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OUR VIEW: That’s 86,534 cases of driver stupidity in B.C.

In the past decade, a whopping 86,534 impaired drivers have been taken off the road thanks to Alexa’s Team – a police initiative named in honour of Alexa Middelaer, a four-year-old killed by a drunk driver in Ladner in 2008.
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In the past decade, a whopping 86,534 impaired drivers have been taken off the road thanks to Alexa’s Team – a police initiative named in honour of Alexa Middelaer, a four-year-old killed by a drunk driver in Ladner in 2008.

That’s an impressive statistic – and a sobering one.

Because it means that, despite death’s like Alexa’s, a large number of drivers in British Columbia still haven’t gotten the message about the dangers of drinking and driving.

Take a moment and think about how terrifying that number is.

Each and every time a police officer pulled over one of those 86,534 impaired drivers was a time when the driver in question could have caused an accident.

That’s 86,534 potential crashes. 86,534 potential injuries. 86,534 potential deaths – or more.

Fortunately, the actual number of accidents caused by impaired drivers is much lower than that. ICBC statistics from 2012 to 2016 show an average of 65 fatal crashes a year in which impaired driving was a contributing factor.

That’s still 65 too many.

But it’s a far cry from what it could be – and a large part of the reason for that is the work of police officers on the alert for impaired drivers.

We’re grateful to the efforts of all the officers whose success in getting impaired drivers off the road earned them the right to be named to Alexa’s Team. It’s thanks to the determined efforts of officers such as Const. Michael Gardner, Cpl. Jason Bayer, Const. Diane Marsh, Const. John Stables, Const. Harmeek Waraich and Cpl. Brad Lougheed that the number of tragedies caused by drunk driving in B.C. is not much, much higher.

It’s thanks, too, to the growing understanding among B.C. drivers that it’s never acceptable to get behind the wheel after one too many. But until every single driver in British Columbia gets that message, we’re all at risk of becoming part of next year’s statistics.