on the highway…PG to Kamloops, Ft St John, Terrace..
It is a noteworthy occasion, seeing one marked car on the highway! There are the odd unmarked Yukon’s etc, noted by the white hockey puck on the roof, but they too, are few and far between?
Too much time spent on satisfying the crossed t’s and dotted i’s for the court system, no time to be on the road!!
SO, despite the added bureaucracy and adminstration of establishing new rules for drivers, “L”‘s and “N”‘s, are we any further ahead? Has the system worked? I don’t think so.
People need to be charged and spend a day in court for the more serious driving offences. ie; Impaired Driving, Dangerous Driving, Driving without due care and attention.
Changing the rules to allow the Police to write tickets, and issue road side suspensions, etc; does nothing to reduce traffic accidents and fatalities. In fact one could argue that it allow people to buy their way out of a lot of traffic situations.
So back to the courtroom. Have a fine and if necessary a license suspension and a few days in jail if the situation warrants.
We have the laws, we have the police force, and we have the courtrooms and judges, however we do not want to spend the money to look after this problem in a sane manner, and therefore we bastardized the system, to generate money under the guise of improving the situation.
Distracted driving is just a fancy way of saying driving without due care and attention, or dangerous driving. Distracted driving laws carries with
it a get out of jail card.
Time to grown up and use the justice system for what is was designed for.
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