BY GIANNI UBRIACO
With the onset of beautiful summer weather and many people enjoying their well-deserved time off school or work, it’s a perfect chance to get outside and enjoy a refreshing day out on the water. Too often though, drinking becomes an issue. In order to ensure public safety and help keep drunk drivers off local waterways, Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci joined Greater Sudbury Police Chief Ian Davidson Wednesday at Tony’s Marina in Skead to announce provincial funding of $19,846 for the RIDE program.
“These funds allow officers to dedicate their efforts to reducing impaired driving,” Davidson said.
“It ensures that there will be the police hours available to not only patrol and set up the RIDE program on our roadways within the City of Greater Sudbury, but also on our waterways as well,” Bartolucci added.
Davidson pointed out that the last time they received funding for the RIDE program, they were able to stop between 8,000-10,000 vehicles over an eight-month period, which led to about 25 impaired charges and 85 twelve-hour license suspensions.
“We’d rather stop 8,000 or 10,000 vehicles with the money provided by the minister than investigate one accident involving a death,” he said. “People some how associate the use of off-road vehicles, snowmobiles, and boats with a social event that invites consumption of alcohol and that consumption of alcohol leads to a very high likelihood of deaths involving people who have been drinking.”
In fact, he noted drinking is involved in approximately 30 percent of all vehicle-related deaths on the road, 40 percent in regards to boating-related deaths, 49 percent in off-road vehicle-related deaths, and 62 percent of snowmobile-related deaths.
The Greater Sudbury Police Service was one of 172 municipal polices services and Ontario Provincial Police detachments to receive RIDE funds for 2006-2007. Each year, the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services provides $1.2 million to municipalities for the program, which provides funds for drinking and driving counter-measures beyond those routinely carried out by police. Last year alone, over 30 programs were run throughout the local area.
To coincide with the funding announcement, Greater Sudbury Police Services unveiled its new patrol vessel that was purchased for $58,000 through their transition fund. They also spent an additional $7,500 on electronics for the 21-foot state-of-the-art hovercraft that comes equipped with radar, GPS, VHS radio, police communication systems, and various kinds of safety equipment.
“We wanted to ensure that we got a boat that met the needs of this community, particularly the needs of people on lakes, such as Lake Wahnapitae,” Davidson said. “This particular boat is a very safe vessel which protects the officers who are involved and ensures that they can get out into the rough waters.”
With 330 lakes within the city boundaries, he believes the newest edition to their three-vessel fleet will go a long way in expanding their service into the outlying areas, increasing their visibility on the water, as well as increasing their capacity to ensure public safety on local waterways.
