AFTER a slow, cool start to summer, the season has finally got down to business, with sunny weather predicted for the weekend.
Hot days and refreshing drinks go together, like barbecues and coolers. Unfortunately, when the drinks are alcoholic, too many of us still aren't planning for a safe ride home.
The level of responsibility we have started to show around Christmas has yet to translate into those long, lazy summer weekends. Police know this, which is why they step up roadblocks around this time.
B.C.'s new laws against drunk driving have been reinstated following court-ordered changes. Those under the impression they can now get off with a slap on the wrist are seriously mistaken.
Just ask Karina Stampfli, a North Shore woman nabbed for driving over the limit who is now championing a public education campaign against impaired driving. As Stampfli learned the hard way - after having her licence suspended for 90 days and being forced to put an expensive interlock device on her car - it isn't worth the risk.
Most people will be unfit to drive - and unfit to make that judgment - long before they reach the stage of obvious drunkenness.
Even without the added danger of alcohol-fuelled drivers, the August long weekend is a time to be extra careful on the roads. On a typical B.C. Day weekend, five people are killed, 533 are injured and there are 1,935 collisions on B.C. roads - most of those in the Lower Mainland. That's nothing to celebrate.
So plan ahead to be safe this weekend.
