Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It`s not my intent to continue this all night, so I’ll just be quick. I know there’s no willingness on the department to make that change and we have to be very clear, distracted driving at the time is equal if not worse than drunk driving. I`m not a scientist and I`m not going to try to explain which one’s worse, I’m just going to say equal, for safety’s sake.
At the moment that particular individual stopped, the crime itself has been stopped, they’re no longer impaired in the sense of mental impairment of driving has been taken away and I think that’s probably some of the reasoning behind why they’re allowed to drive home and park their car until their suspension type of thing or philosophy built behind it.
I pointed out the social ill or the nature of it is that there was a time that drunk driving was not, I’m not going to say it was okay, it didn’t have the stigma it does have today. Distracted driving is the same way, it’s just I’m not convinced the department sort of sees it through the demerit point process that it observes and waiting for someone to have five fines before they have to visit a judge to explain that they’re driving in a manner that is just equal if not worse than drunk driving. I think my point is if the demerit points were increased, they’d be visiting them either after the second or third offence. So that’s the only other thing.
The last comment I’ll make very briefly because I see my time has run down, and it’s not necessarily a question, I’m just glad we’re giving the registrar some authorities to make some changes in regulations around abandoned vehicles. The only issue I’ll raise there is that I’ve had people here who have had concerns about trying to repurpose, revitalize old vehicles that have been written off, lost, found in the dump or whatnot, and for them to be able to reissue registration so they can put a little life back into a rebuilt old vehicle. The way I understood it was they would have that ability to do that. So that’s the only other area of concern and I assume they’ll want to reply, but unless it’s earth shattering, I’d probably leave the Minister with the final comment. Thank you.
