HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1987-05-06, Page 35Students tackle drinkin
moo week has been a positive and
enlightening experience for the tato
students al lending SHDHS. The tacos
on Students Against Drunk Driving
was initiated by the student council to
increase awareness of some of the
unhappy consequences when alcohol
is in the driver's seat.
The week began with the showing
Of a moving and unforgettable film,
"Make Sure It Isn't You," at a special
assembly. Among the dramatic
moments were two sets of parents
who described wha t it is like to lose a
SADD WEEK — Sgt. Kevin Short was the guest speaker at an
assembly arranged by the SHDHS student council as the opening
event in a week of activities focused on Students Against Drunk Driv-
ing. He and council president Mark Penhole stand beside silhouet-
tes representing the five students from SHDHS who have died in the
lost 10 years in alcohol-related accidents.
THE MOMENT OF TRUTH - 'Patti Love has an audience of SHDHS
classmates as she takes a breathalizer test after drinking peach
schnappes and vodka as part of a drinking and driving test.
son to a drunk driver. One promising
19 -year-old was killed instantly by a
driver who celebrated a promotion by
drinking all afternoon and all evening
before travelling home the wrong way
along Highway 400.
The victim's parents, still fighting
back tears, said they had left the son's
coffin open at the funeral so others
could see "what used to be".
The other parents told of the
devastating moment they learned
their 14 -year-old, who had been hap-
pily riding his bike, was lying dead on
the street a few blocks from home. He
too had been hit by a drunk driver.
A beautiful former model now
paralyzed from the neck down said
she still has moments of depression
and anger every day when she thinks
of the impaired person whose action
cruelly cul off her career and put her
in an institution for life.
A man who had been drinking and
ran into a group of young people
gathered around a stalled car at the
side of the road, killing one, reiterated
his remorse. He described getting out
of his car, seeing what he had done,
calling the police, and being led off to
jail.
A fire chief told of using the jaws of
life to extricate bodies - or pieces of
bodies - from cars that had crumpl-
ed like tin cans in alcohol-related ac-
cidents. A picture of a pile of
unrecognizable rubble showed
graphically all that was left after a
Corvette with an impaired teenager
at the wheel wrapped itself around a
concrete lamp post at 170 km. an
hour. The driver,took two friends in-
to eternity with him.
Sgt. Kevin Short reinforced the
film's message. He pointed to five
black silhouettes representing the five
SHDHS students killed in alcohol-
related accidents in the 10 years he
has been on the Exeter force.
Short described one accident scene
he would like to forget, but can't..
"The car is upside down. You smell
he beer before you crawl inside.
roken bottles all around. Faces cut.
That's not fun. You pull out two kids.
)ne is dead. ('poked on his own vomit.
he other kid dies in your arms."
Then comes the har•ctpart - telling
he parents.
Short pointed ouf.some of the legal
repercussions of impaired driving, -
vhich is a criminal offence. Those
who fail the breathalyser test, or
efuse to take it, are charged. For a
irst offence. the penalty is a
inimum fine of $:00 ($500 is the
verage) and loss of one's driver's
cence for 12 months. Second of-
fenders are sentenced to a minimum
f 14 days in jail, and their licences
uspended for two years. The
inimum jail term for third -time of-
nders is 90 days and they.lose their
rivers' licences for three years.
uch depends on the judge.
Short mentioned being called to a
ouse party recently. He said a lone
ficer couldn't possibly hand out 75
ckets for underage drinking.
owever, under the vicarious liabili-
section of the civil code, whoever
osts such a party is responsible for
ter -alcohol-related incidents and ac -
dents. Even if parents are away
hen a minor hosts a drinking party,
ose parents can be sued.
"If a kid is killed on the way home
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cops storm your house like a SWAT
team", Short said.
The tine print in many policies
voids the insurance if a policy holder
involved in an accident was impaired
Short commended the students for
initiating he.SADD Week events, H
said he and his police colleagues ha
been to other high schools, and "we're
pretty impressed with SHDHS. It's a
cool school: the kids gel along well.
work hard, gel good grades - and
wave at us with all their fingers."
Short said the one problem is drink-
ing, adding that Huron County -is one
of the worst places in Ontario for
alcohol consumption. Ile said secon-
dary school students in the cities are
astounded to hear that a popular past
time in this area is throwing a case
of beer in the back of the car. piling
in and "running". -the gravel roads.
Short told his attentive audience
that if the norm was the assumption
hat alcohol had to be part of every`
party, every dance, that was "scary".
"1 can't change attitudes. That has
o come from you. Start caring. See
he problem. Get concerned. Do
omething. You guys can fix it". Short
hallenged. -
The policeman lett the students
with the sobering statistic that so-
meone in that day's assembly would
e killed in a drinking/driving
ccident. _
Wednesday's event was a
emonstration of the effects of alcohol
n a driver. Student council president
lark Penhale and Patti Love twice
rove a test course on he re centre
arking lot. This �rnc use. weaving
hrough pylons, driving with one tire
n a yellow line. backing around a
orner, parallel parking and checking
eaction time in a panic stop.
The two first tried the cours • sober.
nd the results were recorded. After
king a few drinks and waiting 3u
inutes for the alcohol to takeeffect.
hey took a breathalyzer test, and
hen drove the course once ore.
One hundred -and -ten -pout Patti
ad breakfasted on one -hall
rapefruit and a cup of coffee with
ream and sugar before downing too
I of peach schnappes with orange
ice at noon. Thirty minute later.
hen the breathalizer read a ow 22.
e drank 75 ml of vodka. This gave
reading of 40.
Mark, weighing in at 225 pounds.
to
back 150 ml of vodka mixed
ith orange juice in four m nutes.
his joined some chocolate milk and
bag of chips he had eaten e i rlier i .
is first blow registered 59 nig of
cohol per 100 ml of blood. H would
ve received a 12 -hour licence
uspension if stopped on a highway by
e police.
Both admitted to feeling lig thead-
and shaky. I3oth had glassy eyes
d reddened faces.
The two drivers' co-pilot • later
ported identical findings. The se- -.
nd time Patti and Mark drove the
st course. they were more ag-
essive and careless. less alert and
servant. Formerly smooth
ovements were now jerky. Both in -
eased their speed by about 15 km
e second time round the course.
Mike Berg stated that Mark should
t have been behind the wheel of a
hicle in his impaired state. and
ve Dalrymple summed up atti's
cond run by expressing surprise
t a minimal alcohol readin of 40
could so affect a driver.
Acting- Sgt -Al -Quinn—who -ad-----
ministered the breathalizer tests, was
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Times -Advocate, May 6, 1987 Page 19A
ivin_o nrobkm
■- -
15 -man Exeter OPP detachment who
has taken the intensive two-week
course at the Forensic Centre in
Toronto to learn how to maintain and
operate a breathalizer.
Quinn provided some facts many
people may not know.
*Alcohol has the greatest absorb -
tion rate in the first half-hour, and this
is affected by a person's weight and
what they have eaten previously.
*Alcohol has the same effect on both
the experienced and the inexperienc-
ed drinker. The only difference is that
the experienced imbiber can hide the
effects better. -
• *Over 90 percent of the alcohol
taken in is oxydized through the liver.
*The body eliminates about one
drink per hour. However, it is quite
possible to awaken after a night of
drinking and go to work still
impaired.
*A breathalizer is a delicate and ac-
curate instrument which must be
handled by a skilled, %trained.
operator. It takes half an hour to heat
up after being plugged in, and a fur-
ther 15 minutes to set up. A solution
of standard alcohol is run through
first, and the results read on a
predetermined scale. This eliminates
any contamination from the surroun-
dings or the previous test, and en-
sures the machine is functioning pro-
perly and that the ampule of breath
testsolution is ready to use.
*The Alert units (alcohol level
evaluation roadside tester) carried by .
the OPP and the Exeter police are not
as accurate as the breathalizer. They
tell if a person's alcohol level is over
100, and the suspect is then taken to
a police station for a breathalizer test.
*Refusal to provide a breath sam-
ple is considered to be the same of-
fence as impaired driving.
Quinn echoed Short by saying that
Huron County has one of the highest
• per capita rates of drinking/driving
incidents in Ontario. Court dockets
are filled with impaired driving
cases.
On Tuesday and Thursday senior
and junior students met in informal
sessions to discuss the issue. A wrap-
up assembly was held Friday morn-
ing, followed by a no -alcohol -allowed
Morp dance (prom reversed ) on Fri-
day night.
IN A GOOD CAUSE Sgt. Kevin Short pours Patti Love a drink
before the student drives around a test course to show the effects
of alcohol on a driver.
EXPLANATION— Acting Sgt. Al Quinn has an attentive audience
of SHDHS students as he explains 'ihe operation ofo breathalizer.
A drinking and driving test was oneofthe events organized during
SADD week at the high school.
HAppn - SHDHS student Mark Penhale waits for 150 ml. of, vodka to take effect before taking a
breathalizer test as port of o drinking/driving demonstration. Looking on ore breathalizer expert OPP
Acting S91. Al Quinn and student council v/p Glenn Regier. The event was part of SADD Weill( at .the '
school.
I/ itrisimsr7
SOBRIETY TESTS Mark Penhale tries touching his nose under the watchful eye of Sgt.
after drinking 150 ml of vodka. Mark was a volunteer in a drinking and driving test that
a student -organized SADD week at SHDHS.
Catalog -reading laser soon in Huron,
• This has been called the informa-
tion age and both Huron and Lamb-
kin county libraries are ready to be.
Part of it. Using state of the art
technology both libraries are building
a machine readable catalog using op-
tical laser disks. But what is More ex-
citing is the fact that this is being done
in Cooperation with 20 other libraries
province.
Ontario Library Consortium (0I,C)
and
town libraries that of have agreed to
pursue the goal of automation
together.
OLC was founded two years ago to
look at future automation projects for
county and medium sized city,
libraries . A decision was made in 1986
to place the catalogs of all the
libraries on a single data base.
The technology chosen to do this
uses laser disks. Each' library has a
set of our 5.5 inch disks which contain
five million records of books in the
• Library of Congress.
The library uses a personal com-
puter and checks its titles against
these disks and puts any it finds onto
floppy disks. These disks are sent to
the OLC to be incorporated into the
combined date base. Books that are
not found in the lases disks data will
be checked against a larger data base
by Brodart Automation, a company
which has been hired to produce the
Database.
in a year's time all the libraries will
have submitted their catalog records
and OLC will produce a single laser
disk with the 600,000 titles of the
(
twenty-one libraries. This disk can be
searched by author, title, subject, key
word or numeric keys. Users will be
ahte to use the sophisticated search
techniques that are used in on-line
searching without the expense of go-
ing to an on-line system. The system
will also be very 'user friend' with a
beginners mode for the novice.
This is the largest cooperative ven-
ture ever undertaken by public
libraries in Ontario. It is also a uni-
que example of cooperation between
all levels of government (Local, Pro-
vincial and Federal). Lgcal
authorities have committed $300,000
over three years to the project. The
Provincial Ministry of Citizenship and
Culture has made a grant of $476,000
and the Federal Government's
Ministry of Employment and Im-
migration has provided Job Develop-
ment Grants to train and employ
computer operators.
Each library hasp two or three
workers hired through the Job
Development Branch to search the
disks and input the titles. OLC has
organized a year long training pro-
gram to train these workers not only
in the specific library application but
in general computer operations such
as word processing, spreadsheets and
data base management.
At the end of the year the workers
will be able to find a job in the work
place as skilled computer operators.
The course is conducted by Lambton
College in Sarnia which will give cer-
tificates to the successful workers.
w3a�a1��;aaa:.
Kevin Short
was part of
Lambton libraries
IambtQn County Library is con-
tributing about $27,000.00 and Huron
County Library is contributing about
$21,000.00 over three years towards a
catalog building project based on a
cost of $.28 a title. This cost includes
an iBM computer, a CD ROM Player,
Laser Disks and the final OLC Laser
Disk Catalog for each county. OLC
has organized the Job Development
Grants and the training program.
Lambton County Library has con-
tracted to act as the project manage-
ment team for OLC with Ron Baker,
the Lambton County Librarian, ac-
• ting as the Chief Executive Officer.
Ron Baker, the librarian of lamb -
ton and the Chief Executive Officer of •
the Consortium said: "The level of co-
operation between the sixteen coun-
ties and five cities in the consortium
is extremely high. We look forward to
giving all our public greater access to
books and information by sharing our
resources.•
Janet Moss, Librarian of Middlesex
County, was on the initial feasibility
study committee.
OLe member libraries plan
by the fallts to present a in ways
to use its new Database to automate
other functions in the Library. At pre-
sent libraries keep most of their
records on cards which have to be fil-
ed and changed each time a transac-
tion takes place.
In the near future, these transac-
tions can be done at electronic speeds
allowing the staff to spend more time
in helping the public. The electronic
library is just around the corner for
Huron County Library.
•