Deachman: Let’s call stunt driving what it is — reckless, dangerous and unacceptable

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In combination, young brains and fast cars make a bad cocktail that too often has tragic consequences. You’ve no doubt seen or heard the combo yourself: a couple of cars flying past you on the Queensway, weaving dangerously in and out of traffic without signalling, or the late-night roars of modified mufflers set to maximum masculinity — or whatever it is their juvenile drivers are trying to prove as they wake entire neighbourhoods.

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Or maybe you’ve seen the aftermath in police or news photos, like the one Ottawa Police Service recently posted on X of a car that, moments before being crumpled in a five-vehicle collision in May, was racing down Richmond Road, its 28-year-old male driver pushing the throttle to 144 km/h in a 50 km/h zone. As a result of his actions, two people were taken to hospital.

Mercifully, it wasn’t the morgue.

What’s called “stunt driving” has been in the news a lot lately, with the province this week announcing the purchase of five street-crime-fighting helicopters they think will help, and Ottawa police in June launching a late-night Residents Matter traffic enforcement initiative. The program aims to crack down on impaired driving, speeding and excessive noise related to traffic. On its first night, June 21, in Barrhaven, nearly 100 provincial offence notices were issued, including 28 for speeding and a dozen for muffler violations.

Additionally, seven motorists were charged that night with stunt driving/street racing, including one who was doing 154 km/h in an 80 km/h zone near Woodroffe Avenue and Grenfell Crescent. The seven had their vehicles seized and impounded for 14 days and their licences suspended for 30. If convicted, each also faces a minimum fine of $2,000 and a further minimum one-year driver’s licence suspension.

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According to Const. Phil Kane of the Ottawa Police Traffic Escort & Enforcement Unit, the clampdown has taken place in Barrhaven, Riverside South, Mooney’s Bay, Orléans and Kanata. More than 20 drivers have been charged with stunt driving offences, as well as other speeding, noise, insurance and equipment offences.

That’s a start in addressing a persistent problem, but such initiatives are limited by available resources and other, often more immediate, calls for service, and can only chip away at a problem that worsened during the pandemic, when emptied streets attracted racers in force. So much more needs be done.

How bad has it become? According to annual reports, Ottawa police issued 186 stunt driving charges in 2019, but that figure more than doubled in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, to 450, and further climbed to nearly 700 in 2021. It dropped, to 473 and 417 respectively, in the last two years, but those figures are still absurdly high. If more than 1,100 stunt driving charges were laid in 2020 and ’21, how could there still be 900 more to nab over the next two years?

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And that’s just the Ottawa police numbers. According to Ontario Provincial Police Const. Michael Fathi, OPP officers laid 92 stunt driving charges in Ottawa in 2023, a figure they’ve already exceeded in a little more than six months this year.

Not surprisingly, youths are most often the culprits. According to Ontario’s 2022 Drivers Annual Statistics, drivers between 16 and 24 made up 12.6 per cent of the province’s licensed population, but accounted for more than one-third of those convicted of driving 50 km/h or more above the speed limit. If you add in drivers aged 25 to 34, you get 31.4 per cent of licensed drivers responsible for nearly 72 per cent, or 884, of the 1,232 convictions for exceeding the limit by more than 50 km/h.

Fathi hopes that greater public awareness, coupled with the increased penalties introduced in the Moving Ontarians More Safely Act (MOMS Act) in 2021, including a three- to 10-year suspension for second-time offenders and a lifetime ban for third-time transgressors, will help turn things around.

Kane agrees the current penalties are harsh. “Many people are calling for increased penalties,” he says. “But increased penalties are already available. They just need to be used.”

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Barrhaven West Coun. David Hill is among those who would like to see harsher penalties, especially for repeat offenders, which is not unreasonable considering the potential human cost of allowing irresponsible drivers back on the road.

Sometimes, when the sound of cars racing along Riverside Drive keeps me up at night, I imagine transgressors having to watch as their tricked-out cars are crushed into scrap metal.

Hill cites other actions he thinks could help, including noise-detection systems currently used in some European cities. These employ four microphones and a 360-degree camera, affixed to a street pole or traffic light, that can detect, isolate and identify loud noises, and either ticket or warn motorists who are driving with modified (or absent) mufflers.

Increasing the number of community safety zones, where fines for traffic violations are doubled, should also be considered, Hill adds, which would mean installing more speed enforcement cameras. I know they’re unpopular with many motorists, but getting caught is as optional as speeding.

All of these will help deal with, and perhaps lessen, incidents of stunt driving and street racing, but awareness is fundamental to solving the problem too.

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Altering the attitudes of problem drivers, although slow and much less dramatic than a helicopter chase, would surely bring about a more positive long-term effect. The campaigns by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (M.A.D.D.) and other organizations to deal with impaired driving should serve as an example. Coupled with stricter laws, these were instrumental in changing the culture surrounding drinking and driving, even when the law was not directly punishing people. Likewise, anti-smoking groups changed how we viewed lighting up in public.

Similar efforts regarding stunt driving and street racing can do the same. Let’s call stunt driving what it is: reckless driving. As much as we can, let’s discourage the glorification of speeding. One of the often overlooked penalties for motorists convicted  of stunt driving is taking a mandatory driver improvement course. Perhaps a mandatory human improvement course should be added, to educate drivers about respecting others. Include community service — volunteering at The Ottawa Hospital’s Rehabilitation Centre, say — in their sentences.

Owning and driving a vehicle is not a right. It comes with responsibilities. One of those is not being an idiot, so the rest of us can be safer, and can sleep more easily.

bdeachman@postmedia.com

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