This is a subject that I think even Bill Greenwood wouldn’t touch with a 10foot pole. My hope is to look at the issue in a way that would make people look at the broader picture.
My take is to look at this issue from the philosophical as well as the practical standpoint. I will try to tread lightly, but I am sure that I am likely to offend somebody. It’s only human nature.
Two people can witness the same event and there can be two differing accounts of what happened. Just ask the philosopher and the criminologist.
Some facts can not be disputed.
Two people died when they were struck by a drunk driver. Brad and Krista Howe died at the hands of Chad Olsen. Nothing can change that fact.
People want to change things so that a similar event does not happen.
Special interest groups, like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, are calling for stiffer sentencing and lower standards of impairment to combat the issue. They are pretty much barking up the wrong tree as it is most often the driver who is completely tanked who is responsible for serious alcohol-related accidents.
But have you ever tried to tell your mother she was wrong?
Nothing short of giving police the authority to shoot slobbering drunks on sight will deter a drunk from getting behind the wheel, and human nature being what it is, some will still believe that they won’t get caught!
We in Canada feel safe and superior to other parts of the world because we are willing to surrender some of our freedoms (or rights) in order to have a more peaceable society. Now we have to worry whether we should have a beer or a glass of wine with our meal.
Getting back to the accident that took the lives of the Howes: the bigger picture would have us look at all of the factors that led to this tragic event. What things could have happened differently to change this event? What if this intersection was still regulated by a STOP sign instead of a light signal?
The Howes would have had to stop their car and would have seen Olsen’s truck barreling towards them. Accident prevented.
Councillor Tara Veer will tell you that something else about 30th Avenue stinks.
Simply, there should not be a set of traffic signals at every intersection. This points to poor subdivision design and laziness on the part of city traffic engineers and city administration. Taking the easy and cheap way out has cost lives and injury.
Any RCMP member who has attended to at least as many fatal collisions as I have will tell you that there are times when it was evident that the victim’s time was up. In a side impact collision, a matter of a few feet one way or the other, is the difference between life and death. That door beside you in the car can be referred to as the ‘kill zone.’ A vehicle travelling at a speed of 50 km/h travels a distance of 44 feet in one second. Life or death in a fraction of a second.
My branch of philosophy includes a God that is all knowing, all powerful, and is in everything. As a mere human, I cannot wrap my head around such a being as God. Is the universe infinite from our perspective or are we just neurons firing in the mind of some Matrix-like intelligence?
The unfortunate and sad truth is that with seven billion people now on the face of the Earth, not everyone will have the good fortune to pass away in their sleep.
In this horrible circumstance, nothing can be said that will provide comfort or closure to the family.
Here is where we shift gears to deal with the other side of this issue. Assuming there is a God — something a lot of us just finished celebrating, and the rest of you are simply hypocrites — who is all-knowing and powerful. There is no such thing as happenstance or accidents. How do you punish someone who is simply an instrument in an ‘act of God’? Chad Olsen as Judas — think about it.
This is why I am glad that laypersons are not the judges in our society. Letting Chad Olsen out of jail for the holidays was a mistake. It was insensitive to those close to the Howes and others who have experienced similar circumstances. I am sympathetic to those who demand longer sentences for such acts. Where I choose to differ is how we punish an act of stupidity.
Will 10 years in jail at a cost of $1 million benefit society, or provide healing for the Howe family?
The Canadian penal system is mostly about warehousing offenders out of sight and out of mind — at a great cost to taxpayers.
Certainly even Chad Olsen believes he should be punished for what he did.
But what about restitution? Making it right for the victims of his act of stupidity.
The system as it now stands, isn’t geared towards offenders making reparations to their victims, or to society in general. That is where we must demand change! There are those who should never see the outside of a prison wall, but for the vast majority of offenders, we should be developing strategies to salvage their lives while at the same time making them accept responsibility for their actions and making restitution to their victims and to society.
It may be the march of technology, but we are increasingly delegating our role as participants in society to specialists and special interest groups. We need to pull our noses out of our iPads and look at the broader picture.
Otherwise, we have no one else to blame if our world becomes a more dangerous and inhumane place.
Jeff Hanson
Red Deer County