OTTAWA-CARLETON SAFETY COUNCIL
REGIONAL MUNICIPALITY OF OTTAWA-CARLETON HEALTH DEPARTMENT
CONTENTS
Tuesday 14 September 1993
Graduated licensing
Richard Frappier
Ottawa-Carleton Safety Council
Scott Follis, driver improvement programs
Jim Bancroft, former chairman
Al Bickerton
Canada Safety Council
Emile Thérien, president
Ray Marchand, manager of traffic safety and training
Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton health department
Dr Stephen J. Corber, medical officer of health
Dr Geoff Dunkley, associate medical officer of health
Dr Brent W. Moloughney, community medicine resident in training
John and Fred Donkor
Lorraine Lachapelle
STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT
*Chair / Président: Huget, Bob (Sarnia ND)
*Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Cooper, Mike (Kitchener-Wilmot ND)
*Conway, Sean G. (Renfrew North/-Nord L)
Fawcett, Joan M. (Northumberland L)
Jordan, Leo (Lanark-Renfrew PC)
Klopp, Paul (Huron ND)
Murdock, Sharon (Sudbury ND)
*Offer, Steven (Mississauga North/-Nord L)
*Turnbull, David (York Mills PC)
Waters, Daniel (Muskoka-Georgian Bay/Muskoka-Baie-Georgienne ND)
Wilson, Gary (Kingston and The Islands/Kingston et Les Îles ND)
*Wood, Len (Cochrane North/-Nord ND)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present / Membres remplaçants présents:
Dadamo, George (Windsor-Sandwich ND) for Mr Waters
Daigeler, Hans (Nepean L) for Mrs Fawcett
Haeck, Christel (St Catharines-Brock ND) for Ms Murdock
Jackson, Cameron (Burlington South/-Sud PC) for Mr Jordan
Lessard, Wayne (Windsor-Walkerville ND) for Mr Klopp
Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes:
Ministry of Transportation:
Dadamo, George, parliamentary assistant to the minister
Hughes, John, director, safety policy branch
Clerk / Greffière: Manikel, Tannis
Staff / Personnel: McNaught, Andrew, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1001 in the Delta Hotel, Ottawa.
GRADUATED LICENSING
The Chair (Mr Bob Huget): Good morning, everybody. The committee is here this morning to gather public input into graduated drivers' licences.
The committee is staffed by committee clerk Tannis Manikel, Andrew McNaught, researcher, and Beth Grahame. As well, we have French translation staff, and there are translation devices available. That service is staffed by Sylvie Soth, J. Buchanan and Kishore Oogarah. We also have broadcast and recording staff, Jim Petselis and Bill Lamorre.
RICHARD FRAPPIER
The Chair: The first witness this morning is Richard Frappier. While you're taking your place, Mr Frappier, I will introduce the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Transportation, George Dadamo, the Transportation critic for the official opposition, Mr Hans Daigeler, and the Transportation critic for the third party, Mr David Turnbull.
Good morning, Mr Frappier. You're allocated one half-hour for your presentation. The committee would appreciate about half of that time, if possible, for questions, answers and dialogue.
Mr Richard Frappier: Thank you, Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. From this book on graduated licensing, there seems to be a focus on teenagers or people who are acquiring their licence. When I heard we were going to have hearings, the reason I wanted to be here was that six and a half years ago I was on the Queensway here in Ottawa; they were rebuilding it. I stopped and there was a young man behind me who didn't. He ran into me at full speed: 50 or 60 miles an hour. We destroyed three cars.
I was seriously injured. I'll never work again. I was one course short of my university degree. I did my grade 11 and 12 at night, and my whole degree at night. I was one course short. Now I am in constant pain. I get up with a bad headache that goes downhill. I have two discs that are blocked in the middle of my back. My whole basin is twisted. I lost an inch and a half in height, because one young man, instead of concentrating on the traffic in front of him, was busy watching construction. He was not even charged -- speeding, careless driving, anything -- nothing.
My life's been destroyed and I'm sure some of you know what happens in the courts. I didn't even get into court yet. It's six and a half years ago. I'm getting jerked around by all the lawyers, and see my doctor and his doctor. You know, I don't need this.
I was a professional driver. I started in the army in 1959. There they teach you how to drive, not only the physical skills required but the mental attitude, which is what we do not have at this time. You people issue the licence. It is your licence and if I remember correctly, driving is a privilege, not a right. It is your licence. You're responsible for it. I hold people like you, or your predecessors, and especially those in MTO, responsible for my condition because if that young man had been taught to drive properly, that would not have happened, but I'll get to that a little bit later.
I surrendered my A licence just a couple of years ago because I had too many physical and mental impairments to hold such a licence. I did not feel that my health entitled me to have such a licence so I surrendered it.
I love writing, so I've written, with some assistance, about 15 to 16 pages about this report. The only way I'm going to attack this is that I'm going to go through it and make some comments and come back and forth, and I'm going to give you some recommendations, something to think about.
Statistics show that all new drivers, regardless of their age, have a much higher risk of collision than more experienced drivers. Well, that's pretty straightforward, but not quite the whole story. Some $4 billion per year in health care: That's a lot of money we could save. Graduated licensing could reduce new driver collision by 10%, and you keep coming up with this 10% all the way through the book. You talk about New Zealand. You're talking about 10%. If there are 10 accidents, you'll go after one. Nine: It seems that nobody cares. It would look good: 10%. Why not set it to go a little bit higher, with proper training?
If I read this correctly, with the new system we'll be reducing it to 20 months. Right now, we have two years' probation and we're reducing it.
"Refrain from driving on 400 series": I live in Casselman. It's on the side of the 417. My son, in a little over a year, will be getting a licence. According to this, you are forcing him to drive from Casselman on a dinky little road, which half the time is the last thing to be cleaned in the wintertime, to Embrun, to Russell, make a left, then you go through a bunch of little towns -- I don't know; I haven't been there in 15 years -- then come into Ottawa, cross Ottawa, go into Hull, Pointe-Gatineau and Gatineau. Finally, he'll reach his grandmother's place. On the way back, it's the same thing.
He's going to be meeting oncoming traffic. It's a two-lane road. But since it's just past midnight, he is not allowed to go on the 417, where there is no oncoming traffic, where the roads are -- I must say MTO does a superb job. As a matter of fact, I think they have too many snowplows at times. So he's stuck on this little road, meeting oncoming traffic. If I was on the road, I wouldn't want to meet some kid at midnight, in a bad storm, on a little road like that. But according to this, this is exactly what's going to happen -- or at 11 o'clock at night because he's got to be in by midnight. Do you want to provide them with a safe learning environment? Safe is not these horrible little roads we have around here.
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The accompanying driver must have a minimum of four years' experience and a blood alcohol content less than 0.05%. Hell, he could be with somebody who's 20 years old and hasn't driven a car for the last two years. I never understood this. What happens? He gets into a spin, a 20-year-old is supposed to grab it with one hand and bring him back into the centre of the road? For four or five teenagers in a car who have been drinking, the last thing they worry about is their licence. I think last week or a couple of weeks ago, four or five kids got killed again.
I deal with kids all the time. I'm a hockey coach, belong to the Optimist Club. I'm around them all the time. I know how they think, I know what they think, and all you have to do is listen to them. They're all over, arcades, dumb little restaurants. Listen to the kids. You'll know what they're thinking, and a two-step graduated licensing system does not interest them the least little bit.
I've had to go to funerals of children. They're 16- or 17-year-olds who died because somebody didn't do their job. When you see a couple of 16- or 17-year-old kids in the casket in a church and you look at the parents, you look at the relatives, I assure you it's not something you want to do more than once in your lifetime. I know I don't.
It says here also, "In fact, statistics show it takes up to five years for most people to acquire the full range of skill, judgement and perception they need to avoid road crashes." Well, that's nice, except it's not a reality, because if you take your car from point A to the little store once a week, and bingo once a week, you'll never become a good driver. So years have got nothing to do with it. It is training and frequency that determine how good a driver you're going to be.
I read this here about "at higher speeds, drivers have less time to react," and so on and so forth. It doesn't matter if you're a beginner or an experienced driver. I've seen people with 50 years' driving who are no better than people who have been driving for three months. So the length of time that you're driving means absolutely nothing. As a matter of fact, I've seen some with three months' experience drive better than people with 30 or 40 years' experience.
I can't see why you would set your heights at only 10% when it comes to reducing collisions, when you could very easily strive for 50%. I think you'll agree that especially with young drivers, one out of two accidents could be avoided very easily.
Let's go into some recommendations. The present system of driver training just doesn't make it. Most of them, including my eldest boy, go into some little high school program, drive around the block a few times -- oh, make it 10 or 20 hours, it doesn't matter. You don't learn to drive like that. What you learn to do to drive is that you'd be better off taking the kids into Larose forest here and have them drive up and down the dirt roads winter and summer. They'd get better training than just driving around the block on some nice paved road with the sun shining.
Prevention: I have a whole bunch of ideas for preventing them. I remember when I was a coach a long time ago, one of my players got hurt so I went to the hospital with him and I saw a policeman come up. He had this little child in his arms. He didn't quite look human, his face was about this big, he had the face of a 300-pound man covered with blood and he was running with that child. I forgot a lot of things when I got hit in the head six and a half years ago -- memory is practically shot -- but this one always stayed with me.
If you were to film something like that. If you were to take people who are convicted of drunk driving -- we had a judge who did this up in northern Ontario about 30 years ago. If you got caught drunk driving, you went to the hospital for six hours on Saturday night and you watched them bring them in. That would put a stop to your drinking and driving. What you have to do is shock these kids, show them what it's really like.
I drove an ambulance in the army for a while. I got caught driving drunk by my military superiors. They put a stop to it. They put me on the ambulance and I had to go around to pick them up, especially around Petawawa. It's fun there: the Canadian Guards, Saturday night, party night. That was in the 1960s. I never drink and drive since the 1960s because I still remember the carnage on the highways.
One of the things you should consider is having them stand at the door of the emergency room, have them stand at the door of the children's hospital. Again last year, same thing, some young kid just hit another kid who was about five years old, all broken, battered, bloody. Boy, that really shakes you up. Show them films of actual accidents. Leave the blood and the gore and the guts and everything. Show it to them. Show them what it does: one moment of stupidity, how it can ruin a bunch of lives. Talk to the parents who've had to bury their children.
This book here -- I don't know. It looks like your answer to young drivers or inexperienced drivers won't cut it. I'm telling you right now that you wasted your money.
Have them ride in the ambulance and carry one end of the stretcher, that's all he has to do; carry out a couple of boxes; go and watch, observe.
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I see you have it too. I had put down the student driver sign. The army has had that for 35 years, so far I know, a nice big yellow sign. It's not the idea of putting a target on them, but it warned the other drivers that this person was just starting out and they should give him a bit of leeway. Don't go behind him and blast the horn; be careful; help him out. We tried that in the armed forces and it worked.
It's very seldom now that you see a professional driver from the armed forces get involved in accidents, and when they are it's even more rare that they are responsible. They are taught defensive driving. They are taught what happens when they take alcohol and drive. You people have the responsibility for better training and also to pull the licences of repeat offenders. Don't wait till they kill somebody to do it. Pull the licence for just a week as a warning.
I don't know what else to tell you, so that's about it for me.
Mr Hans Daigeler (Nepean): Thank you, Mr Frappier, for taking the time to present us with the very important witness of your own life and your suggestions on how one could strengthen this graduate licences initiative.
You spoke about the driving efforts in the military and you spoke especially that it did something for the mental attitude. I agree with you it's the mental attitude that's so important. Could you explain a little bit more how that happens, that driver training in the military? How long is it? Is there any kind of graduated system? How does it work, then, or how did it work when you were there?
Mr Frappier: When I was there -- we're talking about 30 years ago -- I can't tell you you could do any better than they did. They showed you the vehicle, what it did, how it operated and they took you driving. They did not put you on a nice asphalt-covered road; they took you driving in the bush. There were little unpaved roads -- some were just cow paths -- winter and summer, which represented the actual driving conditions in this country.
They gave you a variety of vehicles: cars, jeeps, two-and-a-half-ton trucks, military vehicles, standard three-ton trucks -- whatever it was you were going for -- buses, semi-trailers. You got the proper training and you did not get your licence until you knew what to do.
You never know exactly what's going to present itself every time you get into a vehicle, except in the wintertime. If you go from my place to Ottawa, you know you're going to meet some black ice. You know there's a chance that you can spin out. You know you will probably meet somebody on the side of the road who's flipped over and that you will have to assist them. Most people, for some odd reason, aren't mentally prepared for what they are about to encounter. They just get in the car and go. But you have to be prepared. It's like going in the bush and not being armed and you know you're going into bear country. You're asking for it and you'll get it.
How do you judge somebody mentally fit to have a driver's licence? Let me give you a perfect example. I'm going to my trailer last Saturday. I'm in the left-hand lane on the 401. I'm coming in at about 110 klicks, maybe 115, somewhere in there. I am not, by far, a fast driver. There are two cars ahead of me. The second car is a white Ford Taurus. If I'm doing 110, he's doing about 95 klicks. I'm about 20 feet behind him, but I'm in the left-hand lane; he's in the right lane. He pulls right out in front of me; no signal, nothing, just bam, there he is. So I apply the brakes. He pulls up to about even with the other car, the front of the other car and the back of his car. I've got the brakes on and I'm slowing down here. I'm about 15 feet from him. I thought he was going to pick up speed but no, he just pulls out gradually, very slowly.
When he gets there, he finds, I imagine, that I'm too close to his bumper. So here's the car. I'm about a foot behind the guy on the right here. He's in front. As I slow down to about 95, this bright bird decides to put on the brakes. I'm following too close, so he slams on the brakes. Do you know how close I came to hitting him? I passed him. The man was in his 40s, probably been driving 20 or 25 years. But that was his way of dealing with that situation.
I have called the Ministry of Transportation in the past to report unsafe drivers, guys running in at 160 or 170 klicks, I don't know, but extremely fast, unbelievably fast. I've seen very unsafe driving, guys cutting in and out and actually forcing people off the road. The Ministry of Transportation says there's nothing it can do about it. I called the police; nothing they can do about it. Oh, they'll go over and talk to the guy, but that's about it. There's nothing; there's no system in place.
If I call, you call, he calls, you say, "Something's going on with this guy," but there's nothing anybody can do. This guy has got his licence for life, until somebody hits somebody or causes an accident and there's a witness. Then he's charged. But other than that, to prevent this guy from getting to the point where he's going to cause the accident, there's nothing you can do. There's no system in place to take care of this gentleman.
Mr George Dadamo (Windsor-Sandwich): I'll be brief because one of my other colleagues has a question too, sir. There are a lot of things to talk about. I want to say that we have some people from the Ministry of Transportation who are expert in this field who are here to answer questions for the committee and for you as well. We're talking about the signage and we haven't quite decided how we're going to construct or put that on the vehicle. Do you have any ideas on letting people know there's a beginner driver driving the car?
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Mr Frappier: It could be something as easy as the automobile dealer plates when you take the car out; just a little sign, "Student Driver," usually yellow. Make it 10 inches by 18, "Student Driver," three-inch letters. Just put it in a plastic case with a strap. Open up the trunk and just put it in. For the front you'd have to design some kind of a U-shaped frame where you slip it in. Before the driver starts, he puts his licence in the front and the other one in the back and he takes off.
Mr Dadamo: Could you comment on the midnight- to-5am curfew that we're exploring?
Mr Frappier: The worst-case scenario, granted, but in the middle of the winter you're putting him on a two-lane highway with oncoming traffic. At 2 o'clock in the morning, according to your statistics, he's probably going to meet a couple of drunks anyway. You're putting him right there. On the 417, we'll say, at 2 o'clock in the morning, you won't be running into many cars, I assure you. As a matter of fact, you don't want to have a breakdown at 2 o'clock on a winter morning.
Keep him on the 400. At least he's got two lanes if he loses it, and if he does lose it -- and not only young drivers. Everybody loses it once in a while. If he does lose it, he's got two lanes to recover.
If you were to say, "Hey, I don't want you on the road between 7 and 9 and 4 to 6," that I could understand, because there is a lot of traffic. But midnight to 5? No. You're wasting your time, midnight to 5.
The Chair: Mr Frappier, thank you for taking the time to be with us this morning and present your views. Your testimony and the things you've told this committee play an important role in the process and are indeed valuable. We trust you'll stay in touch with the committee, either through the committee clerk or any member or your own MPP, as we go through the process of developing graduated licensing in Ontario.
OTTAWA-CARLETON SAFETY COUNCIL
The Chair: Next is the Ottawa-Carleton Safety Council. Welcome. Please identify yourselves for Hansard and proceed with your presentation.
Mr Scott Follis: My name is Scott Follis. I'm with the Ottawa-Carleton Safety Council.
Mr Jim Bancroft: Jim Bancroft. I was formerly chairman of the Ottawa-Carleton Safety Council for 14 years.
Mr Follis: Honourable members of the Legislature, Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, we would like to commend the Minister of Transportation for these proposals to introduce graduated licensing legislation. We believe that the concepts involved are extremely effective in reducing traffic collisions and consequently the unacceptably high number of injuries and death.
Statistics have shown over the years that younger and less experienced drivers are disproportionately represented in crashes. Measures such as graduated licensing have proved to be effective in countries where it has been introduced, significantly reducing the proportion of such drivers represented in collisions. We believe that the sooner legislation to effect graduated licensing concepts is brought in and implemented, the sooner our newer drivers will share the benefits of fewer collisions and all drivers will enjoy safer roads with fewer collisions and deaths.
We have a few concerns and general comments.
In the current proposal, incentives are offered at different levels. The Ministry of Transportation has recognized that training is a valuable tool for learner drivers by reducing the period for those who take training. As a non-profit safety organization, the Ottawa-Carleton Safety Council has been involved in the design and delivery of training courses for many years and we too believe that training prevents injuries and death by showing drivers how to recognize potential hazards and courses of action to take to overcome such hazards.
We believe that any training recommended for incentive purposes should also include concepts of sharing the road and pedestrian awareness. We believe training is essential to the novice stage and that once initial handling skills are acquired, more advanced collision avoidance training will contribute to a further reduction in collisions.
Our first recommendation is that approved driver training be encouraged at both level 1 and level 2 for learner drivers; second, that consideration be given to recognize for incentive purposes training which includes collision avoidance, sharing the road with other vehicles, including cyclists, and pedestrian awareness.
The need for advanced driver training is recognized. The Ottawa-Carleton Safety Council further is concerned that the legislation may be held up in its passage while training courses are designed. Training programs already exist which can be used for both level 1 and level 2 training; for example, the driver education programs that are offered through the high school system, the Canada Safety Council motorcycle training program and the defensive driving course used extensively by many organizations.
Our third recommendation is to avoid delays in the implementation of the legislation; that currently available programs be approved where they exist.
The motorcycle level 1 is proposed to last 60 days minimum. An overall reduction to 18 months for level 1 and 2 is given if approved training is taken. The length of level 1 for motorcycles is very short. To learn to ride a motorcycle safely requires skills development involving coordination of action and physical balance. The learner rider is at very serious risk of injury, especially during the initial period of learning, and is not surrounded by an automobile which can protect the occupant.
We recommend that the duration of level 1 for motorcyclists be increased to four or six months.
With respect to incentives, the G learner is offered an incentive to take driver training during level 1, with a level 1 time reduction. The M learner is offered incentive to take training during either level 1 or 2, with an overall time reduction.
In 1967, the Ottawa-Carleton Safety Council identified, as a result of a worldwide survey, that skills training is critical for novice motorcyclists, and with this information in mind pioneered the motorcycle training program which has become the nationwide model in Canada. This course is now known as the Canada Safety Council motorcycle training program.
The taking of skills development training for a learning motorcyclist is critical to that rider's safety. It is essential for this training to be taken at the earliest stages of learning to ride. Offering an inducement to take this training at the earliest possible time will save lives and reduce injury.
The incentives which are offered are similar in nature but offered at different times and levels for both G and M. This may lead to some confusion for the learners as to the time to take the training.
We recommend that the Ministry of Transportation clarify that the taking of an approved motorcycle training program during level 1 will reduce the graduated licence duration, and also clarify that the approved motorcycle training program gives exemption from the test.
We also recommend that if our prior recommendation 4, which was to increase the time frame, is adopted, the duration of level 1 for motorcycles be reduced to 60 days if an approved training program is passed.
With respect to tests, an exemption for level 1 testing is currently proposed if the approved training is taken in the first 60 days. We observe that the level 2 section indicates that a test must be passed before level 2 is entered. Level 1 students should be advised that they can make arrangements to take the test or the approved motorcycle training program.
We recommend that the Ministry of Transportation clarify in level 1 that a test or approved motorcycle training program which includes a test must be passed before going to level 2.
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With respect to the content of these tests, none of the content was part of the initial proposal. The Ministry of Transportation is designing with expert help specific tests for both M and G licence holders. We expect that they will include sections dealing with collision avoidance, defensive driving concepts and the necessity to share the road with other vehicles, again including cyclists, and recognizing the vulnerability of pedestrians and their specific rights.
We recommend that the minister include in the tests for both level 1 and level 2 concepts of defensive driving, collision avoidance, sharing the road and pedestrian awareness.
There was no mention of systems for the testing and the provision of testing. The current M licence system particularly allows for the R licence holder -- that's the learner motorcyclist -- who has completed the Canada Safety Council motorcycle training program to be granted their M licence by recognized authorities. This is in addition to the MTO format.
The Ottawa-Carleton Safety Council, being one of the recognized authorities, wishes that the program be continued, for it is administered without additional expense to the taxpayers, and the current proposal does not mention a continuance of this valuable safety program.
We recommend that the test for M learners be implemented in a manner that allows the current Canada Safety Council motorcycle training program or a similar approved course to continue, with signing authority being accorded to the recognized authorities.
On to the signs and displays: The current proposal is that the G learner is to be issued a display sign indicating they're a learner driver operating a vehicle. It is noted the M learner is not offered a similar sign.
The purpose of such identification is to alert other drivers to the inexperienced learner so they can prepare to make allowance for errors. Some seem to think it is only to assist the enforcement of graduated licensing provisions. Identification of the learner for the purpose of the protection of the learner and all other roads users is the primary goal and this must be made clear.
We recommend that the purpose of the learner sign be made clearer to the learners and to the general motoring public.
With respect to no signs being offered to motorcyclists, the motorcyclist is very much more vulnerable to injury and death than the motorist. In the car-motorcycle collision, the motorcyclist is injured most often and death is many more times common than in a car versus car collision. Consequently, it is even more essential for motorists to be made aware of inexperienced motorcyclists and alerted to the mistakes that can be very costly.
We recommend that M learners be issued a sign for display while they are operating a motorcycle during level 1.
The signs for G learners need to be retro-reflective for ease of identification in low light and after dark, and for the M learners, who are not allowed to ride after dusk, this sign needs to be highly visible.
We recommend that the G learner sign be retro-reflective and that the M learner sign be therefore accordingly highly visible.
The Ottawa-Carleton Safety Council has been involved in defensive driver training and the prevention of accidents and traffic collisions since 1957. Earlier this year, we conducted a MotorForum in town to address the increasing number of local collisions. A major factor in those traffic collisions was identified as driver error due in large part to driver attitude.
Terminology was cited as contributing to poor driver attitude by encouraging the driver to believe they enjoy a right to drive. The word "licence" conveys this type of misinterpretation. In acquiring a licence, one is usually given unrestricted entitlement. A permit, on the other hand, has limitations to that entitlement. It is of a shorter duration, generally, and can be rescinded very easily by the issuing body.
Accordingly, we recommend changing the term "licence" to "permit."
Once again, we would like to reiterate our support for the principles of graduated licensing and its impact on reducing traffic injuries and fatalities. This is a step forward for all residents of Ontario, not just by the huge savings to the health and social system; it will add to the quality of life for all road users.
The early implementation is so very important that, in closing, we urge you to adopt a working compromise and allow the saving of additional lives to begin. Pass and implement the legislation as soon as possible. Set in place a structure for additional refinements to be made for future implementation. The Ottawa-Carleton Safety Council is, of course, willing to assist in any manner that we can.
Mr David Turnbull (York Mills): So far as driver education is concerned, we've heard a great deal of attention during these hearings about the importance of having driver education, not surprisingly. Do you feel it would be useful if it were to become a compulsory component of learning to drive, of getting a licence?
Mr Follis: Absolutely. I'll cite an example. The other day I talked to a gal who was doing an interview with me for the CBC. We spoke of the three accidents she's had in the last five years and how good a driver she thinks she is. I didn't want to burst her bubble, but three accidents in five years -- she's a target and she doesn't know it. But she did have high school driver ed.
What she hasn't had, and this is part of the graduated process that is very important, is that once you've learned the basics of keeping the car on the road, beyond that point, some time after that, you then have to learn additional experience such as how to protect yourself from the ongoing errors of other drivers.
As Mr Frappier was saying, when other people make mistakes, if you're not ready and in a position to compensate, you're going to be involved. What we're looking at is not culpability; we're looking to reduce involvement. With the huge numbers we have, the accidents are still going to continue. If we can train in stages -- this is where the level 2 training is very important. I don't think it would be popular to make it mandatory as we can make driver education, or certainly very available, but we can make it a very strong inducement, and the inducement to reduce --
Mr Turnbull: I'm sorry; I don't follow that. You started to talk about level 2.
Mr Follis: Yes.
Mr Turnbull: You can't make what mandatory?
Mr Follis: I don't propose --
Mr Turnbull: The advanced?
Mr Follis: -- that the advanced training be compulsory, but if we offer inducement by way of time reduction, as we have done in the level 1, class G proposal, many people will be induced to take it, and additional training facilities will open to offer that type of training.
Mr Turnbull: What about the people who live in remote areas of Ontario, so far as access to driver education is concerned?
Mr Follis: Within the high school system or outside?
Mr Turnbull: We have to look at the whole system.
Mr Follis: I think that when the driving school industry, for instance, Young Drivers of Canada and all the different teaching-to-driving-industry schools, recognizes that there's a market, it will utilize that even in the smaller communities.
In very small communities, they still have provision where they can take tests without going for additional training. There will always be those people it's a difficulty for and we have to look at the large mass rather than just, "If a few can't, that falls through the cracks." For instance, I appreciate some of the 400 series provisions. There are some hardships. Yet when I drive through Toronto on the centre of the 64 lanes, it makes the 417 look really easy, and in fact it is. Yet the global nature of Ontario is such that we can't legislate only in Toronto and not in eastern or northern Ontario.
Mr Turnbull: Exactly. When you look at the 400 series highways, this present proposal has the built-in problem that unless you're with an approved driver educator, during level 1, you can't go on the 400 series highways, yet in level 2 there's no requirement to have anybody with you. My question would be, do you believe that during level 2, we should make it mandatory that people who graduated to level 2 should have an accompanying driver in those new experiences, those being 400 series highways and night driving?
Mr Follis: In fact, yes. I'm aware of a presentation that's going to be made by one of the regional council health committees this afternoon, to the effect that during the second level there be supervision, particularly at night, although the additional, while starting on 400 series highways, was not part of that. But I do agree that in new situations having a driver supervisor available is a good measure of safety.
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Mr Turnbull: Do you feel it is satisfactory that the accompanying driver be allowed to have a 0.05% blood alcohol level?
Mr Follis: No. From my own personal -- the same as the driver, zero BAC, none.
Mr Turnbull: A last question: Do you think this legislation should be amended so that only the accompanying driver can be in the front seat with the driver, because at the moment it's limited to the number of seatbelts? I guess my concern is the disturbance to an inexperienced driver if you've got three people on a bench seat in the front.
Mr Follis: I would hope that people learning to drive would do so responsibly in the type of scenario that we expect. But the reality is that there will be people who are 23 years old out with 16-year-olds, and if they're on their way to a party, there will be five people in the car. It becomes a difficulty in regulating and enforcing. I would like it to be this way, that the only occupants in the front are the driver and the instructor. I could agree with that. It just becomes a difficulty of enforcement.
Mr Mike Cooper (Kitchener-Wilmot): First of all, on your recommendation on the motorcycle signs, I'm a motorcycle rider, have been for a number of years and took the Ontario Safety League course at Conestoga College. I find that even now, with my experience, I'm still a target because of the size of a motorcycle. When you're on the highway, you're only using half a lane and people like to crowd you and use that little advantage the same as they would with a cyclist. If you identify a new rider, who is nervous at best, and put him up so that other people know he's identified as a new rider, you're going to find hotshots out there who are going to try to run him off the road. That's why I'm against signage for motorcycle riders, for the learners. I think it's just making them a larger target.
Mr Follis: I can't disagree, yet for that 2% who are the hotshots, the 98% are going to respect the fact that this is a learner, "Give him a bit of room." It accords him so much more. The 60 days that you take your level 1, if you take an approved motorcycle training course, and because of the incentive to take it, is not so long a time to be exposed, certainly, if you then become more skilled. I would suspect that you felt better having taken that course and knowing how to ride a motorcycle.
The suggestion I had got shot down by our own inspector people saying, "You can't propose that, Scott. We couldn't live with it." That particular proposal was to have a 15 centimetre high L placed nicely on the back of your helmet, highly visible, above traffic, and the incentive I saw was that people would take the training to get rid of the L. I'm only concerned that they take the training so they don't get killed.
Interjection: Would they swap helmets?
Mr Follis: They don't swap helmets because they're too expensive. My chief instructor said, "Scott, they spend a lot of money for those helmets." I wasn't supposed to propose that, so officially I have.
Mr Cooper: The other concern is lengthening the duration for level 1 for motorcycles. If you go to the six months, what a lot of people may do is take that six months and ride and then the next year go for the road test for level 2. If you keep it at a compact amount, they don't get that much road experience, so they're more inclined to go and take the course.
Mr Follis: Oh, exactly.
Mr Cooper: That's why I would propose to keep the shorter limit on level 1, so that they'd be more inclined, because I know people don't like the restrictions of not riding at night. Motorcycle enthusiasts like to ride all the time, so they'd want to get out of that as soon as possible. If you keep it at a shorter time, they're more inclined to go take the course, I think, with training.
Mr Follis: Yes. Well, this is it; make it -- we looked at the seasonal aspects of motorcycle riding. If you make it anything beyond six months, it becomes redundant because nobody rides in the winter, unless you happen to live in Sarnia. For the majority of riders, it's a six-month season, so you work in increments of six months, less than that. We wanted to have such a strong incentive to take the motorcycle training, and it is available.
I have to defer to Mr Turnbull when he was saying that not all education facilities are going to be available for those who live in Thunder Bay, yet if the incentive is there and there are enough riders, there will be an industry grow to that and it will become available, as it is through some of the college systems and through our own offices here.
Mr Len Wood (Cochrane North): I'm from northern Ontario. I've been there for close to 35 years now. When we're talking about the 400 series highways, it's a concern to me, because as I said yesterday to one of the groups, I have never, as yet, personally seen a car coming at me face to face on the four-lane highways or the six-lane highways, but I have on the two-lane highways. We realize that only about 25% of the heavy urban populated areas in southern Ontario are covered with multilane highways. The other 75% of the province is covered with two-lane highways, and some passing lanes and they all haven't been installed yet.
What I'm just concerned about, and maybe you can comment on it, for example, is that when a new driver leaving Kapuskasing hits the four-lane highways, we're saying, "Now you've got to find your way to downtown Toronto by the back roads." Is that safer or more dangerous? I know that we have to find a way somewhere in the next 20 years to be able to eliminate all human errors so that nobody gets killed because of human error on the highways, but I'm just wondering, when we're proposing this, is it feasible? Is it workable?
Mr Follis: For the driver who's never experienced a 400 level highway and is still in level 1, and using your example, if he's driving from Kap down to Toronto, the first time he hits the 400 below North Bay, it's going to be different, but I would hope that if he's in level 1, he's got an experienced driver with him. In fact, he shouldn't even be on that road. He's going to have to go down through the older highways. The experienced driver who's with him may say: "Listen, you drive from Kap to North Bay. I'll pick it up from there." Then he can sit and watch. This is only a 12-month period. It's like the 365.
If he's a level 2 driver and if he has a supervisor with him, or even if this is his first experience, that's what it's all about. Fortunately, he does get about 200 miles of driving on smaller four-lanes before he hits downtown TO and gets blown away.
As an example, I had an opportunity to spend a year in the Northwest Territories, where there was one stoplight in all of Yellowknife. When I drove back to Edmonton the first time -- and I grew up driving all my life; I worked with Bell Telephone and so on -- when I first got back on to four lanes, I was a danger. I was not comfortable. My timing was off. I didn't have a sense of the motion.
These are the things we take for granted, that everybody can drive as well as we can. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Experienced northern Ontario drivers are great on their roads, but throw them into Toronto and they're a hazard. Throw that Toronto driver into northern Ontario and he's also a hazard. Give them 48 hours to acclimatize and it equals back out.
I guess our big emphasis is the training, and get it done at the appropriate times and with as much universality as we can.
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Mr Steven Offer (Mississauga North): Thank you very much for your presentation. I know that my colleagues have some other questions, and I'd like to ask two brief questions, if I might.
Firstly, on a matter of clarification on the issue of the accompanying driver, it seems a little fuzzy from the proposals as to how long the accompanying driver must have been driving. They say four years, but they say four years with full class G, I guess, training privileges. That could be someone who has just received a class G licence, not have had it for four years but rather four days, basically. I am wondering if it is your position that the accompanying driver should have had full driving privileges for the four years, or should it be something else?
Mr Follis: I personally feel that it would be a hardship to find somebody -- and I'm looking down the road five years from now -- who has had four additional full years of driving experience after he acquired his full G licence. That puts somebody at a minimum age, if they got their licence starting at 16, of 22 years old.
Mr Offer: Right.
Mr Follis: Yet the experience of driving from when you initially started at 16, if it took you through 24 months to age 18, and two additional years of driving, you've in fact been in the driving system for four years. I personally could live with that. What takes away confusion and allows the universality is that originating date on your licence when you first applied, and it makes it pretty easy for enforcement.
Mr Offer: Thank you for that. My next question deals with the issue of young drivers under 19 and alcohol. In Ontario, you can't drink under 19. We asked some questions yesterday as to what the penalty would be if a young driver is found with alcohol in his system. I'm not talking about over the current limit, but under the limit but still with alcohol in their blood, what the penalty would be. Indeed, there really isn't any penalty.
The question becomes, and I ask you this, is this an area that should be looked at? Should a young driver who has alcohol in his blood, under the current level but at some other level, suffer a penalty, which just does not exist at this point, in terms of his driving privileges?
Mr Follis: Working on the provision in the current system of licensing?
Mr Offer: No, in the new.
Mr Follis: Beyond this point in time.
Mr Offer: Yes.
Mr Follis: If you are under the legal age of drinking, that's beyond the scope. Yet if you're driving and breaking the provisions of your graduated licence or the licensing provisions that you're driving under, I'd personally like to see the licence suspended immediately.
Mr Offer: For how long?
Mr Follis: As a minimum, I would go six months to show the serious nature, and you then start either where you left off in your time format or possibly back right at the beginning. It's very difficult today, with the advent of the near-beers and the 0.05, for the policeman on the road. He can smell it and you can say, "Yes, but it's one of these no-alcohol-content beers." When he goes through the whole format and breathalyser, then takes you into the station house and it finally goes to court and you're found to have had it, you've played the system and you lost.
There can be no tolerance when it comes to drinking and driving. If that gets around, it will become accepted practice. Twenty years ago, it wouldn't have been accepted that I couldn't sit here and smoke, yet nobody feels any necessity. Over time, you can induce any attitude by showing a tolerance.
Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North): Following up on the questions around the relationship between alcohol and driving, the provincial coroner, Dr Young, the other day produced some data that were, I think, quite startling to all of us on the committee. Very specifically, the concern I had and that I think other members had was looking at the incidence of alcohol-related injury and fatality among drivers in the age category of 20 to 25, a very significant pattern of bad behaviour and very bad results.
Have you any advice on the basis of your experience and insight into this whole question as to what we need to do to modify that behaviour as well?
Mr Follis: We've already started, because we now work with zero. I can go to a party with my family and if I have one beer, my daughter who is 10 years old says, "Daddy, you're driving." When children know that drinking and driving don't mix, it'll take a while, but that education process has already started. Those 25-year-olds in five years will be 30. Some of them won't have made it, but for those who have, I hope their attitudes do change. It's through constant education, and this has taken a number of years, and continuing that. I don't know that we can additionally enforce the laws with the restrictions that we work under for drinking and driving.
Mr Conway: That was going to be my supplementary. How would you and your council view a proposal to impose a new condition which might say that there would be a requirement that the blood alcohol level for anyone driving in the age category of -- say a zero tolerance up to and including the full age of 21.
Mr Follis: I guess it would be so hard to enforce, and it would be challenged as discriminatory by age and so on and so forth, that it could become cumbersome. It would be easier to change the whole law and rather than work on a 0.08, drop it to a 0.05 for everybody.
Mr Conway: I appreciate what you say about enforceability, but Dr Young's data really made me think that we have a very serious, ongoing problem with 21-, 22- and 23-year-olds, who are not out with their kids. They're out with their pals from Carleton University or Cité collégiale here in Ottawa, or wherever else, and having a good blast. That's what those data recommend to me.
What would be so problematic? It wouldn't be very popular. I guess the enforcement, yes, to some extent, but I think it underlines everything in this debate, the reason we're here doing graduated licensing. I think most people would say there is an unacceptable carnage of young people on the roads and the biggest single problem is alcohol.
I look at the coroner's data. The biggest worry in the minds of most people, supported to a real extent, I think, by a lot of the data, is alcohol. If you look at the coroner's data, it suggests to me that the really dangerous mix seems to come at around age 19 or 20 when young drivers become legally eligible to drink, and that's often accompanied by leaving home and going off to school. I say to myself that if we're really serious about the real problem, then maybe we should look at that.
Mr Follis: As a percentage, somewhere around 50% of all fatalities involve alcohol, but the actual numbers of deaths in the province have diminished considerably over the years. I don't mean to diminish the problem, but 8,000 cars got stopped by the OPP at the other end of the Queensway last Christmas, and they charged two people. It's a tough go for those poor officers, yet the two who got charged were drunk. As a percentage of cars stopped, they gave out a whole lot more tickets for not wearing their seatbelt.
I think it's a diminishing return. We can't let up. Last year in Ottawa-Carleton there were 16,000 vehicle accidents. The social cost to this province is just astronomical, because those are the ones that generated police reports. Let's not talk about it; it's a $100-million industry to the bodyshops and so on. Not half of those people were drinking, yet they didn't know how to prevent those incidents from happening.
As a byproduct, if we could free up our police systems to do what we really want them to do, and that's enforce meaningful laws, not investigate accidents, the way to do it is not to change what they have to do; it's to diminish the number of accidents. The target group to go at is initially the less experienced drivers, and hopefully that's the starting point.
I guess one of the proposals -- and I heard it mentioned; I think Mr Daigeler brought it up -- is, what can we do to change the attitudes? He was asking about the military requirement. It occurs to me that if you drive in the military, you have to requalify with your licence every three years; you go and sit with a driver instructor. We don't do that here. It's a licence for life.
That's not part of graduated licensing, and if you want to see something unpopular, tell them everybody's going to have their tests redone, yet if we're looking to put gainful employment back in the province, instead of charging me $10 to renew my licence every five years, charge me $50, $45 of which goes to the drivers' school or the industry that's been set up to do this. It doesn't necessarily have to be through the ministry, yet it will require that our drivers requalify.
The call I get most often is from the 79-year-old who says: "I have to take the driver's test next year. How do I learn to drive?" I say, "After 60 years of driving you don't know?" They drive every day. The second largest group is the seniors. They are serious dangers, yet we tend to say, "Well, it's my grandfather." Well, do you want to go to the funeral because he died of natural causes or because he was in a car accident? Worse yet is that he kills somebody else. That's the one that irks me, when the innocent get hit. I don't mind that a drunk driver goes out and puts his car into a pole and suffers a short life. It's when he puts it into somebody else's car and he kills everybody.
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This past long weekend there were 22 fatalities in the province of Ontario, six of which happened in the Brantford area with the train accident. Five of those accidents happened within 50 miles of Ottawa. We do not constitute one quarter of Ontario's population, nor its drivers, so why are we so bad? It's not that we're so bad; we just don't know how bad we are.
My challenge is that I cannot convince drivers to requalify. The girl from CBC who told me she only had three accidents thinks she's a wonderful driver. That's not a good track record, yet for me to tell her, "You're the person I'm after," she'll say, "I got hit; I didn't hit anybody." I say, "That's what I'm trying to teach you, how not to get hit." That's what defensive driving is. In fact, most people now don't understand the word. Everybody thinks he is a defensive driver.
My son thinks he's the world's best driver. I had the opportunity to take him down to Waterloo, and in the first two and a half hours from Prescott to Toronto, I let him drive. He found out what it's really like to try to drive defensively because he had to put up with me for two and a half hours. There was a downside to that coin: I had to drive through Toronto with him critiquing my driving in a much heavier driving situation. Yet he came to understand in two hours what it is truly like to try to give yourself space and how it moves and changes.
Driving is an art, yet we don't teach it that way. It's not like mathematics, where it's absolutes. Two and two doesn't make four when you're driving, because the guy who was two seconds ahead of you before is now only a second and a half; you've lost your space.
It took him a half an hour to figure that concept out, and here's a kid going into honours physics. For the guy who's dropped out, I don't care, he's the guy I want to train.
Mr Daigeler: I should know, but what is the Ottawa-Carleton Safety Council? You didn't mentioned that at the beginning. Perhaps you could just explain.
Mr Follis: We started in 1957 -- in fact Jim was one of our first chairmen -- as a safety training organization that grew beyond a small, two-person operation. Now we have four people. We are supported by the regional government's department of transportation, which is our primary funding, as well as membership.
We teach the course that Mr Cooper took if he had wanted that same course for motorcycle riders in Ottawa. Some 25% of the riders in Ottawa take our training course, and I should point out that those who take the course have virtually no accidents afterwards. We've yet to see any of our students involved in a traffic mishap.
Mr Daigeler: Would you perhaps later on give a little brochure on your organization to the clerk?
Mr Follis: I will send one off. We do that.
We do training, defensive driver training -- we used to do practical bicycle training as well -- and then the motorcycle training course. Those are our three areas of expertise. We charge for training, yet we're a non-profit organization, so we like to think that we're very politically correct in these times as a self-funding, non-profit organization offering training to the general public. Unfortunately, we do it so inexpensively that a lot of people don't know we even exist.
Mr Bancroft: I would just like to mention that the council has been about 20 years ahead of its time in its programs. Much of what I hear being discussed here today, we have already invoked, have already done.
We started driver education in the high schools here. It wasn't something the board of education wanted, but we got it started. We went for eight hours. We gave additional hours on throughway driving, which we were criticized for.
The motorcycle training course was developed by the Ottawa-Carleton Safety Council. There happened to be a Mr Munro and myself who developed that course, and we developed it from a research of motorcycle courses around the country and in other parts of the world, determined from that what the requirements were and then modified our training as time went by.
On the defensive driving course, we introduced a driver improvement course first and then came defensive driving. We offered an evaluation hour with our defensive driving course. In other words, you did blackboard work and we then worked with the driving schools so that you could take an hour evaluation. As Scott was saying, this comes after you've had your driver education.
I'm a great believer in driver education because I was one of the people responsible for the military training of drivers that was mentioned by Mr Frappier. The difference there is that you have a controlled group; you have the military discipline behind you. If we didn't like the way you drove, we didn't issue a permit to you. If we didn't like your attitude, we didn't issue it. We qualified you on each category of vehicle and you couldn't drive that until such times as you were qualified. We carried signs on the vehicles if we were doing any highway work to say that we had trainers on it, and then another driver would ride with the driver once he was put on to the road to see that he abided by the training.
The Chair: Thank you. You obviously have stimulated a very interesting discussion and certainly very thought-provoking questions from the committee. We trust you will stay in touch with the committee either through the clerk or any member of the committee or your own sitting MPP.
Mr Conway: Mr Chairman, my friend Offer made a very good point. Are there any statistics on the number of accidents caused by cellular phones? They have to be one of the most outrageous menaces.
The Chair: Interesting question; I believe the ministry at some point will be able to provide any statistics it has.
Mr Cameron Jackson (Burlington South): I'm sure, off the top of your head, you can guess the number Bell Telephone can provide.
Mr Dadamo: Do you want to do that now or later?
Mr Conway: Later. It's just a question for information purposes, from watching people drive.
AL BICKERTON
Mr Al Bickerton: My name is Al Bickerton and I'm the president of Bickerton Brokers Ontario Ltd of Gananoque and Kingston.
As an insurance broker, I am all too aware of the tragedies that occur on Ontario's highways. In my opinion, an effective system of graduated licensing will reduce the unacceptable number of people killed and injured in car crashes.
It is encouraging to see that the government has decided to move forward with such a system. I'm here today to offer some recommendations which I feel will enhance and strengthen the current proposal.
The rationale and principles of graduated licensing: Graduated licensing should be designed to provide novice drivers with both time and opportunity to gain valuable driving experience gradually, under conditions of reduced risk. Graduated licensing should be based on four principles:
(1) New drivers require a gradual introduction to the road.
(2) New drivers need to learn gradually to cope with the inherently risky driving conditions.
(3) New drivers need continuing development of driving skills and testing.
(4) New drivers must be encouraged to take responsibility for safe driving.
Strong evidence is available to support the claim that an effective system of graduated licensing saves lives and reduces accidents. This is very significant for both young drivers, where death and injury rates among new drivers under 20 years of age remain at least two and a half times greater than the average risk for all drivers, and for the growing number of older, newly licensed drivers. Between 1983 and 1988, the proportion of new drivers in Canada over the age of 20 increased by more than 30%.
Many of the risks encountered by young drivers are also encountered by all beginning drivers regardless of age. While age is frequently a contributing factor to new-driver accidents, driving experience is also a key component in reducing collision risk. Graduated licensing is currently the best option to help novice drivers gain valuable experience while reducing their exposure to risky driving conditions.
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Concerns with the government proposal: I applaud the Ontario government's decision to implement a graduated licensing system. However, as an insurance broker, I have some concerns regarding the specific model being proposed. In my opinion, the government's proposal falls short of the most effective graduated licensing system.
I believe there should be more comprehensive controls for novice drivers during the full two-year driving period. I agree with the incentive to allow this period to be reduced to 20 months with an approved driving education training certificate. The minimum required driving experience must occur in a more protected environment before full driving privileges are granted. The government's proposal could result in as little as eight months of operation in a supervised and controlled environment, much like the current 365-day temporary learners licensing system.
Theoretically, under the government's proposal, a new driver may progress to level 2, at which there's virtually no restriction, after only eight months' experience in level 1. I believe this is a serious weakness in the government's proposed system. The removal of novice driver restrictions after only eight months is contrary to the concept of graduated licensing.
I encourage the Ontario government to revise its proposal so that more effective controls are in place, particularly at level 2. Only by implementing a strong and effective graduated licensing system will Ontario mirror the successes that have been achieved in other jurisdictions around the world.
Recommendations: I fully support the concept of graduated licensing as an effective means to prevent accidents and reduce the number of people killed and injured on Ontario's highways. However, certain changes could be made to enhance the government's proposal to ensure that lives are saved and Ontario roadways are made as safe as possible. I concur with the recommendations proposed by the Insurance Bureau of Canada and feel that these will better reflect a true graduated licensing system. Driving privileges should be granted in a gradual manner after an appropriate level of experience has been acquired and not all at once, as is the case in the Ontario government's proposal.
Level 1: The learning driver must be accompanied by a driver with at least two years' fully licensed experience, with a minimum age of 21, who maintains a zero blood alcohol concentration, which I'll later refer to as BAC.
Having an accompanying driver with at least two years' fully licensed experience is an attempt to ensure that the person has acquired sufficient driving experience to provide useful guidance and instruction to the learning driver. The accompanying driver is present not only to pass along good advice, but also to countervail any risk-taking. Given the supervisory nature of this role, it is only logical to extend the zero BAC requirement to the accompanying driver.
No other passengers are permitted unless either the accompanying driver is an accredited driving instructor or the learner is accompanied by a driver with at least five years' fully licensed experience. If these conditions are met, passengers are limited to the number of seatbelts in the vehicle.
I strongly believe in the need for passenger limitations to reduce the likelihood of internal distractions and the influence of peer pressure for the younger drivers. Transport Canada 1991 statistics indicate that more than one third of all fatally injured passengers were in the 15- to 24-year-old age group -- 34.7% of those. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an American research organization, reports:
"Death rates for passengers as well as for drivers are highest during the teenage years. This is true for both males and females, and death rates decrease dramatically after age 24. Teenagers driving other teenagers represent the worst combination -- 63% of all teenage passengers who die in crashes do so when a peer is behind the wheel."
A zero BAC for both the learning driver and the accompanying driver: Operating a vehicle is a complicated task, requiring good coordination, sound judgement and alert motor reflexes. Alcohol is known to impair all these functions. Therefore, it makes sense to ensure that learning drivers and their supervisors remain alcohol-free.
A curfew from the hours of midnight to 5 am: Late-night driving is often inherently risky. Therefore, it's preferable that the learning driver gain hands-on experience in safer driving conditions before being permitted to drive at night.
Learning drivers are prohibited from driving on 400 series highways and designated multilane urban expressways. Statistics demonstrate that high-speed collisions are more severe and cause more injuries, and judgement and reaction time are reduced at higher speeds. Inexperienced drivers lack the advanced knowledge and skills required to avoid these collisions. I agree with restricting level 1 drivers from accessing high-speed, high-volume highways.
A new driver identification symbol must be clearly displayed. This will indicate a person's status as a learning driver to other drivers so that they may give the novice driver extra courtesy and cooperation.
In order to progress to level 2, a learning driver must maintain a conviction-free record for the entire duration of level 1, eight or 12 months, as the case may be, depending on whether driver training was undertaken, and pass a basic road test. This seeks to ensure that new drivers have developed proper respect for all the rules of the road and that they have acquired a certain degree of proficiency at operating a motor vehicle before they're granted greater driving privileges.
Contrary to the government's proposal, I feel that the requirements in level 2 should be amended to slowly phase in the more difficult aspects of driving.
Upon achieving level 2, the learning driver is allowed to drive unaccompanied, providing there are no passengers. One passenger is permitted if that person has two years of fully licensed experience. If the level 2 driver is accompanied by an accredited driving instructor or by a driver with at least five years' fully licensed experience, passengers are limited to the number of seatbelts in the vehicle.
Again, I reiterate the need for passenger limitations to reduce the likelihood of internal distractions and the influence of peer pressure for the younger drivers. Also, seatbelts have been proven to save lives and reduce the severity of injuries in collisions. Therefore, it makes sense to limit the number of passengers to the number of seatbelts.
Maintaining the zero BAC requirement for both the learning driver and the accompanying driver. Contrary to the government's proposal, I feel that both the learning driver and the accompanying driver should maintain a zero BAC.
Level 2 drivers are permitted to drive between the hours of midnight and 5 am or on 400 series and other designated multilane urban expressways if accompanied by a driver with at least two years' fully licensed experience. Lifting these restrictions in level 2 recognizes that the novice driver has gained some experience and competence. However, I believe that the learning driver must be accompanied by a more experienced driver to provide proper supervision while the novice driver becomes accustomed to this increasingly difficult driving environment of late-night and high-speed highway driving.
Maintaining the requirement for a new driver identification symbol to be clearly displayed on the vehicle. This will continue to allow other drivers to identify new drivers to give them additional courtesy and cooperation.
In order to be granted full driving privileges, learning drivers must maintain a conviction-free driving record for the final 12 consecutive months of level 2 and they must pass an advanced test of their driving skills which focuses on their ability to identify hazards and make appropriate corrective decisions.
This attempts to ensure that the novice driver has in fact acquired sufficient experience and competence at driving to graduate to full, unrestricted privileges. The conviction-free stipulation seeks to discourage thrill-seeking and risk-taking and promote a healthy respect for both the rules of the road and the other drivers.
In conclusion, I agree with IBC that this model best reflects the ideals of the graduated licensing system to provide all new drivers with the opportunity to gain driving experience under conditions that minimize exposure to risk. The step-by-step approach to this model eases the learning driver into full, unrestricted driving situations rather than suddenly exposing him to the full range of hazardous driving situations.
The restrictions on new drivers are, under the proposed system, removed too quickly and do not reflect the ideals of a true graduated licensing system.
I encourage your committee to consider strengthening the proposed model of graduated licensing, particularly in level 2. This I feel will serve the people of Ontario best by ensuring that the safest system of graduated licensing is implemented.
Thank you for your consideration. I will try to answer any questions you may have.
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Mr Dadamo: Thank you very much for your presentation. I know that you spent a good amount of time talking about level 2, and I know that's become very important to you. I just wondered if you could share with us some of the guidelines that you'd like to see in some of the recommendations so we can strengthen it and toughen it a little bit.
Mr Bickerton: Certainly. I think one of the big areas has to be concentration on the blood alcohol content of both the learning driver, which I think is clearly enough addressed, but the accompanying driver as well. I really don't think that there should be any tolerance to blood alcohol content when the accompanying driver is legislated to be provided. I think it's just like flying in a jet plane. Would you be really happy if the co-pilot was stoned? Probably not. I think that's one of my biggies.
The other thing is speed. All of the driver training has to zero in on speed. An obvious adjunct to that is how to provide the police with sufficient numbers of police and sufficient equipment to control speeding. I currently believe that the police, particularly on the 400 series highways, are in insufficient evidence and numbers to make much of a difference really. That's not being hard on the cops; I'm just saying that there aren't enough of them to do the job properly.
Ms Christel Haeck (St Catharines-Brock): A quick question here. I'm aware that in places like Germany, where they spend a lot of in-classroom time learning about the car as well as various driving situations, the learner is required to intimately know the standard transmission vehicle as well as then possibly going to an automatic. Obviously, to take a test on an automatic is fairly easy in comparison to what happens with the standard. Would you feel that our system should also include being thoroughly checked out on both kinds of vehicles?
Mr Bickerton: I don't have a really difficult problem with a driver not knowing how to drive a standard transmission vehicle because, let's face it, there aren't all that many of them around. I don't exactly know how you would control it, but if one bought a standard transmission car, I think it would be very important to have them qualified to drive such a thing. I guess I'm referring back to maybe the person who drives a transport with air brakes. There's a special ticket you have to get to drive that vehicle. If you don't have it, you can't ride it. It's like a motorbike, which they were talking about earlier. Sure, I can run in and buy a motorbike, but I can't drive it until I have a name on my ticket.
Maybe you have an S on your ticket for standard, but coming as a green driver into a family that doesn't own a standard transmission vehicle, I really think there are better ways to spend people's effort and money than forcing that person to know how to drive a standard vehicle.
Ms Haeck: I'm raising the point mainly because I do know of situations whereby young people are in families with two standard vehicles and are probably using an automatic vehicle to take the test. I would suggest that the kind of knowledge you require in order to operate the standard, which is in all likelihood the car you're going to be operating, is maybe not as good as it should be. But I may be representing a minority since I'm a long-standing standard driver as opposed to an automatic.
Mr Bickerton: I have a son who has just completed driver training and he had an option with Young Drivers of Canada to take his test and lessons on a standard or an automatic. All I can suggest is that if the person who is qualifying to become a driver anticipates driving a standard vehicle, then why not get your S ticket right away when you learn? If you go from an automatic to a standard, you've got to run out and pass another test. I don't have a problem with that, but I don't think it would be -- I don't know; I think there are better ways of spending effort at the beginning if one doesn't anticipate driving a standard vehicle then to force that person into a standard vehicle.
Mr Daigeler: Obviously, the insurance industry has been following these hearings very closely on the graduated licensing initiative because many of the presenters come from the insurance industry and we appreciate their concern and their interest.
Since you are with the Insurance Bureau of Canada, you may know: Are your colleagues in the States equally involved in this campaign? Are they trying to do the same thing?
Mr Bickerton: I honestly can't tell you, Mr Daigeler. I honestly don't know. I'm sure it would vary by state, in any event. But I know that certainly nationally, and I'm sure internationally, there's a huge concern for the huge insurance costs that are imposed upon the public by the injury rates that occur in the under-25-year category.
If any of you has got kids driving, you don't have to make too many inquiries before you find out what the costs are, and those costs aren't fabricated. If one kid in four at age 16 gets into an accident, and that's a rough statistic, that's an awful lot of kids, and those accidents typically are very much more severe than the accidents that older folks like you or me might get involved in.
I think the insurance industry, while it may sound like it wants to talk itself out of earning premium, wants to talk itself into a safer environment. Our business is the business of reducing risk and if we can do anything to contribute to that, we'll do it.
There are a lot of large dollars of savings to be made by adequately and properly training and controlling new drivers, and I'm not just talking about kids but new mature drivers as well. I had a lady in my office yesterday who actually lives in Nepean. She's from our town and she's about 27 or 28. Her husband's been driving since he was 16, and she just got her 365-day permit.
Yesterday, at a quarter to 5, she phoned our office and said that she'd just wiped out a bus stop, because she'd left the curb and cleaned out a bus stand. Fortunately, there was nobody in it. She had her 365-day permit for one week and she's not a kid; she's just a green driver. I don't know what happened because one of my assistants took the call, but it was a green driver.
We see this every week of our lives where young drivers just get -- I just don't think they have enough presence to get involved in city traffic and expect to come out with any kind of an accident rate similar to more experienced drivers. So whatever we can do to control that environment I think will be money and time well spent.
Mr Conway: Do you live in Ottawa?
Mr Bickerton: No, I live in Gananoque.
Mr Conway: In Gananoque. And the basis of your recommendations around stiffening or tightening up level 2 are what again?
Mr Bickerton: I think there's too much freedom given in the level 2 area to the new drivers becoming able to operate in an unsupervised manner.
Mr Conway: So you would recommend specifically what adjustments or what amendments?
Mr Bickerton: I think they're all set out in my speech, Mr Conway. I brought six copies of it for the clerk. I'm sorry I didn't bring maybe the 20 or 30 that were needed.
Mr Conway: All right. That's fine.
Mr Bickerton: They're set out there.
Mr Conway: Just quickly then, because I don't have a copy of that, just refresh my memory again of what you consider to be the key improvements that should be made at level 2.
Mr Bickerton: One of the ones was the zero BAC requirement. I think you'll find them on page 4 of that. Zero BAC for both drivers: I think that must be maintained. Someone alluded earlier -- I think it was you, in fact, with the prior speakers -- to, what do we do with a driver who is in level 2 or maybe even past level 2, still under age 19 and found with blood alcohol, either as a driver or an accompanying driver? Like the prior gentleman, I don't think that should be tolerated; I really don't. I don't know why it should be. If you can't drink in a bar, why should you be able to have consumed something in an illegal manner and jump into a car and go and kill somebody? That just doesn't wash with me.
The 400 series highway situation: I just think there have to be some pretty tight controls on it. I realize the geographical disparity that Ontario is faced with, but when I drive into downtown Toronto, the first 10 minutes every time I go into Toronto, I'm just not used to it on a daily basis, and I've been driving for a lot of years, so it's tough.
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Mr Conway: I like a lot of this. I'm more interested from your perspective, and maybe from mine, about the kid up in Athens going into Gananoque or coming down to Brockville or perhaps coming up from Spencerville up to Ottawa.
Mr Bickerton: In what respect are you concerned?
Mr Conway: It's not a big deal. I've had a concern about the experienced driver and how tight we should draw those restrictions. I had a couple of kids on the weekend talk to me about co-op ed programs they're in in high schools. They're screwed under some of these; they just can't do it. They're 17-year-old kids or 18, and they've got cars or access to cars and their placements are 10 miles away. If we draw these restrictions too tightly, they are essentially going to have to cease and desist from any participation in those co-op ed programs at the high school level. Maybe they should.
Mr Bickerton: What happens, Mr Conway, to the kid who does not have access to the car who signs up with the same person 10 miles away in a co-op ed program? He wouldn't sign up, because he knows he hasn't got any way of getting there.
Mr Conway: No, but I'm talking about people who now under the current rules are --
Mr Bickerton: I understand. But would he or she who would be under the roughly two-year window of supervision be more prejudiced against, if you will, than the kid who doesn't have access to a car at all?
Mr Conway: There's no question in my view that yes, there is a differential impact here.
Mr Jackson: But at least they can hitch a ride. Now they won't be able to even hitch a ride.
Mr Conway: It may be that we need to do that. It's just that all of us elected officials here will get to go to the meetings in Athens to explain any differential impacts. So before I sign on for what I believe to be an important and positive initiative -- don't get me wrong -- I want to make sure that we've got something that's fair and enforceable.
I wanted to say to the previous speaker -- he was talking about the accident rates around Ottawa and Ottawa-Carleton or eastern Ontario over the Labour Day weekend. One of the first questions I had is: Does that have anything to do with Hull's proximity? I don't know. Maybe it's a nasty question. I know something about lifestyles across these interprovincial borders in eastern Ontario, since I live at the end of one interprovincial bridge.
There are the two questions. In your view, an experienced driver, for purposes of level 1, should be as it's contained in the proposals?
Mr Bickerton: Yes, but I think you should make sure that the person can't come out of level 1 too quickly.
Mr Conway: So your view is that with level 1 you want it --
Mr Bickerton: I think in one of the earlier pages, on page 2 or 3, it referred to the number of months being as low as eight.
Mr Conway: Under the current proposal, you couldn't come out of level 1 before you were 16 years, eight months of age. You have to serve eight months in level 1. Is that too short a time, in your view?
Mr Bickerton: No. I think it's stretching the limit for the experience to be gained. I don't have too big a problem if it's a year, but coming out at eight months -- obviously it's better than the system currently, there's no question, but --
Mr Conway: But I think what the committee likes about the proposal, or what I like about that proposal -- it goes back to Mr Follis's testimony earlier -- is the whole concept of it offering clear incentives to do certain things. The reason you can get out in eight as opposed to 12 months is if you take and successfully complete the driver ed program. Now, it may be that in your view it should be an inducement but it should be a minimum of 15 months rolled back to 12 months.
Mr Bickerton: I think that the latter would be better. I wouldn't be at all concerned with seeing a 12-month window within level 1.
Mr Turnbull: Prior to asking you a question, I would just ask, perhaps we could have one of the ministry staff up here. I have a technical question. It relates to this question of 0% blood alcohol level. I think I already know the answer to this. There are these essentially non-alcoholic beers but I believe they have 0.5% alcohol in them. I want to know whether that would affect the blood alcohol level in somebody in testing, and if so, I want to ask -- can we have somebody from the ministry here?
Mr John Hughes: John Hughes, Ministry of Transportation. I'm not 100% clear on this, but my understanding of the low-alcohol beer that can be purchased at grocery stores is that it is what it says, low-alcohol beer, that there is an alcohol content. It's just under whatever the consumer standard is for the liquor industry having to sell it in the beer stores. I presume if you consumed enough of it, yes, it would be detectable under the blood alcohol machinery and equipment that's out there.
Mr Turnbull: I would like, before these hearings are over, to get some sort of technical opinion. Would one or two or three or four constitute alcohol in the blood level? I'd like to know that.
I think it was a very useful move by the breweries a couple of years ago to start pushing these near-beers. They've been sold in continental Europe for many years, and specifically they were aimed at those people who might be driving and there were others with them who might be consuming alcohol, and it was so they could be a part of a party but without really imbibing. So my question to you relates to your question about 0% blood alcohol for both the driver and the accompanying driver and what your views are on these near-beers, because it seems to me that's been helpful.
Mr Bickerton: I'm sure it has been helpful. I'm not questioning that at all. But I think, just to give you an example, maybe if there are four youngsters going to a party someplace and the person who is newly licensed is accompanied by a person who is sufficiently experienced to be an accompanying driver and the accompanying driver and/or the driver -- well, if the 0% BAC applies to the driver as it does now, that's fine, but if the accompanying driver has one or two or three of these, is he or she more likely to allow a level of noise and distraction within the vehicle itself so that the person driving can't maintain adequate control? I would submit that the answer would be yes, they would allow a higher level of din within the vehicle that would distract the driver. I've been on enough ski trips with my own kids to know that when you get three or four teenagers in a car, there's quite a level of din, and sometimes it's distracting.
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Mr Turnbull: That's a different matter from alcohol. I think din occurs whether there's alcohol involved or not. It was the last witness who tweaked my thought on this issue of, are we going to discourage people from drinking near-beer?
Mr Bickerton: I think if you had zero BAC for both parties in the car, you certainly would, but that's not to say that you'd discourage near-beer to encourage real beer; you'd just discourage near-beer to encourage a Pepsi or a Coke.
Mr Turnbull: You see, I've never heard of anybody being in any way impaired drinking near-beer.
Mr Bickerton: Neither have I.
Mr Turnbull: You'd be just about floating away before you'd be impaired.
Mr Bickerton: I honestly don't know how it's affected by one's size or age or whatever. I'm not sure. I'm certainly not capable of understanding that. But I would say that a zero BAC for both parties would be far better than some BAC for the accompanying driver, and always zero for the driver himself.
Mr Jackson: Mr Bickerton, your industry, perhaps not your company specifically, offers discounted insurance rates for non-drinkers. Is that not correct?
Mr Bickerton: There are a couple of selected companies that do that, yes.
Mr Jackson: I would assume that those companies offer those rates in Ontario to persons 19 years of age or older, for obvious reasons.
Mr Bickerton: Yes.
Mr Jackson: Is it not then a concern of your industry that once acknowledging alcohol consumption under the age of 19, therefore, by extension, you must offer to 16-, 17- and 18-year-olds who are confirmed non-drinkers the same rates?
Mr Bickerton: When you talk about the same rates, I'm always a little sceptical about what you mean by that.
Mr Jackson: A similar offer to them, similar discounts for the declaration of non-consumption.
Mr Bickerton: I would say that it's a given that if you're under 19, you're not drinking.
Mr Jackson: You raised the issue that we're at conflict with the law. We're acknowledging a level of alcohol, whether it's high, low or indifferent, for someone who, according to another law, is not supposed to be consuming alcohol at all. Was that not your thesis earlier?
Mr Bickerton: If you're under 19, my submission would be that you should be zero BAC anyway and that the insurance rating of someone like the Abstainers Insurance company -- I don't know how they set their rates, but I would have to believe that they would interpret that being 19, or under 19 at least, would mean that you would not be drinking when you were driving. In that particular company's case, even if I swear that I will never as an adult drink and drive, I don't engage the lower rate. I only engage the lower rate if I sign a statement stating that I never drink, and that doesn't mean a glass of wine or a beer on a hot summer day; that means never.
Mr Jackson: I understand. My question wasn't to be argumentative. I actually agree with your thesis. I'm just trying to examine its consistency under the law under the Charter of Rights, which would indicate non-discrimination if the government has acknowledged alcohol consumption. Therefore, persons who sign the same declaration cannot be discriminated against for a fee decrease. I'm wanting to be consistent, if the government is not being consistent, with blood alcohol levels for persons under the legal age of drinking in the province of Ontario. I'm not being argumentative. I'm actually agreeing with your position.
Mr Bickerton: I suppose there's an argument to say that someone who states at 16 that they're not going to be a drinker should be entitled to some discount, but I would submit that it's not the same discount someone over 19 would get.
Mr Jackson: Well, an 18-year-old can contract in this province, and I submit that there would be an inconsistency here.
Mr Bickerton: Well, maybe so.
Mr Jackson: If time prevents, Mr Chairman, fine, but Mr Bickerton, you indicated that there were the kinds of successes in other jurisdictions. I wonder if you could share with the committee the jurisdictions which you believe have achieved those levels of success, to quote you directly, "by having legislation which goes further than the one that's currently before you."
Mr Bickerton: The only one that I can -- and I don't have deep knowledge of it, certainly, is New Zealand. All I can say is that I don't know all the details about blood alcohol in their legislation, but their experience seems to auger well for the existence of a tapered system of licensing.
The Vice-Chair (Mr Mike Cooper): Mr Bickerton, on behalf of the Insurance Bureau of Canada, and on behalf of this committee, I'd like to thank you for your presentation this morning and trust that you'll follow the due course of this legislation. If you have any more information that you want to submit, please submit it to the clerk.
Mr Offer: Is there a response to Mr Conway's question? Does the ministry have information on the use of cellular phones and the incidence of accidents?
Mr Dadamo: That's available if you want it now.
The Vice-Chair: My apologies.
Mr Conway: It's really Offer's question but it's a very good question.
Mr Hughes: It's a fairly short answer because we don't have that information. The problem is that our accident data are dependent on the police accident forms that are filled out at the scene of an accident. There's no provision on there for the police person to sort of check off a box that says there is a cellular phone in the car, never mind the fact that any driver, I think, who's using a cellular phone at the time of an accident probably isn't going to own up to it. So any information we have is intuitive rather than based on any facts.
Mr Conway: Does the ministry or the constabulary have any kind of anecdotal evidence? My impression is that if you drive down University Avenue in Toronto, or just about any place else, it is amazing what you see these days with these cellular phones.
Mr Hughes: We've all seen examples of that. The traditional thinking is that the person who's got a phone hanging out of one ear and a cup of coffee in the other and is steering with his elbows is probably a pretty bad risk anyway, whether the cellular phone's there or not. We are trying to monitor the situation, but the problem is that it's a very expensive research study to be able to get at that. What you really have to do is find a thousand drivers who have a cellular phone, look at their records and compare them with a thousand drivers who don't. It's a lot of money to do that. We haven't been able to.
Mr Conway: Thanks very much. I appreciate that.
Mr Dadamo: Mr Hughes, there was also something else that needed to be cleared up, I understand, about the blood alcohol content level.
Mr Hughes: Is this Mr Turnbull's question?
Mr Dadamo: Perhaps you could clear that up now.
Mr Hughes: I thought I had. Was there another question on blood alcohol?
Mr Turnbull: Perhaps you could clarify exactly at what level it's considered that people would show as 0% blood alcohol level.
Mr Hughes: In setting the model for graduated licensing, we had a lot of discussion with staff at the ministries of the Attorney General and the Solicitor General as well as the police themselves in terms of how to make the zero BAC work with the equipment the police currently use.
Basically, what will happen is that in order to detect zero BAC the machinery will be calibrated at, I believe, 0.025 which allows for cough medicine, any other trace elements that might show up as alcohol. It allows a little forgiveness and it allows for the margin of error of the machinery. We wouldn't publicly say that the level is 0.025. For public consumption, it's still zero. But for practical enforcement purposes with the equipment that we have, it's necessary to be calibrated at 0.025.
Mr Offer: I have a question around the New Zealand statistics which have been brought forward a number of times. In dealing with the New Zealand statistics, do you have information as to the penalties that are exacted for contravention of any of the provisions of their graduated licensing, and also whether there are any penalties that are placed on underage drivers in terms of drinking while in the care and control of a motor vehicle?
Mr Hughes: If I could take the questions and make a couple of phone calls, I'm sure we have the answers. I don't have them off the top of my head.
Mr Offer: I just feel the New Zealand statistics have been used a great deal, and I think it's important that we have a fair understanding when looking at those statistics as to how those statistics are arrived at and whether penalties and a bunch of other things might be the cause of those very dramatic results.
Mr Hughes: I will endeavour to find the answers.
Mr Jackson: On that point then, as a request, I wonder if we could get our committee researcher -- one these may exist but I haven't seen it and I apologize if one does exist, but a direct comparison between the New Zealand and Ontario models which incorporates the legal questions Mr Offer has just raised. I think in terms of direct comparison, in terms of penalties and repercussions, that would be extremely helpful.
My other question relates back to Mr Turnbull's and I guess what Mr Turnbull was really getting at was, let's take graduated drivers' licences out of it for a moment, but just as the Ministry of the Attorney General can state that to stay under the legal limit, one should only consume one beer in one hour, that type of thing, or two beers in two hours or whatever, they may have a comment about how much wine.
I guess Mr Turnbull was raising the question, and I don't know the answer but would probably like one, does the government have a threshold if you're drinking these low-alcohol beers, and perhaps that can now be a third example, because I know a lot of people are now moving to this product? The government doesn't have trouble with that because it gets to tax it at the same rate as the regular beer, so it's not disappointed at all that people are buying this beer. If that figure is available from the ministry, I think it may not necessarily prove useful, but certainly extremely interesting.
Mr Hughes: We'll attempt to contact the Attorney General's staff and see if they have that comparison.
The Chair: Thank you. This committee stands recessed till 2 pm this afternoon.
The committee recessed from 1202 to 1400.
CANADA SAFETY COUNCIL
The Chair: The first witness this afternoon is the Canada Safety Council. Please identify yourselves for Hansard and proceed with your presentation. You've been allocated one half-hour, and the committee would appreciate about half of that, if possible, for questions and answers and dialogue.
Mr Emile Thérien: Our presentation will be according to the time allotted, which is very short. Nevertheless, we're proud to be here. My name is Emile Thérien. I'm president of the Canada Safety Council. To my left is Ray Marchand, who's our manager of traffic safety and training. Again, thank you very much for having us. It's a pleasure to be here. The whole issue of graduated licensing is of concern to the Canada Safety Council. Our involvement in this goes back well over four years.
I will be very brief and Ray will take a little longer than I will, because he'll go into a little more detail about what our position is on this very issue. You have our brief, and also you have a few other handouts. We want to give you an idea of what the Canada Safety Council does. A lot of our activities are in Ontario.
Briefly, the Canada Safety Council has a very broad mandate to coordinate and promote safety and accident prevention activities for all Canadians in all provinces and territories. Council programs help the Canadian public prevent accidents by enhancing safety awareness. We were founded in 1968, when the Canadian Highway Safety Council, the National Safety League of Canada and the Industrial Safety Association merged together to become the Canada Safety Council. In general, the audience is the ordinary Canadian, from coast to coast. Programs are specifically targeted to families, children, drivers of all motor vehicles and employees.
As a public service organization, CSC fulfils its pledge to accident prevention through the development of public safety awareness activities, education and technical programs and services. These activities include national safety campaigns, research and statistics, as well as safety advocacy.
Today I'd like to focus on some concerns I believe this committee can address as part of its mandate.
First, I'd like to make you aware that we have a very long-standing positive working relationship with the Ministry of Transportation of the province of Ontario. I say this because I do not want my next comment to be misunderstood or misconstrued as a complaint. In spite of everyone's very best efforts, it seems to us that progress in the area of driver training and, in addition, in the area of driver rehabilitation, takes an unreasonable amount of time to be explored, decided on and resolved. Too much time and effort are wasted on court appearances, fines and jail terms for repeat offenders, when proven driver rehabilitation programs, such as those provided by the National Traffic Safety Institute, can improve driver behaviour on our roads.
I recommend that a program to deal with traffic offenders be integrated into Ontario's new graduated drivers' licensing system when this program comes into effect. This would help drivers improve their driving behaviour through a positive attitude, before they become problem drivers.
In conclusion, I would like to stress how strongly the council feels that keeping a national and provincial perspective on traffic safety is of great importance. We must ensure that Ontario ranks among the highest in the world when it comes to the safety and security of our people.
Mr Marchand, whom I introduced earlier, our manager of traffic safety and training programs, is with me. He will now contribute to this presentation. Thank you very much for your time.
Mr Raynald Marchand: Mr Chairman and members of the committee, over the past 25 years, the traffic section of the Canada Safety Council has advocated many driver safety initiatives: driver education courses, driver rehabilitation courses, driver awareness campaigns and impaired driving initiatives. Our National Road Safety Week campaign promoting child restraints is a good example of our public awareness work.
In March 1990, the Canada Safety Council sponsored a conference on contemporary issues affecting young drivers. The target audience included provincial departments of transportation, education, health and welfare, and justice, vehicle manufacturers, enforcement officers, safety professionals, driver educators, teachers and students or young people.
The purpose was to exchange ideas, share perspectives, discuss alternatives and define realistic and achievable changes which could address the issues and concerns. The focus was on involving Canadian youth in the development of effective countermeasures, rather than viewing youth as problem drivers.
The conference objectives were defined as follows: (1) to discuss the current status of young driver issues, define their magnitude and characteristics; (2) to identify the causes of accidental deaths and injuries to young drivers; and (3) to suggest alternatives, solutions and countermeasures to make Canadian highways safer for young drivers.
At the end of this, there is an executive summary of the conference proceedings called Youthful Drivers: Visions and Perspectives, which is included in the package.
The continued deaths and injuries toll as a result of traffic collisions must be addressed through the 3Es of safety: engineering, enforcement and education. The Canada Safety Council believes that a graduated drivers' licensing system could set the stage for effective licensing standards for new drivers. The Canada Safety Council, through its traffic section advisory committee, has developed the following position paper.
Of late, we know that several organizations have supported and promoted graduated licensing, and so has the Canada Safety Council, as a prevention program targeted at novice drivers. Some points, in our opinion, currently proposed by other organizations may require further validation. CSC has developed, based on the recommendations of our 1990 National Youth Driver Symposium, the following position paper on the graduated licensing concept.
(1) We believe that graduated licensing should apply to all novice drivers, regardless of age; "novice" meaning a person with no applicable driving experience. The reason for that is that the Canada Safety Council supports the initiative of graduated licensing as per the recommendation of our symposium in 1990.
(2) Increased public awareness of traffic hazards should be highlighted using public education, public awareness and national campaigns. The rationale for that is that educational campaigns to inform, encourage safe motor vehicle operation and to make the public aware of non-compliance results are paramount to a successful implementation.
(3) This is more to the driver. Restrictions during graduated licensing probationary periods should include:
(a) A zero blood alcohol content. That's a very good idea, one that's fairly self-explanatory.
(b) A realistic curfew period based on peak crash exposure data. I'll explain a bit on that. The curfew periods which do not coincide with peak risk periods are unduly restrictive; for example, midnight to 5 am during Monday through Thursday is not particularly high, in our opinion.
(c) A driver improvement program shortly prior to obtaining an unrestricted licence gives the probationary driver an opportunity to avail him or herself of advanced defensive driving concepts as an entry level to a full licence. This will contribute to a positive attitude to safe driving beyond the probationary period.
(d) A driver treatment program specifically designed for learner drivers who receive a citation for any moving violation or who are apprehended by enforcement officers for other traffic violations during probation. This is based on providing intervention training that will enable the novice to reduce recidivism once back on the roadway.
(4) Increased exposure on the part of the novice driver is necessary to ensure the learning process. Restrictions should not unduly prohibit the novice driver from accomplishing increased skills and responsibilities. To limit the novice driver's ability to expand knowledge and drive in certain areas may be difficult to enforce and have negative learning effects.
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(5) Penalties for minor violations should be recorded and targeted for driver training, or privileges should be suspended if they add up. Novice drivers with major violations should take the driver education program as outlined in 3 above, or return to the beginning of the probationary period.
I'd like to explain about that. If the probationary driver is forced by traffic violations to return to the beginning whenever he or she is near the end of the period, the result might be to attempt to avoid apprehension, and this could lead to serious consequences. That's why we would like to see some remedial training taking place instead.
(6) Finally, non-compliance with seatbelt wearing laws should be considered a moving violation and attract demerit points. We believe that all seatbelt infractions should be subjected to demerit points treatment, not only for probationary drivers, by the way.
This brings me to the last part of the brief, which is regarding motorcyclists. The proposed graduated licensing for motorcyclists need some modification. We're in support of it, but we believe it needs some modification.
One of the most successful of our road safety programs is the Canada Safety Council motorcycle training program. The Ontario Safety League administers and monitors the program in Ontario. The program, which trains novice riders in the safe operation of a motorcycle, is accessed by close to 70% of all newly licensed M operators each year. A significant factor in attracting such a high percentage of new riders is the fact that your ministry has granted M testing authority to those community colleges in the province that offer the Canada Safety Council motorcycle training program and are monitored by the Ontario Safety League. Under this authority, students who successfully complete training are granted their M licence by your ministry with no further on-bike testing required.
Studies published by your ministry indicate that in the past several years the rate of collisions and injuries for motorcyclists has dropped considerably at the same time as enrolment in the rider training program has increased as a percentage of newly licensed riders. We believe there is a correlation between these two facts.
Under the proposed graduated licensing legislation, the incentive for new motorcyclists to enrol in rider training has been significantly reduced. Rather than encouraging novice motorcyclists to participate in training prior to riding, the current proposal is to offer a modest incentive to a rider once he or she has been riding for a period of time.
Study after study has shown that a new rider is considerably more vulnerable to collision involvement in the first six months of riding than at any other time. Professional rider training should be encouraged before a novice takes to the road, not after they have learned riding habits, good or bad, that may have tragic consequences.
We ask that you consider the following amendments to the draft legislation, which we believe will preserve the integrity of the proposed graduated licensing scheme, continue to treat novice motorcyclists and automobile operators in a fair and equitable manner and encourage motorcyclists at the most vulnerable period in their riding careers to avail themselves of professional training.
We recommend that:
(1) The level 1 licence duration for a motorcyclist be extended to six months with the option for a reduction to 60 days for a rider who successfully completes a ministry approved rider training program.
(2) The level 2 licence for a motorcyclist should be reduced to a minimum time period of 18 months from the proposed 22 months, which would then ensure consistency with the G class licence.
(3) The level 1 exit test should be the well-known and accepted motorcycle operator skill test II, or MOST II as we call it, which is the same test currently in use by all Canada Safety Council motorcycle training program sponsors in Ontario.
(4) The level 1 test be administered at ministry approved rider training program sites following the completion of the Canada Safety Council motorcycle training program in accordance with current practice.
(5) Instructors acting under the ministry's existing recognized/signing authority program be authorized to conduct level 2 exit tests at approved training sites for applicants who qualify and wish to obtain a fully privileged class M licence.
The Canada Safety Council believes that these recommendations, if adopted, will continue to support the declining collision rate for motorcyclists. Motorcyclists are unable to benefit from an experienced rider at their side during the earliest driving experiences. Future legislation must continue to support incentives for early enrolment in professional, ministry approved rider training programs.
We are proud of our commitment to traffic safety and we support a graduated driver licensing system as an important tool towards safer mobility.
Mr Chairperson, members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity.
Mr Offer: Thank you for your presentation. I found it to be very helpful and dealt with not only the car issue, but also the motorcycle issue, which you brought forward in a very clear and comprehensive fashion.
Before I get to my first question, I would hope that the parliamentary assistant or ministry staff might be able to share with us whether a new form of driver's licence is going to have to be issued which will indeed show when someone first got their licence, so that if someone is stopped by a police officer, he can look at an accompanying driver and find in the licence how long that person has in fact been licensed. I do not believe that our current licence meets that test. I'd like to get some information from the ministry as to whether there are plans to change the form of licensing which will apply to all people and must apply to all people in the province.
In that respect also, I'd hope that the ministry would be very clear with us whether the four years run from the date someone is fully licensed or from the date someone gets into the level 1 system. There's a significant difference.
The third area deals with a question that I have for yourselves, and that is, you speak about the zero blood alcohol level. The problem that I have had, while agreeing with all of this, is that in level 1 and level 2 we are dealing with individuals who, by and large, are under 19 and have to have a zero blood alcohol level. The problem is that there is no penalty if someone under 19 is found contravening that and in the care and control of a vehicle.
Would you support a penalty that would in effect, upon conviction, take away their licence? There isn't anything in this government proposal to do that.
Mr Marchand: Yes. As a matter of fact, that's where in the brief I discuss the fact that when people are committing traffic violations of the Highway Code or, in that case, the licence, I would like to see that they are mandated to take a rehabilitation program or that a suspension of the driver's privileges be imposed until such time as that is.
Behaviour modification programs such as the one by the National Traffic Safety Institute go into such things as alcohol. It is built on attitude plus beliefs equal behaviour, so if we change their attitudes, then we will have some impact on their behaviour. It makes the people in the course take responsibility for their own actions. That's really the underlying part of those programs and that's why they work so well, in our opinion. They are very well tested through an independent university in the United States.
Mr Daigeler: Perhaps, to follow through with that, that would be your only suggestion then? You're making the main point to integrate the issue of traffic offenders with the graduated licensing system and you want something done, but from what you're saying, basically you just want to have them take a course? Is that all?
Mr Marchand: What I'm saying is that there is already a regulation if they are in excess of 0.08, but the legislation currently, as it will go into place, will have to be between zero and that 0.08 limit. What I'm saying is that if the young drivers, the new drivers, because they're not only young, have a certain attitude to start with, that they think they can do this kind of thing, then just suspending their driving privileges may do very little. That's why we would like to see where rehabilitation, a driver modification behaviour type program, should go into place early on so that their attitude is a positive one as they get the fully licensed privileges. Returning them to zero every time may not do the trick. We believe there's got to be some form of intervention in the form of a driver behaviour modification program.
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Mr Turnbull: You mentioned in your presentation the suggestion of taking the lid off curfews between Monday and Thursday. Let us just explore that for a moment. I'm concerned about that kind of proposal because I think practically it becomes more difficult to enforce the other days if you start making exceptions.
Mr Thérien: I would agree with you. I think they are the facts of life. The volume of traffic on the particular road we mention is not very high. Certainly, Thursday, Friday and Saturday the volume grows significantly.
Mr Turnbull: That's what we're maybe aiming at.
Mr Thérien: Absolutely. No question.
Mr Turnbull: But the reality is that --
Mr Thérien: That is the reality.
Mr Turnbull: -- if we start differentiating in the day of the week, I think --
Mr Thérien: Now you're looking at the problem that what we're suggesting leads to more administration, however defined. It may become a problem, but nevertheless --
Mr Turnbull: Just so that you understand, out of all the people in the Legislature, I'm the one who, more than anybody else, has been pushing graduated licences. I'm very keen on graduated licences. But we're looking at the tradeoff between enforceability and having a realistic law that's going to save lives.
Can I explore a few other questions? There's a question about seatbelts that concerns me, the idea that in the front seat, if you've got three belts, you'll be allowed to have three people across if you've got a bench seat. It seems to me that is a rather dangerous thought with somebody who is just getting used to the road. I'm thinking about introducing an amendment -- it wouldn't be an amendment, because this is not a bill that we have before us, but recommending to the ministry that it change the proposed law so that only the accompanying driver can be in the front seat. Could you comment on that?
Mr Marchand: When we look at the graduated licensing, we do believe that a large number of young or inexperienced or novice drivers together in one vehicle can be a combination that will lead to excessive speed or risk-taking types of behaviour, so we would be in support of that kind of amendment.
Let me also comment on the earlier one in regard to curfews. We put in the proposal in our position paper a reminder that in order for the young, the inexperienced, the novice drivers to become good drivers, they do need experience. If we unduly restrict them, they will never acquire that experience. We have to make sure they will get that experience, but certainly we would support something where only the experienced driver, the accompanying driver, would be in the front seat. I believe that's a good suggestion.
Mr Wood: Thank you for the presentation that you brought forward. Just a couple of questions along the same lines that David has put: You're talking about new drivers, young drivers and novice drivers.
Mr Thérien: We're talking about new drivers. Let's not be coy. We're talking about that 16- to 24-year-old age group, whatever it is.
Mr Wood: The reason I was asking you for that is that I know personally some people, one person in particular, a woman who never got her licence until about 40 years old because her husband was sick and she needed the car. How do we classify these, all the same as between 16 and 24?
Just before you answer -- I know Mike Cooper wants to get a question in -- when we're talking about four days a week, no restrictions, three days, restrictions, would the same thing apply for 400 series highways?
Mr Thérien: Let me go back. Maybe we should have explained further. If you look at Metro Toronto, they used to talk about the traffic rush being from 4 to 8; now I think it's 24 hours a day. In the city of Ottawa, we're not there yet. In other parts of this province, there's no traffic congestion whatsoever at any time. This is a very big province. It has a lot of different interests and a lot of different people living in it.
We've mentioned the enforcement aspect. We go back to, I think, 1974 when seatbelts became law. The enforcement agencies, the police departments did not think that was a very serious traffic violation. It took a few years for them to get on board where enforcement became -- we would hope that this does not become an administrative nightmare for the levels of government, police departments and others that have become so -- the police say, "What the hell, a licence that has" -- you're talking about a 60-year-old widow, a 17-year-old kid. We just hope that it does ride, that it's sold well, that everybody gets on board and that it's a go.
Mr Cooper: On motorcycles, when I took this training course in 1984 at Conestoga College --
Mr Thérien: Was it Canada Safety Council?
Mr Cooper: Yes. One of my instructors had the strobe light effect on the headlight, and I see that hasn't really caught on. I notice it really catches your eye so that you know there's a motorcycle on the road. One of the things about motorcycle accidents is visibility. A lot of times people don't see you because you're usually sitting in blind spots. How do you feel about identifiers for new drivers, novice riders?
Mr Marchand: Are you talking about a plate that would say they are a novice rider type of thing?
Mr Cooper: Or a vest or a big learner's sticker on your helmet.
Mr Marchand: In Ontario, we don't have a program that moves directly on to the roadway for continued work, but in five of the provinces we do. In those provinces, the students go out on the road in small groups, usually about four students and one instructor, and they do carry vests that say "Novice Rider."
I have had firsthand experience because I used to do that work. It made the drivers much more aware, much more careful of those people to the point where I know of students who graduated from those programs who continued to wear a reflective vest, not one that says "Student Rider" on it any more, but a reflective vest because they felt more secure and felt that drivers paid more attention to them.
Certainly visibility, conspicuousness, which it is sometimes called, as we refer to it, is an excellent idea and it could help novice riders to be visible, yes.
The Chair: Thank you for appearing this afternoon. I certainly note that you have presented a very comprehensive brief and the committee is appreciative of that. We trust that you'll stay in touch with the committee as we continue through the process on graduated licensing.
REGIONAL MUNICIPALITY OF OTTAWA-CARLETON HEALTH DEPARTMENT
The Chair: Next is the Ottawa-Carleton health department. Good afternoon and welcome.
Dr Stephen Corber: I'm Stephen Corber, medical officer of health for the region of Ottawa-Carleton.
Dr Geoff Dunkley: I'm Geoff Dunkley, associate medical officer of health for the health department of Ottawa-Carleton.
Dr Brent W. Moloughney: I'm Brent Moloughney, a physician undergoing specialty training at the health department.
Dr Corber: We've circulated a brief that we'll speak to, and that should take us probably about 15 minutes and we'll be available for questions as well.
My role, first, is to provide you with a little bit of background in public health and why physicians in particular are interested in the topic. The field of public health is concerned with the improvement and maintenance of personal and community health according to the principles of disease prevention, health promotion and protection and healthy public policy.
Public health practice is a combination of sciences, skills and beliefs that is directed to the maintenance and improvement of the health of all people through collective and social actions. We use basically epidemiological analysis studying the causes of various events with a view to seeing how they can be prevented.
Motor vehicle accidents: Of course, you have a lot of statistics on where motor vehicle accidents occur, how they occur, the causes etc. We advocate both for education programs and for legislation because we believe it's a balance of both that will get us to the end, not only with regard to motor vehicle accidents but in general. A balanced approach is something we certainly support.
The goals of public health are to reduce the amount of disease, premature death and disease-produced discomfort and disability in the population. Public health is therefore particularly interested in policy initiatives which address the important causes of mortality and morbidity.
The Ottawa-Carleton health department is a public health institution responsible for the public health needs of close to one million residents within the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton. Organizationally, the Ottawa-Carleton health department is a department of regional government.
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Dr Moloughney: In terms of burden, motor vehicle crashes are certainly an important cause of morbidity and mortality in our society and are the leading cause of death in young adults. Fortunately, overall, the mortality rate for motor vehicle crashes has been gradually declining over the past few decades. This is the result of a wide range of interventions, including improved road and highway design, improved safety features of motor vehicles, the wearing of seatbelts, less drinking and driving, and improved medical care for the injured following a crash.
Certainly, legislation has been an important initiative in the process. The introduction of mandatory seatbelt usage in this province in 1976 resulted in a dramatic drop in mortality for motor vehicle crashes. Few of the interventions, however, have addressed the human factor in crashes.
Young drivers are overly represented in injuries and deaths. Although drivers under the age of 25 make up about one sixth of all licensed drivers in the province, they represent almost 25% of drivers killed. Here in Ottawa-Carleton, during the five years between 1986 and 1990, there were 111 deaths due to motor vehicle crashes in the 15- to 24-year-old age group alone. This was 37% of all deaths experienced by this age group. These are young lives and these deaths accounted for over 6,000 potential years of life lost. In addition, during the same time period, again for 15- to 24-year-olds, motor vehicle crashes accounted for close to 800 hospitalizations and close to 1,200 hospital bed-days being utilized.
There are a number of factors associated with young drivers being involved in a crash. Certainly crashes have a greater proportion of fatal collisions between the hours of midnight and 6 am, particularly on Friday and Saturday evenings. Young drivers in fatal collisions are almost twice as likely to be carrying two or more passengers, and while passengers can distract a driver or lead to risk-taking behaviour, having more passengers in a crash also means that more individuals are exposed to the risk of death or injury.
Young drivers are also overrepresented in accidents involving drinking drivers, and certainly inexperience in driving and inexperience in drinking are a potent combination. While the majority of collisions occur on municipal roads, highways are the leading type of road where fatal collisions occur for young drivers, accounting for 37% of all fatalities. These risk factors occur together and interact, such that an intervention strategy which address these multiple risk factors is required.
Focusing upon age alone is misleading because experience is important as well. For example, the collision rates for 20- and 30-year-old males are essentially the same during the first year after licensure, with collision rates decreasing in subsequent years for the older driver at a faster rate. This supports the concept that an increased risk of road crashes is not merely a youth problem, but rather also one of inexperience.
The concept of graduated licensing has been around for a number of years and is a gradual, step-by-step licensing process that is designed to help new drivers acquire the knowledge and skill they need to operate a motor vehicle safely. The concept has been advocated by a number of individuals and organizations, including the chief medical officer of health of Ontario, the Ontario Medical Association, the Traffic Injury Research Foundation of Canada and the Insurance Bureau of Canada.
In terms of experience, the greatest experience has been found in New Zealand, where a graduated licensing system implemented in 1987 resulted in a drop in fatalities of 25% and the number of injury-producing crashes by 40% in young drivers in the first two years.
Graduated licensing systems have been introduced at a later time in Australia. According to the Traffic Injury Research Foundation, preliminary results there are not as good as those observed in New Zealand.
Dr Dunkley: The principle of graduated licensing is to allow inexperienced drivers the chance to gain driving experience in relatively safe conditions. When we looked at the proposed legislation, we looked at it in the light of how the proposed legislation is similar to interventions elsewhere in the world, particularly in New Zealand, which has had a proven impact, and also the practicality and the health impact.
We would really like to make two points, I think, to the committee today. The first is that the Ottawa-Carleton health committee strongly endorses the concept of graduated licensing for new car drivers. However, we do feel that the proposed legislation, while it seems to be excellent at level 1 of the graduated licensing, in our opinion doesn't provide a sufficient step from level 1 to level 2 to full licensure.
Our specific recommendations relate to strengthening that level 2 to put it more in line with a proven-effective mechanism in New Zealand and to provide us with a real two-step system. The specific amendments to the proposed legislation which we are making are the following:
(a) That the initial stipulation for supervisors be that they be sitting in the front seat of the vehicle;
(b) That in level 2 of the graduated licensing there be no driving between midnight and 5 am unless accompanied by a supervisor; and finally
(c) In level 2, that there be no passengers unless there is also a supervisor present in the car.
This is based on the principle that we are trying to give the young or inexperienced driver experience in relatively safe conditions. Clearly, the evidence is that the unsafe times are between midnight and 5 am, and also if you get a bunch of young people in the car. We feel that it's important in level 2 to have those stipulations in there.
The final recommendation that we would make is just one of clarification: that the four years of driving experience could include the two years within the graduated licence. That would imply that a driver, at the age of 20, could function as a supervisor, as opposed to not being able to do it till the age of 22.
In conclusion then, motor vehicle accidents are a major cause of ill health and death in our society. The burden of this is disproportionately borne by young and inexperienced drivers. We strongly support the introduction of graduated licensing in Ontario to partly address this major health problem. The proposed changes will bring the Ontario proposal more in line with the proven-effective program in New Zealand and would create a true two-step, graduated system.
Mr Turnbull: Having pushed for this legislation, we now have what I consider to be a very modest package. I believe we need to strengthen it. When I look at your recommendation (c), that there should be no passengers unless accompanied by a supervisor in level 2, I predict that my colleague Mr Conway is going to have something to say about this. One of the concerns that was expressed consistently in preparing this legislation is rural and northern Ontario, where there is no public transportation, and the hardship that would cause.
Clearly we can see a relationship between having cars jammed full of kids joyriding, particularly late and night and where there is speed and/or alcohol involved, but I think as legislators we have to make sure that we bring in laws which are respected, because unless they are, they will be flouted and that's probably worse than bringing in nothing. I wonder if you could just expand on your views with respect to recommendation (c).
Dr Dunkley: Yes. I think clearly that's what we're trying to do with this graduated licensing, to provide the experience in a graduated fashion but also to provide a practical level. This was our feeling, that at level 2 it's not appropriate to say there can be no passengers in the car, but we're trying to graduate from a situation where there should be no passengers in the car to one where there simply needs to be an adult in the car as well.
It seemed to us that this was a way to graduate and that this would, in most circumstances, be a practical situation. That was one of the concerns about the four years of experience, that there would need to be an older teenager, if we're talking about teenagers, of the order of age 20, and that it would start to get impractical if you couldn't have that supervisor until the age of 22.
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Mr Turnbull: I think it would be awfully hard to get the concurrence of people in rural areas with your recommendation (c). My concern would be that in level 2 you would just have people who would violate the terms of graduated licensing, whereas if we were to ensure that you had an accompanying driver in level 2 in late-night situations or high-speed situations or where there are a certain number of passengers perhaps -- but saying just simply no passengers unless there's an accompanying driver in the whole of level 2 I think would be very difficult to enforce.
Dr Corber: Enforcement is always a tough situation. Predicting enforcement is always difficult in this legislation. We've seen it in various aspects and I'm sure you have as well, so nobody can say for sure. I think you can only look at what has happened in other areas, and we have to remember that the legislation for the first level is lower than this. It depends on how it's phrased and how it's seen, but it could be seen to be too restrictive. On the other hand, the other level is more restrictive.
What I guess I'm trying to say is that this level has to be observed, for one year anyway. I'm not sure that there's a huge difference in the enforcement. If people don't respect the law, they're not going to say, "Now I've driven 15 months instead of nine months or eight months, so I can do it." I think there has to be a respect for the idea. My sense of it, although, as I say, one can never be sure of these things, is that it's not as though everybody's here and you're moving to here. There are some people who are really more restricted, then there's this group and then there's another group. So they may be seeing it as some degree of freedom or relaxation rather than as some degree of restriction, because people in this level will have come from a more restricted area.
Mr Turnbull: I'm from a Metro Toronto riding and I take it you all live in Ottawa, and we see this in an urban context. I don't think there's any great hardship in what you're saying for an urban context, but I suppose that my colleague Mr Wood will be commenting on the northern Ontario experience, where this might be the only form of transportation available and there may not be, for a protracted period of time, an accompanying driver available. We're looking at legislation to cover the whole of Ontario, not just the urban areas.
Dr Corber: I understand your point. I can't pretend that I really understand the way things operate in rural areas and how people will view it. I can only say that the other option is that you can drive by yourself and not take a passenger. So you can move. As I'm saying, the year before you couldn't have done it either. In other words, in your first year you couldn't have carried a passenger either. It's hard for me to judge; other people will know better.
Mr Turnbull: Let me couch the argument for that. The present system in essence will require that you're going to probably take four to six months before you get your licence, so you need an accompanying driver. In level 1, to the extent that you take approved drivers' education, within eight months you can get out of level 1. So the step is from maybe four to six months to eight months, which is not a large change. I'm not sure it's a good idea that we let people afterwards go unaccompanied on 400 highways or at night, when they haven't had experience, with an accompanying driver. But just across the board to say we won't allow passengers unless you've got an accompanying driver in the whole of level 2 seems to me rather restrictive.
The Chair: Ms Haeck, continuing on this line.
Ms Haeck: Yes, I do want to continue on this line. The riding that I represent, while it does have a fairly large urban component, also has a rural component. I know you've all heard of Niagara-on-the-Lake, and it's not just the downtown of the old town we're talking about. You're talking about a lot of fruit farmers in the area whose children are integral to their harvesting the crop and, obviously, preparing for that harvest. Those children have to a large degree had exposure to motor vehicles long before the city folk. In talking to my rural colleagues in our rural advisory committee, that is true throughout the province.
When you're setting some of these limits where somebody is going to basically be going pretty close to two years in trying to find a relative, who in all likelihood is going to be able to fulfil these criteria too, in some respects, not necessarily just for socializing but actually to help out the family, where one member may have to be doing something on the farm and say, "Okay, John or Jane go off and do this and come right back because we need you for the grating of peaches," or something, they're more likely to be able to accept it for the shorter period of time, but I have a feeling that this is going to create some hardship for the longer period of time.
Dr Dunkley: One point that we feel is crucial in this is that to some extent we're looking at it to the extent of the health problem, the number of accidents that we have among our young people, the deaths and the injuries that are occurring, and we are viewing this initiative as a way to address that problem. If you look at the experience we have had in Australia and New Zealand, the relatively restrictive approach in New Zealand did have a dramatic impact on those deaths and those injuries. The Australian approach, which is more similar to the approach here, where the level 2 did not have these requirements on passengers and on a curfew, did not have any impact on those deaths and injuries among the young people.
It seems to me that's the challenge that you in your wisdom have as legislators, that there is a major problem in terms of these young and inexperienced people in our current system having a great number of accidents. We're looking at an initiative which is going to attempt to address that. We need to balance the inconvenience which that intervention may cause with the benefits in terms of that reduction in what's really a slaughter of our young people out on the highways.
Mr Wood: I don't know that I have a question, but I have a couple of comments I want to make. The goal of this, leading into the legislation, is to make sure that the surgeons and the doctors in this province are not going to be having to patch up as many broken bones and attend as many deaths on the highways, so that eventually, over the next 25 or 30 years, the improvements are going to be there.
There's no doubt in my mind that between northern Ontario and southern Ontario there is a difference as far as speeds are concerned, because on a two-lane highway it's very easy for the OPP or the town police to pick people off with their radar system that they have now, whereas you can't it on multilane highways because you're putting the police at risk.
The only comment I would make is that whatever is decided on and put into legislation, I guess it has to be standard right across the province, but there's going to be some groaning guess, that northern Ontario or rural Ontario, which doesn't have public transportation systems, is going to have more of an adjustment to the way it's being implemented. Eventually, it will be accepted. But I'd repeat again, the goal is make sure we can get the amount of fatalities among young drivers or new drivers and all drivers eventually down to zero.
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Mr Conway: Thank you, doctors, for a very interesting, stimulating set of recommendations, some of which I like a lot, one of which gives me some pause.
You happily are the medical officers of health for the entire regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton, right? My job in this committee is to sort of play devil's advocate in some sense, and I want to be clear. I think there is a real problem and it has to be dealt with. By and large, I accept the principle of the graduated licence and will support it wholeheartedly. But like Mr Wood, and I think others, I think there has to be one set of rules: rules that have some hope of being enforced and some hope of being reasonably accepted by the people for whom they are intended.
Having said that, now I want to come to an example. We -- you as doctors and myself as an elected official -- are going to spend an afternoon at, let's say for the sake of argument, the West Carleton Secondary School or the South Carleton High School, two wonderful places in your area of jurisdiction. After you give the safe-sex pitch about all of the things that we are concerned about there, because we know adolescent hormones are capable of producing some real concerns around risks --
Mr Jackson: There is a tie-in to the automobile somewhere.
Mr Conway: We don't all have the monastic purity of the member from Burlington, but we know that there, for example, we recognize that in the area of public health we've got some concerns there about the way in which young people are reacting to public education campaigns around very real, measurable risks.
So we've given that lecture. I only raise it because I was saying in the committee last week, for members who were here last week, that the Ontario medical officer of health has produced recently some really terrifying, for me, data around attitudes of young people on that account. You've all seen the recent report on Ontario behaviours in the age category 12 to 19. I looked at that stuff and thought, Jeez, that really is disturbing.
Now I come to a second category of concern, driving, where you people make a very, very powerful argument about the problems. But I'm in the West Carleton or South Carleton parking lot with these kids. I'm looking at point (c). I don't know whether you field-tested this, but it might be interesting to actually take the concept out into Dunrobin or into Richmond and say to the people for whom we intend responsible change, "What will this mean in your lives and to what extent are you and your parents prepared to make the necessary adjustments because this is good for you?"
We all want to do it, but it's sort of like the safe-sex message. "It's really important that you hear this and react accordingly. We're going to legislate and do this. What is this going to do to your daily lives? How relevant is this and how reasonable is it?"
My worry, like Mr Wood's, is that it just may not accord with reality for those people, excepting that they will I think endorse change to increase the level of restriction and stringency around licensing.
Dr Corber: I can make a couple of comments about that which I hope might encourage you. I think first of all there's a question of a short-term view versus a long-term view and a pre-imposed kind of attitude. I think while we're looking at people today who might be quite upset by a change, once the change is implemented, once it's there, five years from now it'll be normal behaviour. We've seen it with smoking in movie theatres, in banks and post offices, which is unheard of now but at the time it was an outlandish proposal. It's the same thing with the acceptance now of seatbelts. At the time, people were saying, "Oh, we've only got 20% of people who will do this," but now you watch people and it's a pretty normal thing.
I think we worry too much sometimes about enforcement. Basically our population is law-abiding and they accept good things.
Another difference here, I think, from safe sex, if that's an example, but just something to look at anyway is the idea that kids already look at driving as a privilege and feel it is responsible. Not every child and not every case, but they don't view it the same way they do some other things. They know there are certain things they have to do in order to get a licence and they learn in school about it. Many kids know the 365 that you need, and you have to take the course and you have to do it. They don't all do all the things they're supposed to do, I'm not suggesting that they do, but this is a privilege to drive, and I think new drivers see it pretty well that way.
I think putting some measures in which -- I think they're more readily acceptable in this kind of context than they might be in other kinds of areas, because you can go get a pack of cigarettes or, obviously, have sex without having to get a licence. So this is really quite a different kind of environment, I think.
Mr Conway: I guess I'd say this, and I appreciate what you've argued here, my feeling is that in parts of this province -- again, I like to take the map of New Zealand and the map of Ontario and put them up on a wall and say, "Do you notice anything different about these two geographies?" Because you might.
My impression is that in this province and in this country, where one of the fundamental realities is the tyranny of distance, for a lot of people a long way away from any kind of urban environment, driving is not a privilege, it is a necessity. You find the most remarkable stories about people. The farm members: Bill Murdoch, the member for Grey, has been here and he's been telling us some very interesting stories about the reality of kids growing up on a farm. It's absolutely irrelevant if you live in Pembroke or if you live in Ottawa, but I'll tell you, if you live out in rural Lanark, and I don't but I represent a lot of that territory, that's just part of the reality.
I guess that's my point. I understand what you're saying about the privilege, and I accept it to a real extent, but I've got to tell you, my sense of it is that if you live in Stratton or Emo, in the Rainy River district, boy, don't lecture me about a privilege. It is an absolute necessity. There's no way you can live.
Dr Corber: Perhaps I used the wrong word calling it a privilege.
Mr Conway: No, I think you used the right --
Dr Corber: What I mean is that people see it as something that they want to do and maybe need to do and see it as a positive thing that they need to do.
I would use the converse, though, and I think we have to be careful here. If you put up a map of Australia, it may not look that different from Ontario, and the fact is when they didn't have a more restrictive approach, they didn't really cut into the --
Mr Conway: But where do 90% of those Australians live?
Mr Daigeler: Just briefly, I wanted to say that we appreciate you as a department, in fact both the medical officer of health and the deputy medical officer of health, coming on this item. To my knowledge, it's the only department which as such is officially represented. We did have a public health nurse in Toronto, but I think this falls very much within your mandate and I appreciate you coming forward and sharing your concerns with us.
Have you as a department had any kind of pressure from the public for the graduated licences? Since this was announced, I as an MPP have had letters, but I'm just wondering whether there has been any kind of public call for it that you are aware of.
Dr Corber: I haven't had any in my office. Geoff, did you get any?
Dr Dunkley: We have had some contact with parent advisory committees in Ottawa and there has been some interest expressed. We have just actually conducted what we called an adolescent plan, our strategic planning around how we really promote the health of adolescents here in Ottawa-Carleton, and talking a lot with the young kids as well as their parents. The whole issue of alcohol as an issue in their lives, and accidents, was something that did come out of that exercise, that the kids and their parents do see it as a problem.
Mr Daigeler: Could I just ask in relation to this, because my time is quickly running out, as part of the teaching of the public health nurses in the Ottawa-Carleton area, do you also emphasize the safe driving aspects? This nurse who came to us in Toronto for her board that she works with said they're doing that. She said it was something new, but I thought it was very exciting, because very often in these hearings people said education, motivation, attitude change, that type of thing is extremely important, and I could see a role for the public health nurse in that regard. Are your people involved in this?
Dr Corber: To date most of our education about safe driving has been about bicycles and helmet use rather than motor vehicles. There may be a role for us, that's quite true, but to date we've been mostly on the policy level rather than --
Mr Daigeler: I would certainly encourage you to take that up.
The Vice-Chair: Gentlemen, thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedules and coming here and expressing your concerns on public health.
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JOHN AND FRED DONKOR
The Chair: Fred and John Donkor, good afternoon and welcome. You've been allocated one half-hour for your presentation and the committee would appreciate about half of that time, if possible, for questions and answers and discussion. Identify yourselves for Hansard and proceed with your presentation.
Mr John Donkor: The need to reduce accidents is recognized by us. We're not convinced about the statistics used to support the proposed system but will not dwell on that. We believe road accidents can be reduced by other means than the proposed system, which we consider unfair to perhaps the majority of new drivers.
Our concerns centre on the following aspects of the proposed plan: the time it takes to be fully licensed, the ban on driving on 400 series highways etc and the ban on driving between midnight and 5 am.
Driving is a privilege which goes with the responsibility. We admit not all new drivers have been responsible, especially younger drivers. Most accidents happen because of lack of responsibility, not lack of experience.
We are not opposed to the experienced drivers accompanying new drivers. We are merely saying that 8 to 12 months is too long. Twenty-two months for the whole process is also too much. We are also not sure how the length of time a new driver is accompanied translates into responsibility.
Most of the requirements for level 2 are currently illegal anyway, except for the alcohol content, which is illegal for those new drivers under the age of 19. Experience has little to do with respecting the law; enforcement would.
We believe that with the right type of intensive driver's education, the time can be safely cut four to six months.
The experience of the accompanying driver should be less than four years, perhaps two years. After all, if you assume that the new system would work well, then we should have competent drivers after two years.
All drivers have to use most roads some day. It won't be right to have someone serve 8 to 12 months and all of a sudden be thrust on a four-lane highway. If new drivers are taught properly, including some road experience on major highways, there will be no need for this restriction.
For those of us living in rural areas, such as myself, this is the worst restriction of all: the ban between midnight and 5 am. To be restricted for so long in areas where public transportation is non-existent is not only unfair but inconsiderate. New drivers who seek employment or are employed could be at a disadvantage compared to those not caught by the system who would have more flexibility in terms of hours.
Our alternative recommendations are: Make driver education mandatory and more intensive. Students spend too little time on the road and most of this time is spent on back roads. Road-testing should be more stringent, including some time on major highways where possible. There should be zero tolerance for drunk driving. Automatic suspension may get the message across. There should be zero tolerance on carrying too many passengers. Here again, enforcement with heavy penalty would help. There should be a minimum of four to six months between obtaining a learner's permit and taking the road test.
The Chair: Could you repeat that recommendation?
Mr John Donkor: There should be a minimum of four to six months between obtaining a learner's permit and taking the road test.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Do you have further on your presentation?
Mr Fred Donkor: No, that's really it.
The Chair: Okay. May I ask, with the indulgence of the committee, would I be safe in assuming that you are a student?
Mr John Donkor: Yes.
The Chair: Would I also be safe in assuming that you are a new or potentially new driver?
Mr John Donkor: Yes.
The Chair: The reason I raised that is that it has been often said in this committee that we have not heard enough from students and from potentially new drivers, people who will be affected by this legislation. I am, for my part, and I believe on the committee's part, delighted that you're here. We can have some meaningful conversations and discussion.
Ms Haeck: You mentioned in your presentation that you were living in a rural area; I would assume somewhere in the environs of Ottawa-Carleton.
Mr John Donkor: Yes.
Ms Haeck: One of the recommendations that doesn't sort of catch all of the seasons of the year would be the fact that if, let's say, you came up for your licence in April, or at least you started the process in April, you could be finished it before the major winter season that's here in Ottawa. Some of the kind of experience that I think the legislation is really trying to hit is all seasons of the year and giving people like yourself a good practical and well-rounded approach to driver's ed. What would be your response to that observation?
Mr John Donkor: Well, I do agree, I think drivers should be tested in all -- most of all in winter basically, and summer, because summer is usually when everybody wants to get their licence. I have friends who would turn 16 in January, but wouldn't want to take driver's ed, wouldn't want to start until July or August for the fact that it's easier, probably, to obtain your licence in the summer than it is in the winter.
To that, I would say, we need more intensive road tests. I think we have to have road tests -- two sets of road tests would probably be appropriate because I think we do have to gain experience in the winter.
Ms Haeck: One of the problems is that if someone has gone through the process in the way you are describing it so far, they would be a fully licensed driver within about six months. Then it would be rather hard, unless that person had committed some sort of infraction, to sort of bring that person back in to be retested because they have -- the way the system has worked so far, once you have that licence, unless you have a certain number of points against you, the system doesn't catch you again. You would have to, in some way, address the fact that even -- there would have to be some sort of a modification and your recommendation is to sort of catch those people again and it would then, I think, be administratively difficult to make sure you got everyone.
Mr Fred Donkor: Yes, I was just going to make a comment on that. I believe you can still give people the licence. Let me backtrack for one moment. I'm not sure whether we have the statistics to prove that, let's say, more accidents by new drivers happen more often in summer than in winter. My own suspicion is that this is the case. Even though driving in winter is more treacherous, there are likely to be fewer accidents in winter than there are in summer.
As I said, I don't have any statistics to prove this and, therefore, in that case the question of education comes in. You have your driver's licence. Some of it may overlap the six months in terms of having somebody to accompany you and so forth, but even if it doesn't, I think a lot of reinforcement will make people driving in winter, the new drivers driving in winter drive more carefully.
I guess our whole thrust basically is the fact that the institution of this, the proposal for this new system basically indicates that there is some failure in the system and the failure is the fact that as far as we can identify, driver's ed is not good enough. The current intensity of the driver's ed is not good enough. How many hours do they spend on the road? You spend a few hours in class, you spend a few hours on the road and you are let go on probation. I don't think that's good enough.
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Mr Wayne Lessard (Windsor-Walkerville): In response to the Chair's question, he asked if you were a student and you said yes. I assume that today is a school day, so I hope you're not going to get in any trouble for being here.
On a number of occasions during your submission you said, "we feel" and "we recommend," and I wonder whether this is something that you've had an opportunity to speak with your classmates about and whether you're speaking on behalf of perhaps your student council or some committee at school, or whether this is something you've come up with on your own.
Mr John Donkor: It was actually, I think, CTV that broadcast -- they were notifying that graduated licensing might come in and they explained the proposed plan. At that time I was shocked. I heard rumours about it, but sometimes you think things like this will never go through.
Ms Haeck: You're keeping your fingers crossed.
Mr John Donkor: Exactly. A number of my friends and classmates had seen that and there was a big -- people were misinformed, the media totally blew it up. There are some people, first of all, who think the system is two years of driving with their parents strictly. They don't know the facts. One thing my dad and I sort of were saying about this is that the reason a lot of kids aren't -- you're not hearing feedback from the kids because they don't believe it's going to go through. It's culture shock; it's going to go through. Something is going to be changed; there has to be change.
In regard to your question, yes, before going into this I asked my friends what they thought about it. I live in Stittsville, which is a rural area. It's growing but it's still a rural area and the transit system is non-existent. Stittsville is part of Goulbourn township, and Goulbourn township consists of Stittsville, Richmond, Munster hamlet and Ashton. I'm sure there are maybe other little communities in there, but I moved to Stittsville from Kanata.
A lot of them work in town and they find it inconvenient to get their parent to drive in and out and all that, and they are hoping when they are 16 to maybe get their licence. It would be kind of the end of that, but with this it's dragging this on and on. They feel it's unnecessary and they refuse to be judged by those who are older than them just because -- everybody is an individual, right? They just think if some people are going to be irresponsible, that's their problem. We're normal; we're going to be okay.
Mr Lessard: If people are irresponsible on the road, that has an effect on other people most of the time. I just, in closing, want to say I admire you for having done your homework on this one and you can advise your friends that you're right, that this is probably something that is going to go ahead and you can play a role in providing further information to them. So thank you for coming today.
Mr John Donkor: Thanks a lot.
Mr Conway: I'm very happy to see you. John, is it?
Mr John Donkor: Yes.
Mr Conway: Stittsville, just beyond the fringe. Isn't that the old ad?
Mr Daigeler: That's the really old --
Mr Conway: I know. Now, John, which high school do you go to?
Mr John Donkor: I go to South Carleton High School.
Mr Conway: Your medical officers of health for the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton -- very fine fellows, were just here -- made a presentation and I want to pick up on a couple of aspects of it, but I really appreciate your coming and Mr Lessard made a very good point in his last statement by saying that when you drive there are implications for not just yourself, but others.
I could say for the committee that you better go back out there to Richmond and tell your pals, anybody else who cares to listen, that something significant is going to happen and that they better prepare themselves for it because, as a class, young people, as inexperienced drivers, obviously on the basis of all of the stats have some real problems. So we're here from the government and we're here to help you fix that.
Now, I'm interested to ask you about a couple of things. You know about the way the proposal is intended, level 1 and level 2?
Mr John Donkor: Yes.
Mr Conway: Your medical officers of health suggested that the committee amend the current proposal to provide, at level 2, that there be no passengers in the vehicle that you as a level 2 driver are driving unless there is a supervisor, which really means under this proposal of theirs, an adult, in fact at least somebody 19 or 20 years of age.
I want you to help me because I was using the example of your high school. What's that going to do to the way in which students at South Carleton who have cars or who have access to cars behave? Is that going to really be a problem?
Mr John Donkor: Behaviourwise, if you're asking if it would tame the reckless driving or tame kids from speeding and stuff, it would. I can't sit in one seat and be going out and try to race somebody next to me with my dad there. That doesn't make sense.
The Chair: You could, but likely only once.
Mr Conway: Are there many students at South Carleton who, on a typical afternoon, are driven home after school, say, a 16-year-old who's been driven home by a 17- or 18-year-old older brother, sister or friend?
Mr John Donkor: Yes, there is a lot of that.
Mr Conway: Because you see under this proposal, that would have to stop.
Mr John Donkor: Exactly.
Mr Conway: Unless there was an over-20-year-old in the car. Would that be a problem?
Mr John Donkor: That definitely would be a problem.
Mr Conway: But a big problem or an isolated problem?
Mr John Donkor: I think that would be a very large problem. We'd have problems. Our school parking lot is packed. It's packed basically. A lot of kids drive to school. Think about it, if you were a kid, how inconvenient that would be.
Mr Conway: But if we tell those students that, listen, these are the numbers -- and your medical officers of health have made an excellent presentation to us citing the statistics and they're very worrisome. So if I went out there to South Carleton and said, "Now John listen, it's tough, but it's tough for a reason and you are going to have to change the way you behave and we're no longer to allow anybody to drive anybody out of the parking lot at South Carleton effectively unless there is an adult with them."
Mr John Donkor: When you say, "You have to change the way you behave," you're addressing the drivers a year before me, drivers who have taken driver's ed and finished before me. I'm a totally different person and I just know what I would do and what I wouldn't do, and I wouldn't put my or anybody else's life in jeopardy when driving them to school. Is that enough? Is that okay?
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Mr Conway: Yes, thank you.
Mr Daigeler: I live in Barrhaven and I've been trying to convince my colleague here from Renfrew North that the situation in Barrhaven isn't really that different from the rural part. Stittsville, of course, is not too far from Barrhaven. The reality of this change will hit home to where I live just as much as it will hit home to you, perhaps a little bit more in John's area. But I'm not convinced that it is that much harder, because my kids drive from Barrhaven to the K mart at Bells Corners, and it's quite a distance. So there will have to be some sacrifice and some adjustment.
However, I should tell you that most of the presenters in these hearings that we've had so far have been arguing for a much stronger system. In fact, when you said that the kids were afraid that they'd have to drive for two years by their parents, more or less this is what people have been arguing. They have said to the government and to us, "Make this much stronger than the way it is." The people who have been saying this, and frankly I am touched by that, are people who have been involved with those who have suffered from the accidents.
We had somebody here this morning who was in an accident, who was hit by a young driver and whose life has been ruined because of it. We've had people from the insurance industry who deal on a daily basis with these accidents. We've had medical people, we've had the coroner and so on, all people who have seen the results of the accidents. I think they're making a very strong point that if we can save some lives and some injuries, it's more than worth the inconvenience that's going to be on you.
By the way, my youngest daughter -- the two other ones are pretty well through it now, but I still have a daughter who's 13, and it makes it worthwhile. So I'm asking you whether you are aware of any of these accidents that have happened in your area recently and how that may have impacted on the students at your school.
Mr John Donkor: Yes, every year our school is probably notorious for having at least a death. I'm in grade 10, actually. I was in grade 9 last year. The death didn't have anything to do with a car accident, but the year before, apparently, an older student -- I think he was in grade 13 or grade 12 -- had been involved in a collision, I think, and it affected the school. A lot of people were hurt and things like that. But from what I heard, he was speeding, He was being irresponsible himself. He didn't have any passengers with him. He was just being irresponsible by himself. We all felt bad and stuff, but things like that shouldn't go on. You shouldn't jeopardize other people's rights and privileges.
Mr Fred Donkor: It seems to me -- and again, it's just an observation in general -- that most of these accidents tend to be alcohol-related. In fact, I think in the documentation that we obtained, they did indicate the fact that most of these accidents tended to happen on Friday nights and Saturday nights. It's obvious to me that most of these are kids who want to have fun and end up overdoing it.
My concern is that I think there should be more, as we said, enforcement. If you are told, for instance, that if you are caught once, there is no warning, you won't drive for the next five years, I think you would think twice before getting behind the wheel drunk, especially when you are a new driver.
The other day, in fact yesterday, a parent was telling me about some kids who went to a party overloaded the car, not only inside the car, but had people in the trunk. Suddenly, they spot a policeman and begin to panic: "Tell the guys in the trunk. Close the trunk." I mean, this is ridiculous. They know it's illegal. Whether you are 16, 20 or 50, it's illegal to pack the car. If again they are aware that if you are caught for something like that, that you are finished for, say, five years, I think they are going to listen.
The unfortunate thing is that of course rules have to be made to protect everybody, and I do realize that there's a lot of cost to injuries and to the public system for injuries and death and so forth, but I don't think all young people or young drivers -- I think we can face the fact that the target seems to be young people, regardless of the fact that there are some new drivers in other age groups -- are all that irresponsible. I think we have some bad apples who are making problems for the whole group and that's the part that I object to.
I definitely would like to see my kids, and I have three of them, drive normally and I think they are very responsible people. I have two kids who've passed through this stage and for the past five or six years have not had one single accident. It's that responsibility. Unfortunately, you can't say the same for everybody and that's just, I guess, the unfortunate part of this whole thing.
Mr Jackson: Thank you, John, for your presentation. I jotted notes down as you spoke and you identified the three reasons you object to aspects of this legislation: the length of total time -- 8 to 12 months -- the ban on the specific highways and the ban on evening driving. Those are the three you identified and then in your recommendations, you mentioned zero tolerance of alcohol, zero tolerance of additional passengers.
I want to revisit that because I think the committee may get a sense, from discussing your reference to your parking lot and the inconvenience -- I want to explore a little more carefully your thinking behind the zero tolerance on passengers. Can you comment a little bit further on that?
Mr John Donkor: First of all, the zero alcohol -- you're talking about the --
Mr Jackson: That one I understand and I'm just wanting to pursue this because, as a young future driver, your presence before the committee is very important. I think during your questioning and responses you may have indicated that additional passengers could be warranted under circumstances.
I get a sense from you that if certain things are upgraded and you reduce the amount of time of probation, you might be able to live with zero passengers, and I get a sense of that. I think that this is a fairness principle, instead of protracting the process to two years and saying, "No passengers," whereas the system suggests you can have passengers. I just want to get a sense from you how you feel about that.
Tomorrow this committee's going to hear from families from my community. The driver of the vehicle -- he had received his licence the same day -- and four young students all burned to death. He couldn't retrieve them from the vehicle. He had to sit and watch them burn to death, and they were alive as they were burning. We will receive that presentation tomorrow in St Catharines. So there's very compelling evidence on the risk factors associated with the person behind the wheel who is better protected, in many instances, than the passengers who in some instances are trapped and die in a variety of means.
So forgive me for suggesting that you may have changed slightly in your response to Mr Conway's question. I wanted to put a more exact point on your reference to how you feel about additional passengers being in the vehicle with you as a young probationary driver as opposed to, for example, just being in the car with your father as that person with the experienced licence and supervising you during your probationary period.
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Mr John Donkor: First of all, if I was driving with my father for the first two months of this proposed plan and I felt and my dad felt that I had gained confidence and I had gained skill enough to carry passengers, I guess you could say, with his supervision, that would be my certain case. Some people wouldn't -- what was I trying to say? What I'm trying to say is there are different scenarios everywhere. Different things can happen. That's unfortunate about the family in St Catharines, but that is rare. It is obviously rare. A lot of accidents are rare.
Mr Jackson: Thank you very much, John. I think my colleague had a brief question as well.
Mr Turnbull: You mentioned mandatory driver education. One of the concerns is the availability of it, not in areas like yours, where you're within striking distance of Ottawa, but in really rural areas and in northern Ontario. There's also the question of hardship, if there's a very poor family, as to whether they can afford it. Could you just comment on that for a moment?
Mr John Donkor: First of all, maintenance of an automobile is very expensive. It costs money to drive a car around. I mean, you have insurance, you have maintenance bills, you have gas, you have everything. So the way I see it is, if you have a car and you are able to insure it and all that, you should be able to purchase, first of all, your own safety. A driver education course is for safety reasons. For a family not that well off, first of all, driver's ed is a discount on insurance, and it would only be for the betterment of the driver, whoever is driving.
Mr Turnbull: Let us assume that the legislation, essentially as you now see it, goes through. There has been some suggestion of exemptions being granted in level 2, and we haven't worked it out yet, for education and employment purposes. Do you think that would work to solve your problems and still leave it at the one year or eight months for the first level?
Mr John Donkor: The first eight months, first of all, is basically where a lot of people have problems. Level 2, I frankly don't understand. First of all, like I said, some of the restrictions in level 2, for a person my age -- there's a zero alcohol tolerance. First of all, I'm not supposed to be drinking anyway. The drinking age in Ontario is 19 years old and I'm not supposed to be drinking anyway, yet there are still police who will let you off on things like that.
Mr Turnbull: Really? You find that there are police who will let kids who have been drinking --
Mr John Donkor: They won't breathalyse you; they'll just move you on, I guess.
Mr Turnbull: You know of circumstances where that has happened?
Mr John Donkor: From word of mouth, kind of. I've overheard people saying: "Yeah, I was pretty drunk. I had to get home so, you know" -- kids have ways to get around things. Somebody will grab a piece of gum to cover their breath, because that's usually how policemen will know if you're drunk or you're not, right? People just avoid it somehow.
But can I get on with my other ones? The carrying a passenger business, first of all: What I believe, what I've heard, is you're not supposed to carry any more passengers than you have seatbelts.
Mr Turnbull: Seatbelts. That's right, yes.
Mr John Donkor: I don't understand, first of all, if that is already a law, why it is not being enforced.
Mr Turnbull: Good point. We had the same question.
Mr John Donkor: The other one was to drive class G vehicles only, I believe. I'm not going to go out and drive a Mack truck or something. The way I see it is, basically, what's the difference between me having my full license and being in level 2? Is it a probationary process where if I get into an accident, my level 2 time is going to be extended? Or, depending on circumstances, is it going to be left normal?
Mr Turnbull: John, that's one of the things that some people have been suggesting. In fact, there has been the suggestion that if somebody was involved in some problem which was of their own making, they might be bounced back from level 2 to level 1. But the idea is not to make this a punishment, but to make it part of a learning process, because the fact is that your age group, 16 through 24, is way overrepresented in the statistics. It's something that we can't hide from.
You may say, "Gee, I'm a safe driver." But unfortunately, when you write the law, you can't say, "We'll apply this only to the people who are unsafe drivers," because I've never come across anybody who will admit to being an unsafe driver, although I've met a lot of people who tell me they are a safe driver. So that's not a very good test, and that's the basic problem. We have an unusually large number of fatalities and serious accidents among the age group 16 through 24. In fact, it's the greatest killer of people in your age group.
There was one presenter the other day who was suggesting that in fact all the other accidental causes of death of young people combined are not as great as road accidents. That is the reason we're looking at this legislation.
Mr John Donkor: I think the majority of accidents with young drivers are probably, as my dad said, alcohol affiliated. I think there has to be more of a restriction on things like underage drinking.
Mr Turnbull: Our sense is that's improving quite a bit, John, in your age group, the incidence of people drinking and driving, don't you think? Speed is another factor.
Thank you very much for coming forward. You're the only young driver who was in the system who could be affected by this legislation who has come forward so far, so thank you very much for your opinion, John.
The Chair: John and Fred, on behalf of the entire committee, thank you for appearing this afternoon. Your input is very valuable. You can judge by the level of interest in what you've had to say that we are indeed interested in views from people such as yourselves.
I congratulate both of you for doing what I think is a very responsible thing and something that I wish more people would do, and that's get involved in participating in the process. I commend you for taking the opportunity to come as father and son and deal with an issue that I'm sure is one that, as much as it's a government issue, is likely a kitchen table issue as well.
There is written transcript of these proceedings. I would encourage you to stay in touch with the clerk of the committee, who can provide those written transcripts of your testimony that you'll be able to refer back to. Thank you very much for being here this afternoon.
Mr Wood: I just want to know if I can get some clarification from either the parliamentary assistant or the Ministry of Transportation on the regulations, in that if I'm driving a car, I'm responsible for children up to a certain age -- I'm not sure of that age -- but a driver who has a whole bunch of adults in the car is not responsible for how many people are in the vehicle. Individuals are responsible for it. I just want to get clarification on that.
The Chair: Did you wish to clarify that now or do we want to hear the next witness, who is likely waiting and has been for the past 10 minutes?
Mr Dadamo: I'll only be about 30 seconds. What I'd like to say is that I'm under the impression that if people in the car under 16 are not wearing seatbelts, then the driver is responsible, but over 16, you're individually responsible. But we'll get clarification on that for you and get the legalities of it.
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LORRAINE LACHAPELLE
The Chair: Lorraine Lachapelle, good afternoon and welcome. I apologize for the delay, but we'll try to move on as expediently as possible.
Mrs Lorraine Lachapelle: My name is Lorraine Lachapelle and this is my husband Mike.
First of all, I'm speaking as the mother of three teenagers, and I'm nervous. I've prepared this, so I'm just going to read from it, okay?
The Chair: That's fine.
Mr Conway: No need to be nervous.
Mrs Lachapelle: Right. Easy for you.
Graduated licensing of some form will provide a system which will give novice drivers the time and opportunity to gain essential practical driving experience in a stepwise manner under conditions of reduced risk.
The basic points of the graduated licensing are 0% blood alcohol level -- I know it's not quite 0% but I'm rounding it off; refrain from driving on 400 series highways; refrain from driving between the hours of 12 pm and 5 am; limiting the number of passengers they carry to the number of seatbelts in the vehicle. The fact that novice drivers will gain valuable driving experience with these restrictions in place is not to be disputed, and the gradual earning of extended privileges to new drivers is a step in the right direction.
However, I am in disagreement with the proposed restriction in the first level that a novice driver be accompanied by a fully licensed driver with at least four years of driving experience. I feel this restriction in many circumstances will restrict the actual hands-on driving experience a novice driver could hope to gain.
My opposition also lies with the definite restriction to employment and educational opportunities -- for example, colleges -- caused by the lack of adequate public transit such as urban areas enjoy. Due to the fact of no public transit coupled with this proposed rule, our youth are denied their right to compete equitably with their urban counterparts in the area of either part-time or full-time employment opportunities.
According to Transportation critic David Turnbull, the proposed program is "too little, too late." And David, I'm taking this out of context, but there's a purpose -- oh, he's gone. All right.
Mr Turnbull: I'm here, right now.
Mrs Lachapelle: Oh, it's you. I thought it was the next fellow. All right, I put a face on the name. I'm taking this out of context for a reason, okay?
If we were to expand on this for a moment, he has a valid point with regard to the "too little, too late" concept. There is no legislation or guidelines, and never has been, in place as to the amount of allotted driving time a student must complete through driver education courses. The driving schools themselves have deemed it sufficient time that 25 hours of class time and roughly 11 hours' actual -- and I really stress the actual -- driving time should be sufficient.
To take this one step further, the proposed graduated licensing system is considering it an option rather than mandatory for a novice driver to complete a driver education course. Maybe too little is being emphasized during these courses on the real time allotted to students on actual driving time experience. Is this not the perfect opportunity for a student to gain invaluable experience with a licensed instructor? Is that not the whole point of graduated licensing, to give novice drivers the time and opportunity to gain essential practical -- and I keep stressing the word "practical" -- driving experience under conditions of reduced risk? What better time than more quality time spent with an instructor?
Another point that might be brought to light would be to consider the actual time that is given to driving tests. The time now ranges from 15 to 20 minutes. Is this time allotment enough for a tester to determine if the novice driver has mastered good driving habits?
I bring both these valuable points to the surface because maybe if some kind of legislative time had been in place for both these issues, preventive measures, we might not be experiencing such high statistics in regard to new drivers being involved in accidents.
At the present time, a multiple choice test is required to receive your 365 learner's permit. After having accomplished this, you can take your road test with a licensed examiner. There is no monitoring system in place to guarantee that a new driver is gaining the much-needed driving experience before receiving his or her licence.
With the proposed graduated licensing system, in order to enter level 1, the class G driver would have to pass a written test of their knowledge of the rules of the road. On having accomplished this, they would then be given an 8-to-12-month time frame to gain valuable driving experience before progressing to level 2. But this much-needed experience can only be gained with the further restriction in place that the novice driver be accompanied by a licensed driver with at least four years' experience.
With this proposed rule, we still do not have a monitoring system in place as to the actual driving time experience a novice driver could hope to gain, and one might be very sure that the time would be even less, due to the fact that 71% of our families are dual-income earners, which translates into less free time available to drive with our novice drivers. In reality, what we would be experiencing is parents driving their teenagers to their destinations for the 8-to-12-month period.
This restriction further prohibits the novice driver in level 1 the unique opportunity of having a new driver who has successfully completed an approved drivers' education course in the passenger's seat, such as a sibling who would be in possession of a driver's permit but would still not qualify because of the four-year stipulation.
These new drivers, having completed a drivers' course, are keen on sharing their newly found knowledge on good, safe driving habits, and are extremely aware of the rules of the road as compared to most of the so-called experienced drivers -- myself, having driven for 23 years, there's a lot of things I've forgotten -- who have been driving for so many years that driving has become second nature to us and a lot of the basic good habits have been forgotten.
As an alternative to having a four-year licensed driver, I feel it would be more beneficial to the novice driver if a provision were in place to require a novice driver to be accompanied by either a licensed driver with four years' experience or a new driver with successful completion of an approved drivers' ed course.
In finishing, I feel we need to see more preventive measures in place rather than simply keeping novice drivers off the road. In doing so, all we will be accomplishing is the fact of having older, inexperienced drivers on our roadways. New drivers are less likely to become involved in a collision if the new driver gains experience gradually. If too many restrictions are in place, we are defeating the purpose of making available valuable hands-on driving experience in a reduced-risk atmosphere.
Mr Conway: Very quickly, because we have a time constraint. I gather what you're saying here is two things: First, be careful about the urban-rural split, the problems of areas like Spencerville; but secondly, if you had your way, there would be a mandatory but quality drivers' ed program. That's the key recommendation, is it?
Mrs Lachapelle: That's right. I feel if that was in place, there might not be this restriction of having that four-year -- I don't know: Am I supposed to be talking now or not?
Mr Conway: Yes, absolutely.
Mrs Lachapelle: I've got three teenagers. When our oldest got her licence, both my husband and I felt: "No, we've been driving a lot of years. We're not going to take you out and drive, as my parents did, as Mike's parents did. No, we're not going to teach you the bad habits." And we do have bad habits. Maybe I haven't had accidents, but there are a lot of things I don't do that I wasn't even aware of.
After Shannon had come home from having taken the drivers' ed, she was really keen, to the point where she was almost a backseat driver with me. She would say: "Come on, Mom. What about that emergency brake? Let's get it on. Come on." That's just one in a lot of things. She's so much more cued in terms of defensive driving than I'll ever be, and I've got 23 years. They really concentrate on that in the course she took. As you say, if a good one's in place and maybe more time spent in it, I feel they're as good and better than what I can offer.
1550
Mr Daigeler: Just very quickly, how many of the young people in your area would you say do take these courses? Could you make a guess?
Mrs Lachapelle: I'm not going to throw a number out because I don't want to be quoted. I have no idea. I do know that when my daughter took it she had to go on a waiting list to get into drivers' ed. I know that. We were really crossing our fingers and so was she, because she wasn't getting her licence until she did. She knew that was part of the deal at our house.
They're very keen on it. They can either take it through the school or they can take it through the Young Drivers of Canada, which was our option; that was our choice. I can't give you a number, but I'd say definitely that they're very keen on it.
Mr Turnbull: Briefly, you would like to see a beefing up of the actual content of drivers' education courses and make it mandatory for all new drivers.
Mrs Lachapelle: Absolutely.
Mr Turnbull: Obviously, the questions will be raised: Does this pose hardship to some people? Also, is it difficult to get drivers' ed in the more remote areas of Ontario?
Mrs Lachapelle: Hardship as?
Mr Turnbull: Financial hardship.
Mrs Lachapelle: As I say, we had the choice between the school or -- obviously, through the school is cheaper than through the other. Our daughter had to pay for it. Chances are, a lot of kids are not in the position that they can do it, but we felt, "You want to drive, and you're not going to drive unless you have drivers' ed." I'll all for responsibilities. I feel that the more responsibilities you put on them, the more they want. She's responsible for her insurance. She realizes that if you want to drive, you're responsible for that insurance.
I would say no. The schools definitely bend over backwards to make it easy for them to take it, because they're really promoting it, they're really pushing it. In fact, when I called the school before school started, I was speaking to the lady who's in charge of it at our school and she said, "We've already had calls; I've got lists of people waiting, wanting to know when it's starting up," and they're looking into the second one after Christmas.
Mr Turnbull: You stressed quite a bit the bad habits that people get into as experienced drivers. Do you believe we should be looking ahead to having repeat tests for people every few years?
Mrs Lachapelle: How would you mean?
Mr Turnbull: On several occasions, you said experienced drivers --
Mrs Lachapelle: I don't think it would hurt. I think it would tune you up. I wouldn't be opposed to doing it. It would certainly keep you in tune, and that's where we have a problem. The young kids who have taken the tests are tuned up and they are keen. As I said, she was a backseat driver, to the point where her dad had to say, "Knock it off, Shannon; come on."
Mr Turnbull: I've got to tell you, I've just gone through the process where my daughter has just got her licence. We had a lot of very vigorous debates in our house. I was pushing for graduated licensing and my daughter was not keen on the concept, so we had a very good airing at our dinner table every evening about this subject over a protracted period of time.
Thank you for coming out. I think we have to start looking at the question, should we go with mandatory driver education? This is a question I've asked several people, and there seems to be a body of evidence to suggest that this would be worthwhile and would be supported.
Mrs Lachapelle: But in doing so, if you're having the mandatory one, let's give some credit to it. When I called the different driving schools -- and I did my homework on this; I called drivers' ed and I called the one that goes through the school. None of them has been told and the government has never said, "You will spend this amount of time in the class" or "this amount of time on the road," none of them. How can you judge that? How can you say that 11 hours is enough time? They have no guidelines to follow; they're doing their thing, and that's not really --
Mr Turnbull: I think that's a very good point.
Ms Haeck: I again want to thank you for your remarks. It definitely will all go into the hopper as far as the decision-making process is concerned. You probably realize that none of this is set in stone, so your comments are extremely important to us.
I think one of the important things is that you realize you could propose that exemptions be made for -- you mention in your third paragraph on the first page the young students who are drivers living in the rural parts of the province who would want to go to work, say, here in Ottawa, and that under what you see proposed there would be restrictions on them getting to work. Others have proposed exemptions where they would, say, get some sort of a letter from their employer or some other mechanism by which they would receive an exemption and therefore be able to travel to and from work without those kinds of impediments that have been currently proposed. How would you feel about something like that?
Mrs Lachapelle: You use Ottawa as an example. We don't have to go that far. We can go into Prescott. I don't know if you know the Spencerville area.
Ms Haeck: Not really.
Mrs Lachapelle: Okay. Most of the kids don't truck into Ottawa because you're talking a 45-minute drive, but they do go to Brockville, they do go to Prescott. With that stipulation put in there, Shannon couldn't drive the kids to work. All my three kids work, part-time work; they all have for a lot of years. To have that taken away from them because it's only going to be me -- I'm in the situation where I've been able to drive them. I'm at home. I'm definitely not in the majority.
Ms Haeck: So you're saying you would be in favour of some sort of exemptions?
Mrs Lachapelle: Yes, but I don't know how you're going to pull it off. Are you going to classify rural everywhere that doesn't -- I don't know how you're going to do it. It's easy to say, "What if we put an exemption in?" but I think you're going to end up with a lot of slack.
Ms Haeck: I think some suggestions have been made and it's a matter of looking at them and seeing how they would be -- we're having a little discussion across the table here about exemptions.
Mr Jackson raised a point with one of the previous presenters; the young chap he was referring to got his licence that day and had that particular accident. It's the same thing with having someone with four years' experience; it isn't necessarily to say that an accident still can't happen. One obviously is working to try to diminish all that. One would hope that young man did have a drivers' education course.
The Chair: Thank you for preparing what appears to be a comprehensive brief and for taking the time to present your views this afternoon. Your views are important and they're a valuable part of the process.
Mrs Lorraine Lachapelle: I have one question that I really need answered. When I got involved with this, I knew there were meetings coming up or I heard it or something. When I called our MP, I called on a Friday morning; he returned my call Friday afternoon. He was not aware of meetings, so he made it his business. He went to Toronto on Monday and called me back from Toronto: "Yes, there are going to be meetings. Thanks a lot for bringing that up for me. I really appreciate it, Lorraine. You'll have to get your name on a list." Nobody is aware of these meetings.
It's okay for all these people who are coming in, and I grieve for them, who have been affected by a young driver who's killed someone; I really feel for those people. But I don't think you're getting equal time for people who haven't been affected by it, because they don't know about it. Nobody in Spencerville knows about this, except we got a meeting going and we got it to the public. While they had heard about graduated licensing, they knew nothing about these meetings.
I know that graduated licensing is good, but you're getting it very one-sided because they don't know about it. It's not going in the Citizen, advertising these meetings. I had a devil of a time trying to find out where I should be, what I should do, anything.
The Chair: I certainly cannot comment on a response from an elected official in terms of your inquiries about these proceedings, and I don't intend to, but the hearings and these meetings were indeed advertised in every daily newspaper in Ontario.
If I'm to understand your point that you feel they may not have been advertised enough, that is valuable information for not only this committee but perhaps every other committee which has to wrestle with an advertising budget and at the same time try to meet the demands of the public. If your recommendation is such that perhaps this committee as well as all others should perhaps spend more dollars and do more advertising so that people are aware, then certainly I can take that recommendation away.
Mrs Lachapelle: If your MPs aren't up on it, how do you expect us to be? You're looking for input.
The Chair: We appreciate it. Thank you very much.
I thank the community of Ottawa for its hospitality, and in particular I'd like to thank all the witnesses who appeared before the committee from Ottawa and the surrounding area during the course of hearings today.
This committee is now adjourned until 10 am tomorrow morning in St Catharines.
The committee adjourned at 1603.