Editor: An opinion column in The Times (March 27) suggested raising the age of driving to 18. I am 46 years old, and have been driving since I was 15.
This is when I got my learner’s license and did my driving test to get my drivers license on my 16th birthday. If you take all the kids that turn 16 and get their licenses, and take the total that commit driving offences, what is the percentage? Is it one per cent or 1.5 per cent?
People don’t understand. There will always be people who speed and try to show off in front of their friends, and there will always be accidents. That’s why we call them accidents — nobody does it on purpose.
What needs to be changed is our laws, our prisons and our sentencing for crimes. In the March 22 Times, a news story noted a bank robber got eight years for robbing a few banks.
If the sentence is five years for robbing a bank and you rob five banks, then the sentence should be 25 years. There should not be any less days for good behaviour — it’s 25 years.
A few weeks ago, I read about a driver in a hit and run accident was convicted of two counts of dangerous driving causing death, and two counts of dangerous driving causing bodily harm, and one count of fleeing the accident. This person received a total sentence of four and one-half years.
This sends a message out to every person who hates someone. Just run them over with your car, and your sentence will be reduced dramatically. The bank robber didn’t kill anyone and he’s going to jail for a longer period of time.
I feel the driving age should return to 16, and drivers should be able to get a full driver’s license with no probationary time. If you screw up and lose your license, then make it more difficult to get it back.
For all the bleeding hearts out there who feel this is much too harsh, you can take the police officer’ position. Then you can tell a father with four small children that his wife was killed by a hit and run driver. Or tell the parents of a girl that their daughter has been killed in a head-on vehicle accident. You will soon stop feeling guilty for the not so innocent.
As for the owners of the vehicles that were involved in the head-on crash in Maple Ridge referred top in the editorial, no insurance should be issued. Let the parents of the kids who died sue the parents of the kids who lived for knowing better, but acting differently. That’s my opinion.
Wray Kizlyk,
Langley