SHE SAID: New impaired laws a thinly-veiled cash grab
By Kyra Hoggan
When I saw B.C. was taking a hard-line stance against impaired driving, I wanted to cheer …I was delighted.
Turns out, I should’ve reserved judgment until I had more of the facts.
I’m all for throwing the book at recidivistic drunk drivers – in fact, I think it should’ve been done years ago. Why wait until someone dies – why not punish these folks before their actions result in vehicular manslaughter? It’s a no-brainer, right?
Maybe so, but that’s not what these new laws are about, now is it?
The new laws, not to put too fine a point on it, are a cash grab – a new form of taxation that’ll never show up on your tax bill, much less generate more money for health, or education, or …
The province is touting its new laws as a means to prevent the 100+ deaths caused in this province by drunk driving each year …but who are they targeting?
I personally know of a community leader who lost his license to impaired charges, but can still be seen tooling around town in his vehicle … do the new laws target him, a guy who is likely, sooner or later, to kill someone with his selfish, irresponsible ways?
Of course not.
They target you, and me, and all the other sensible, law-abiding members of our society.
Instead of going after the repeat offenders who clearly don’t give a damn about our laws, our safety, or just common human decency, the province is going after the responsible, well-meaning people who have committed the terrible affront of imbibing in alcohol on rare occassion.
Do the laws beat up on people who drink regularly and to excess (which simple numbers indicate will lead to more accidents and injuries)?
Nope.
They reduce the legal limit to .05 per cent, instead.
Will that hurt the fellow I spoke of earlier? Nay, nay, he’s already well past that point almost every time he gets behind the wheel, and he knows it. He couldn’t be stopped when the limit was .08. And there’s damned little this new law can do to stop him in future.
Because the laws aren’t written to penalize him – chances are, he won’t pay any fines he gets regardless, since society’s rules clearly mean so little to him – the laws are written to ensure responsible people with money pay their fines, at the end of the day.
What it does is target me, and you, when we go to a buddy’s place for a drink.
Who’s more likely to kill someone – the habitual drunk driver whose blood alcohol content has been well over .08 on a repeat basis … or you and me?
The province doesn’t give a damn about that, either.
What they care about is who is more likely to pay any fine they levy.
Can the fellow I mentioned afford to ignore a fine? Of course he can…he’s made a lifestyle choice that includes drunk driving. It’s no longer what he does …it’s who he is.
But you and me …we still care about respecting the law …we care about our credit rating … we’re not about to throw away our sense of community or our credit or our basic sense of right-and-wrong for the sake of a single ticket.
So we’ll pay the fine.
The province wins. They get their cash.
And the other guy may well quaff a six-pack, kill a family of seven, and perhaps finally realize there’s a flaw in the way he does business.
While the province laughs all the way to the bank.
