MADD as hell

>> Group proposes radical change to drunk-driving laws, but civil libertarians are wary

By GEORGE MADDUX

You've just enjoyed an all-too-rare evening out, your roots are well watered with liquid courage, you flip on the car radio, nestle back into your bucket seats and listen to the reassuring purr of your car engine. That's when you catch the snoop in your rear-view mirror, methodically recording your license plate in a notepad.

If, during the upcoming season of revelry, you spot such a civilian spy taking notes on your wicked ways, it's a safe bet he's a fan of Theresa-Anne Kramer, a 48-year-old Rosemont resident, former piano teacher and mother of three. Informing local police about drunk drivers is one of the many contentious tactics Kramer and her tiny group of supporters advocate to discourage drunk driving.

Kramer became an active opponent of drunk driving in 1996 after reading of an accident in which copious amounts of booze persuaded a woman to drive the wrong way up a highway ramp, killing three teenagers as well as herself. "The teenagers did nothing wrong. I looked at that and looked at my own three kids in bed and thought 'I have to do something, these kids were doing everything right and they got killed.'" She launched Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) Quebec. It remains the province's only chapter and the 43rd in Canada.

Since then, Kramer and her eight-member group have learned that tragic tales can count more than organizational size. For example, she says that soon after she recounted the story of Claudine-Anne Zimprelli, who burned to death in her car after being hit by a drunk driver, Canada's Senate decided to stop delaying legislation that increases the maximum penalty for drunk driving homicide from 14 years to life.

Higher in Quebec

Kramer says the problem in Quebec starts with our higher acceptable limits. Although the legal limit across the nation is 0.8 per cent blood-alcohol level, other provinces allow roadside suspensions when a driver is stopped with 0.5 or 0.4. "If a suspected drunk driver blows yellow [signifying 0.5-0.8 per cent blood-alcohol level] in the alert device at the stop check, all the police officer can do is say, 'Can you please pull to the side and take a taxi.' If the person refuses to do that, the cop can't do a single thing. He can't issue a 12-hour roadside suspension as he can do in other provinces."

Kramer also seeks to eliminate the loophole that allows motorists to refuse the breathalyzer test. "It can cost drivers a $1,000 fine but then they can't get charged with drunk driving causing death."

But she feels that a misguided sentimentality towards drunk drivers--who she says are to blame for 40 per cent of the province's accidents--has led to a reluctance to reform the system. "They're often such nice people, like the mother who was addicted to alcohol and ended up driving with a blood-alcohol level of 3.5. She ended up breaking her little boy's neck in three places."

Drugs and guns

Other parts of the local MADD agenda might not be everybody's cup of Tia Maria. For example, Kramer wants police to be able to check drivers for drug use. "The police chiefs of Canada are aware that drugs are a problem. They don't like the idea of a guy being on cocaine and several other drugs being out on the road. We know through autopsies of impaired drivers that drugs play a very high role in road accidents."

Kramer also wants laws changed to allow Quebec police to employ a special high-tech laser gun called a passive alcohol sensor. When pointed into a vehicle, the $2,000 device can detect the presence of alcohol in the air.

But some, including local lawyer and civil liberties expert Julius Grey, would put the brakes on any excessive changes to current policing of drunk driving. "Every lobby only sees their side of the story and doesn't see other issues. Even though the cause may be very laudable, as this one is, there are limits that one can impose on a society without making life too difficult.

"Massive spot checks and blood tests would ultimately create an imposition that goes beyond what could be tolerated. We could reduce sex offenses by placing cameras in all public bathrooms, but we don't do it because the price in terms of liberties would be too great. You cannot turn our society into a police state on the grounds that you're controlling even something as clearly undesirable as this."

But even Grey agrees that the punishment for drunk driving could be made harsher. "You could legitimately say that anybody caught twice could never drive again."

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