It's pretty sad when one of our province's claims to fame is leading the country in drinking and driving.
Last week, a report from Statistics Canada was released, stating that Saskatchewan had the most incidents of impaired driving at 683 per 100,000 people in 2011.
Alcohol was also a leading factor in the record number of highway deaths in Saskatchewan last year.
We're dying from drinking and driving, and getting caught doing it more than any other place in the country.
What will it take for us to stop doing it?
It's been a message to kids for years that drinking alcohol and driving don't mix. We've all heard it, over and over again. Yet it's still done, by many, many people - far more, I would say, than the number who are caught doing it.
Experts are saying that the culture of alcohol intake in our province is something that needs to be looked at.
University of Saskatchewan professor Colleen Dell was quoted as saying "With rural communities, there is no cab service, and also just the culture of bush parties and things like that" leads to driving under the influence.
No, most rural communities don't have a taxi service at all, let alone one that operates all night.
And many remember with fondness attending bush parties and booze cruising when they were young, and maybe even when they were not-so-young.
But these things don't excuse driving when you know you've had too much to drink. There is nearly always a choice not to drive after you've been drinking, and there's definitely a choice not to drink at all in the first place, if you have no other way to get home.
If there's no cab available in your town, make sure you have a designated driver. The same goes for going out to bush parties - make sure the driver stays sober.
And if there's no other choice, stay where you are until you sober up. Sleep over. Put away your car keys and catch some Zs.
To make sure more people do that, perhaps the penalties for drinking and driving should be more severe.
I think it would work. For some of us, if we get caught drinking and driving, we will lose our jobs. Our jobs require us to have a valid driver's licence, and a reliable vehicle. Get caught drunk behind the wheel and we don't just kiss our licence away - there goes our livelihood as well. That's simply too much to risk, and results in some careful planning about where to go, who to go with, and how to get home.
In Manitoba, they take away your car for at least a month if you're caught driving over .08. That's an idea. It would definitely make someone think two or three times about whether they are okay to drive or not.
But I think the first step is to realize that we need to change what we're doing. We need to open our eyes, as a society, and look at what drinking and driving is doing to us, at what it's costing us.
We need a different claim to fame. One that's not so sad.
