The OPP has launched its annual Festive RIDE campaign.
Kicked-off over the weekend, the RIDE program is aimed to keep alcohol and drug-impaired drivers off the road. This year in North Bay and the surrounding area, the program has been highlighted since there have been more charges related to impaired driving this year, than all of 2018.
“We need to get our messages out,” Shona Camirand of the OPP said at the recent MADD Red Ribbon launch. “It seems like the message has fallen into the cracks. We have had too many impaired drivers this year. We have arrested 55 drivers so far in 2019. In all of 2018, we arrested 49.”
Camirand says that the RIDE program, along with the public, are big reasons why they are able to get the impaired drivers they have charged, off the road.
“With the Festive RIDE program, the OPP are [sic] going to be out doing RIDE every day,” Camirand explains. “You don’t know where they are going to be. Those are deterrents, hopefully, so people don’t drive impaired because the costs are so high. If you kill or injure somebody while you are impaired driving, it is devastating on so many levels.”
With the holiday season fast approaching, initiatives like the MADD Red Ribbon Campaign, or the Festive RIDE campaign are designed to help people get home safely, in the face of some alarming statistics. Officers say that 56 people were killed in alcohol/drug-related collisions on OPP patrolled highways in 2018. They add that 600 people have been killed in the last 10 years from these types of accidents.
With those numbers, Camirand says it is important to get the message out all year long.
“We can’t be everywhere at all times, and we want people to be aware that impaired driving exists,” Camirand said. “It does exist beyond the holidays, but during this time there is a lot of family parties, a lot of drinking, plus it is cold and people want to get home. That’s why we focus on it a lot now, but back in July, MADD put up a billboard trying to get our message out then.”
