{"id":23300,"date":"2019-03-21T17:59:23","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T21:59:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23300"},"modified":"2019-03-28T12:57:10","modified_gmt":"2019-03-28T16:57:10","slug":"new-r-i-d-e-vehicle-will-help-take-more-impaired-drivers-off-the-road-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/new-r-i-d-e-vehicle-will-help-take-more-impaired-drivers-off-the-road-police\/","title":{"rendered":"New R.I.D.E. vehicle will help take more impaired drivers off the road: Police"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Katie Apreda lost her best friend, Ashton, almost eight\nyears ago to a drunk driver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tragedy has had a lasting impact on the Newmarket\nwoman, spurring her to lend her voice to a movement fighting impaired driving\nin all its forms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now President of the York Region Chapter of MADD (Mothers\nAgainst Drunk Driving), Ms. Apreda was on hand at the York Regional Police\u2019s\nAurora headquarters on Monday morning for the unveiling of a new vehicle that\nis now the centrepiece of the YRP\u2019s R.I.D.E. program. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The launch of the new vehicle was timed to coincide with\nSt. Patrick\u2019s Day, which is, according to police, their busiest day of the year\nfor catching impaired drivers on the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Equipped with up-to-date technology to make roadside\ntesting as efficient as possible, it replaces a now-outdated truck that has\nserved the YRP for more than 19 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vehicle includes improved functionality for officers,\ngiving them access to their full computer network, the ability to conduct an\nentire alcohol impairment investigation from arrest, to breath test, to\nrelease, and will ultimately, according to Superintendent Kevin Torrie, will\n\u201cget officers back on the road more quickly without having to transport accused\nto our divisions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think this is an awesome vehicle,\u201d said Apreda at the\nunveiling. \u201cI am just as frustrated as the officers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This frustration stems from grim statistics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Torrie, the York Regional Police has laid\n300 impaired driving charges in 2019 alone. This compares to 265 by this time\nin 2018, and 257 in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe number of impaired-related charges are increasing in\nYork Region,\u201d he said. \u201cAn even more concerning trend is we have arrested so\nfar this year 23 persons found passed out behind the wheel of a motor vehicle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, the York Regional Police, he added, are far from\ngiving up on getting these numbers to trend downward. They have a commitment to\n\u201cfrontline and road safety officers, relentless education and awareness\nmessaging in our communities\u201d including the naming of impaired drivers pulled\nover each week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs these impaired stats are increasing, so are the\nnumber of calls from members of the public,\u201d he continued. \u201cYear to date, we\nhave received 794 calls, up from 636 in 2017. This key community partnership\nand the engagement of our community is integral in the enforcement surrounding\nimpaired driving. What is clear is our community no longer wants to tolerate\nsharing the roads with these impaired drivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYork Regional Police is proud to continue to lead this\nfight and we won\u2019t give up. We recognize and appreciate the support of our\ncommunity, our media partners, and our community partners, partners such as\nMADD York Region. Members of MADD have been engaged with hundreds of impaired\ndriving tragedies and have dealt with thousands of devastated victims; not an\neasy job by any means. Words can never address the significance of their\nefforts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor can they address the drive they have to make a\ndifference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wish I knew [how to make people get the message on\nimpaired driving.,\u201d she said. \u201cPlan ahead. You have so many options to get home\nif you\u2019re impaired. Don\u2019t drive.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Katie Apreda lost her best friend, Ashton, almost eight years ago to a drunk driver.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2019-03-21-06.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-63O","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 11:52:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}