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6 - Orono Weekly Times 1937 - 2012 · Celebrating 75 Years Wednesday, December 5 , 2012 From The House At The Centre Of The Universe The elephant in the room by: Tracy Tonkinson `Tis the season, well almost, and that fact is never more obvious than when we start to see the figures rolling in from the Durham Regional Police RIDE statistics from this year's campaign, begun at the end of November. We are only at week three of the campaign and already of the 3,420 vehicles stopped so far throughout the region there have been 46 charges laid for what the police term `impaired/exceed/refuse'. The good news is, if there can be good news from drink driving charges, that of the names so far posted on the Durham Regional Police website only three of them are from Clarington. Years ago when I first started driving as a teenager we never thought that mixing drinking and driving was a bad idea. We all did it and we were all oblivious to the fact that we were not only a danger to others but to ourselves. We were young, we were free and of course we were indestructible. One night, driving home very late from a wild party, I turned in to my parents' driveway and was puzzled as to why I couldn't read the speedometer on my dash board. I was just sober enough to realize I had driven home, a distance of maybe Newcastle to Port Hope, with no lights on my vehicle at all. How I wasn't stopped by the police I will never know, but even intoxicated I was shaken at the thought of what I might have done on the drive home that night. That put an end to my drinking and driving days. Years later a friend of mine was devastated when her non drinking daughter, who was a passenger in a car with girlfriends out celebrating passing a driving test, was killed when the drunken driver of the car rolled it into a ditch. My friend's daughter was the only one killed, the drunken driver survived without a scratch. My friend became a member of Mother's Against Drunk Driving (MADD) as soon as she had recovered sufficiently from the worst of her grief. She has never fully recovered from it. MADD in Ontario was born out of an organization of drunk driving victims called PRIDE (People to Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere). MADD Canada was formed in 1989 creating a national network of victims and concerned citizens whose mandate is to help prevent impaired driving and to give support to the victims of the crime of drunk driving. Since it's inception in 1989 to the last time statistics were published in 2009, MADD estimates that the lives saved by its campaigning are around 35,375. However during the same period a staggering 42,437 Canadians were killed in alcohol-related crashes. Some of these may well have been the drunk drivers themselves, but many more will have been sober passengers, pedestrians or other road users. The Ministry of Transportation website gives this definition of the drink driving limit in Ontario: `Driving impaired or with more than 80 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood (.08) is an offence under the Criminal Code. Even if your blood alcohol concentration is less than .08, you can still be charged with impaired driving under the Criminal Code'. I don't know about you but I have no idea what 80 milligrams of alcohol in a 100 millilitres translates to in terms of a beer or a glass of wine or a shot of spirits. The biggest tragedy of drinking and driving is that, like me years ago, those who do it seem to have the feeling that they can handle it. "It is only one drink, I've had a big meal, I don't have far to go', are all rationalisations I have heard from people I have been out with who then get behind the wheel. I have done it too. I`ve had that one little drink, that big meal with it, driven that `short drive', but for me I know it is a dumb thing to do. I don't want to wake up one morning and know that I damaged another life because I forgot that getting behind the wheel even after `one small drink' reduces my ability to function properly while I am driving a complicated and dangerous piece of machinery. Even more shocking is the thought that my own child might be killed or crippled because someone else thought that way. As the current LCBO TV ad graphically shows, drinking and driving is still the elephant in the room. Enjoy the Christmas season, have a drink, have as many as you like, I will, but I won't be getting behind the wheel afterwards and I hope you won't either. Newcastle BOWLING MIXED LEAGUE Thursdays 7 - 9 pm SENIORS Bowling Results for Nov. 27th Top Scores 150+ GAME ONE BOWLER GAME TWO Results for Nov 29th BOWLER Game Game Game One Two Three Top Scores 150 + Clayton Trolley 161 Bob Lewis 174 Karen Wright 150 Susan Armstrong 172 Don Wright Jack Vanderstarre 154 Carrie Vanderstarre157 Joe Mendonca Kathryn Brown 186 Arlene Watson Greg Forget 256 Jack Watson 255 Bob Kilgar 173 Martin Miehe Brenda de Laat Adrian de Laat 155 Bill Locke 153 Fae Forget 164 Ken Crichton 193 166 157 165 180 181 163 176 196 163 150 154 173 157 200 190 195 150 194 173 185 190 153 178 151 165 179 194 186 Arlene Watson Bertha Powell Bob Scales Ed Millgae Elaine Doty Jack Watson Jean Hall Leo Proulx Mag Wade Marie Trim Mary Pierik Russell Powell Vicky Deschamps 193 157 200 242 161 155 150 180 173 204 165 184 179 207 203 157 157 NEWCASTLE YOUTH LEAGUE LADIES' LEAGUE Results for Nov. 26th Results for Nov. 24th BOWLER Game One Game Two Top Scores 150+ Game One Game Two BOWLER Game Three Cassidy Dawson Deven Ayden Jacob Timothy Zachary Prentice Jordan 114 105 78 102 138 114 78 150 105 122 109 73 167 153 113 144 205 Anne Arsenault Joan Ard Lynda Willsher Marilyn Major Mary Pierik Shirley Moffat Sue Carter Jess Weese 153 154 202 222 161 168 170 168 160 159