Ripped from the headlines

Mom picking up son charged with drunk driving also charged with drunk driving

INNISFIL, Ont. — Police say a mother who came to pick up her son after he was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving found herself charged with the same offence.

Police say it started when an officer pulled over a speeding vehicle in Innisfil, Ont., just before 1 a.m. Sunday.

Investigators say the driver, a 27-year-old Newmarket, Ont., man, failed a roadside screening test and was taken to a police station north of Toronto, where he was charged with impaired driving.

Police say when his 53-year-old mother came to retrieve him a few hours later, the same officer smelled alcohol and made her take a breathalyzer test.

They say she failed the test and has been charged with impaired driving.

Both have had their vehicles impounded and licences suspended for 90 days. They are due in court next month.

LINK

Now, that's a candidate for mom-of-the-year honours. Even though she was drunk as a skunk, when the call came in that her little boy needed her, she set aside the real possibility of great personal injury to herself and others for the convenience of her idiot child.

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Be sure to stay inside the lines, kiddies

There is a gentle curve in a road near me. Every single time I drive that stretch, one or more drivers cannot manage to stay between the lines. They probably coloured outside the lines as children. Perhaps the Department of Motor Vehicles should be notified of such kids' names and save us all the trouble.



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No explanation required

Switching sides

The Pacific island nation of Samoa has become the first country in decades to change driving sides. And it is likely the first time any country is switching from the right to the left - every other change has been the other way around. About 70 per cent of the world population drives on the right-hand side of the road - just like drivers in Pompeii and other ancient cities did. This is partly due to a larger cultural preference for right-handed activities.

But despite the enormous hurdles – physical, economic and political – that any move to change the driving side has to face, many countries have made the switch to match up with neighbours. Like Canada did in the 1920s and Sweden did as late as 1967. The current change in Samoa is ostensibly to help people get the benefit of cheap, used vehicles from richer neighbours Australia and New Zealand that drive on the left.

Fewer cars stopped, but a lot more drinking drivers found

Notice anything strange about this article taken from my home town newspaper?

Peel police have charged 18 motorists with drunk driving in the first five days of the Holiday RIDE campaign. That's triple the number of drivers charged after 2,622 vehicles were stopped compared to the same time period last year when 5,065 vehicles were stopped and only six drivers charged.

Others charged with impaired driving and having an excess blood/alcohol level are: Brampton's Amrik Singh Densa, 41, Khemraj Persaud Rajaram, 36, Sean Anderson, 22, and Jasver Singh, 30, Mississauga's Joao Da-Rocha, 52, Grzegorz Faryna, 48, Oakville's David Vila, 23, and Pickering's Emad Lamie Awad. Charged with having an excess blood/alcohol level are: Brampton's

Edgar Arteaga, 44, Thuan Thi Tran, 25, Mississauga's Samidh Kumar Patel, 28, Sandeep Dhaliwal, 20, Michael Daniels, 19, Darmendrea Nandran, 35, and Oakville's Hannes Carl Svensson, 36. Amarpreet Pahuja, 27, of Mississauga is charged with impaired driving, refusing to give a breath sample and assault.

It just warms my heart to know that many immigrants have adapted so well to the Canadian tradition of getting sloshed during the holiday season and then getting behind the wheel of a car. In fact, it's a disgrace that there's so few "white" names listed above. I challenge every proud Canadian out there named John, Bill, Daryl and his other brother Daryl to get out there, chug some Molson and get some normal sounding names on that police blotter. Show your Canadian spirit!

You're in good hands...or are you?

In a recent Allstate car insurance commercial, they explain that they reward their clients with a good driving record by sending them a cheque each year if they did not get into an accident. I have no idea how much the cheque might be for, but regardless, let's think about this, shall we?

Do you believe that Allstate had all this extra cash laying around that they wanted to get rid of? Do you believe that Allstate's premiums are equal to or lower than other car insurance companies and they give away cash to their customers? Let's face it--what they're probably doing is raising rates just a bit across the board, taking that extra cash and redistributing it to the good drivers. That's all well and good if you happen to go year after year without an accident. You can bet your bottom dollar, and you will if you have an accident, that if they are rewarding the good rivers, logic says that they must be penalizing the "bad" drivers by an equal amount just to break even.

Further pondering suggests that not only are you just getting back your own money (if you go accident-free), they've also been kind enough to store it in safe-keeping for you for a whole year. When you get that first cheque, ask them what happened to the interest they earned on your money.