Page 4, The Herald, Monday, December 3, 1979 TERRACE/KETIMAT daily herald General Office - 635-4357 Publlahed by Clreulaton - 635-4357 Sterling Publishers GEN. MANAGER - Knox Coupland EDITOR - Greg Middleton CIRCULATION - TERRACE - 415-6357 KITIMAT OF FICE . 632-2747 Pubilshed every weekday at 3212 Kalum Street, Terrace, 8,C, A member of Varifled Circulation. Authorized as second class mail, Registration number 1201. Postage pald In cash, return postage guaranteed. NOTICE OF COPYRIGHT The Herald retains full, complete and sole copyright in any adverilzement produced and-or any editorial or Photographic content published In the Herald. Reproducilon la not permitted without the written permission of the Publisher. EDITORIAL “Safe Driving Week’? began on December ist, and the Canada Safety Council is asking Canadian drivers to examine options open to them, and to make a positive choice for safety. _ “Satety: The Positive Choice’’-that’s the theme of the 1979 campaign, and it is intended to show that most automobiles accidents are ideed preventabie-as long as drivers make reai decisions that lead to safe driving. The Safety Council is suggesting that, apart from a very smal! percentage of reckless vehicle operators, most drivers in Canada are careful ‘drivers. Most of the time. Problems arise when we, as drivers, have something on our mind. Something went wrong at home or at work, perhaps. An (mportant or difficult deciSion ahead. Concern over a sick relative. Anger at some action by others. Or even the apparent thoughtlessness of another driver, Or else, we may be overtired, in less than sound health, or under the influence of an alcoholic beverage to some degree. Not necessarily impaired, ¢ither. Any of these can distract an otherwise good driver, And when attention wan- ders-even for.a few seconds-we are asking for trouble. it requires a conscious decision- a “positive choice’’-‘to shelve:'thoughts of problems until. the..task of. driving is tinished, because driving is a full-time job. The accident that takes a second to happen can last a litetime! , EDITOR'S JOURNAL BY GREG MIDDLETON The first few flakes of snow had barely fallen as he was standing there at the tounter, waiting. Before the first few accident report forms were filled out for the cars and trucks which had slid into each other on the snowy roads that morning, the fellow who had coaxed me into strapping long wooden things onto my feet was here to make sure I didn’t miss a moment of the ski season. Looking even leaner and more fit after a summer of doing whatever skiers do in the summer, he was back, much like the arthritic pains I get in my shoulders now that I am approaching middle age. I had vowed I would be sensible this winter, I was going to stay at home in front of the fire with a book. Not a good book, mind you, but one that was only tolerably interesting. One like Joe Clark’s biography, only interesting enough for the times when you really can’t sleep. “But at least come and see the film the ski club is showing,” he said. And that was about all it took, A few feet of celluloid showing some ski bums doing things on skis that high divers do with some hope of hitting water in the end and I signed up for my lessons. The R.E.M. Lee Theatre was pretty well packed by the kind of youngsters who are going to go climb a mountain in the morning so they don't have time to spend the night in the Zoo. There was also a scattering of older Nordic types. They were obviously taking a night off from filming Participaction ads. And then there was the still too pudgy me, already shivering and I haven't got out onto the slopes yet. But [have signed up for the lessons, and that makes all the difference. At least it makes the difference between being able to stand up and watch the ski bunnies go by and lying there on my back and seeing nothing but tree tops and my ski tips as I go down the hill head first, Letters welcome The Herald welcomes its readers comments, All letters to the editor of general public interest will be printed, We do, however, retain the right to refuse to print letters on grounds of possible libel or bad taste. We may also edit letters for style and length. All letters to be considered for publication must be signed, - ‘TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS Drunks, slowpokes cause By CHRIS NORRIS HARTLAND, N.B. (CP) — Drinking drivera who go too fast, sober drivers who go too slow and preoccupied drivers who forget they’re behind the wheel are among ai curses et of the road who have gued Canada's grand champion truckdrlver during his elght years of profeasional hauling. Karyl MacKenzie, a 30-yearold _ Rative of this central New Brun: swick town, drives threeton trucks and tractor-trallers over all kinds of roads and to all parts of this province for Day and Ross Co, Laat September his skills earned him first place In the Canadlan truckdriving rodeo held in Nova Scotla. MacKenzie’s knowledge of highway rulea and safety and his ability to awing big rigs through tight obstacle courses put him in front of other drivers from across the country. But MacKenzie says a small percentage of New Brunswick's motoring public is making it difficult for him and other safety-conscious drivers to stay in one plece, “The worat scare I ever had was when a woman pulled out from a atop sign right in front of me and, in trying to avold her and two other cars, I almost drove the truck over a bridge, about 200 feet above a river,’' MacKenzie says. “Tl followed that woman to her home and asked her if she knew what she had done ‘and she didn’t even know. She hadn’t noticed a thing because she was so Wrapped Me, Ly We ica ey HH ae y AE OR E THAT. VIDEO S in worrying about other things.” “WMacKensle has one bit of advice that he thinks everyone should remember during SafeDriving Week: ‘Be on the alert for the other fellow." “That’s what has kepl me trucking for eight years. If you're alert, you can pretty well tell when someone is not galng to stop before pulling out on the road in front of you,” It is especially crucial for the truckdriver to stay on the lookout for anything unusual happening down the road so that heavy, 13-gear trucks can be stopped Ln time. He aaid this is particularly important on, slippery winter roads and alongside mnawy hillsides where children are ng. MacKenzie has seen many ac- eldents, He says low-slung, smell, light- colored cara are dangerous, White and blue cars are the most difficult to see on highways. . Drinking drivers who barrel down the wrong side of the road are Mackenzie's major worry, “and I've seen an awful lot of them.” But slow. drivera are just as irritating to truckdrivers who are usually trying to make their deliverles In good time. MacKenzie says slow drivers are often elderly and are found most frequently on highways that run through rural are AB, “F got stuck once behind a fellow oa G FOR if ie i ats DRINK ] = LL who was doing about 25 miles an hour on the Trans-Canada and I had to follow him for about four miles, We both pulled Into a stare and this guy — he must have been about 80 — pe out of hia car and yells at me for following him too cloae. ‘After all,’ he told me, ‘I waa golng 25.'" MacKenzie has seen two trucks lunge off the bridge that carries the ‘ans-Canada Highway past Har- (land and over the Saint John River. The first accident, which killed the driver, occurred just one year before MacKenzie became a truck- ver, “Seelng that accident didn't really make me think twice about becoming a truckdriver — it just taught me to be more cautious, to remember that scene whenever I approach a bridge,” he says, MacKenzie will not stop at the scene of anaccident unless he is one of the firat upon It. He once saved a man's ife by ~ pulling him out of his burning car. The man had fallen asleep in the car and the upholstery had caught on MacKenzie says falling saleep at the wheel ip a serious hazard for truckdriverd as well as auto drivers. But long-haul truckers are more apt ’ ty recognize the hazard and pull aver for a nap. . Finally, the grand champion truckdriver aays he prefers to drive late at night when his truck works betler, those on the road are more cautlous and the bulk of the motoring public have gone home. ey a ys ; , “And now, for an extra grand,can you tell us how many olives ina martini?..” B.C, using television now By MICHAEL BERNARD VANCOUVER (CP) ~ Police in British Columbia are making movie stars out of a lot of ordinary Joes these days. But instead of million-dollar salaries, the actors are likely to be rewarded with embarrassing jail sentences and hefty fines. On the other hand, a candidate for stardom can make it without ex- ceptional talent, good looks or an . agent with the right connections. All he needs to dois have one drink too many, slip behind the wheel, head down the highway and wait to be dis- covered. The moviea — actually videotapes — are a new weap in the B.C, government's battle against the drinking driver. After undergoing a breathanalysis test, an impaired-driving suspect is invited Into a little atudio, where the camera records his efforts to walk In a straight line, touch his’ nose and perform other routine exercises, Later, in court, the judge in given . an opportunity to look at the results as guidance in determining what sort of shape the suspect was in when he was nabbed, B.C, la currently the only province in Canada to allow such tapes to be . admitted as evidence, although the procedure is common in the United tates. Law enforcement officlals have greeted the program with rave reviews. After a 10-month trial In the Okanagan community of Vernon, the procedure now has been ex- panded toalx other centres —- Prince George, Saanich, Cranbrook, Vancouver and the nelghboring suburbs of Richmond and Burnaby, Bob Wiiliamaon, Vernon Crown counsel and a'charter member of the program’s fan club, says It waa discovered by an RCMP officer visiting police in Washington state on another matter. Witliamson's suggestion of adopting the procedure as a pilot profect in his area was en- thuslastically received by the at- torney-general’s ministry which has been waging a million-dollar war against drinking drivers in B.C. for the last two years. The results appeared to show that videotaping was a valuable weapon, both in saving court Ume and costs and in searing potential drinking drivers into finding other ways te get home, Among the 60 convictlona there ‘was a 4)-per-cent drop in not-guilty pleas, Williamson says, indicating that many people had second thoughts about contesting the charge in court after watching themselves on tape. “We did a survey on people after he project was finiahed and while we couldn't look Into everyone's head, many of them did say the tapes persuaded them to change thelr plea,” Willlamson says, And while a number said they thought videotaping stinks, a sur- prising percentage said it should be continued. The project's greatest effect, though, appeared to be on those offenders the police never caught. Comparing the five peak months for impairmentdriving arrests during the project and In the previous year, Police found the number of charges id had dropped conelderably — to 11 from 36. Williamson says part of the credit for the project's success belongs to the local media, which made realdents aware of the program. One radio station even ran a jingle, composed by a police officer, which warned drivers to the tune of You Ought to Be in Pictures. “Pecple seemed to be a lot more careful knowlng they could end up being filmed," he says. However, the videotaped evidence can be a double-edged sword. “In one case, the judge threw the charge out after watching the videotape because he didn’t see the pexton ag impalred,” Wililamson says. The driver was still convicted on a charge of having a blood- alcohol rating over the legal limit, which {fs routinely laid along with an | impaired-drlving charge. The Crown also has a legal obligation to provide the tapea to defence counsel if it doesn't plan to weit for prosecution, William says. Video tape was Instrumental in a murder charge being reduced to manslaughter in one trial, he says, because it showed the person was too drunk to form intent to murder, Tapes submitted as evidence in impaired-driving cases are not edited becnuse the defence counsel could legitimately complain it ma not truly represent what happened. As well, if the individual refuses to be filmed or have his volce recorded, the court does not consider that an admission aa guiit. Williamgon aays five other provinces have expressed interest in the project, hoping to find a way of reducing deaths on the highways. Tmpalrment is no small factor in traffic fatalitles, Safety officials say at least half of the 417 fatalltles and 2,638 injurlea suffered In B.C, in the first Beven months of 1979 could be related to alcohol. That, combined with miltlons of dollars apent on health care for aceldent victims and the human suffering involved, makes the movies an attractive aid to keeping the drunk off the road. OTTAWA OFFBEAT BY RICHARD JACKSON Ottawa,-Hey, get this.. an your ald fiend Dalton Camp, former President of Progressive Conservative Party and generally: ane sited” or debited-with the political destruction as Tory leader of Dief, claiming that the many harsh words they exchanged were “coded messages. if the Old Chief ever requires motivation for a full- scale revolution in the box, out there under the sod at the Diefenbaker Memorial Cente at the University of hewan, this has to be it. Sea entive and imaginative Mr. Camp goes on, In a recent Toronto Star column, to claim that their personal hostility was “to a considerable degree a creation of the news media which nourished it even unto this hour. “That we were both foils to the uses of journalism must have occurred to him as It did to me, he con- tinues,” but there were, in the frequent published exchanges of barbs andshafts, many @ coded message ived. ; Se the only way we had of keeping in touch,” writes Mr, Camp, deadpan, as it meaning every word and apparently expecting people to swallow them. After Dalton Camp, publicly at 4 Conservative leadership review, plunged the knife into Dief’s back- The Chief to the end regarded it as an “assassination,” as he termed it-It perhaps was the only way they had of “keeping in touch. If “keeping in touch" is the phrase for it. "Having known Dief since his initial arrival in 1940 in Ottawa, and been as close or closer to him through all the years than any others in the Parliamentary Press galley, being one of only two members of the media chosen by the Old Warrior as an honorary pallbearer at his funeral, it can be testified that the former Prime Minister wouldn't have let Dalton Camp in the office door after the leadership betrayal. . Maybe those barbs-- and with Dief they were shafts of naked contempt and hatred-Dalton Camp claims were messages actually were the only means of communication, . Not that Dief ever wished to speak ie him or have real exchange of “messages’’ except to say, to the man himself but though friends, political allies . and those with access to the news columns and air time, what he thought of him, Which wasn't much= and which wouldn't bear repeating without severe ‘‘editing” or even censoring for any good, clean, familypaper of news program. Three people only could turn Dief on. One was his first wife Edna, after‘whose death he frequently wept, she being the love of his late youth, the first and perhaps best love. One was his second wife Olive, on whom he grew 80 dependent, and who up to the day of her own death devoted her total life to him. The very mention of her name, a memory breaking intoa conversation having nothing to do with her, could break him up. And one was Dalton Camp. Never did a Prime Minister from Mackenzie King onever publicly and privately bear such an animus as The Chief for ‘The Assassin,” as he savored in calling | ' him, seeming to taste and relish the very word. Dief deeply believed that Dalton Camp not only did him in as party leader, but was instrumental, when The Chief came so close to winning power again in 1965, in losing the election, through backroom manoeuverings and plottings with certain disloyal provincial Conservative leaders, for the then resurging Tories, To the end Dief was convinced that Dalton Camp not only cut him down, but cut the ground out from under’ the party, ushering in the Trudeau years. REPORT by FRANK HOWARD [iat Skeena MLA a The regional district of Fraser-Fort George recently made a very worthwhile suggestion with respect to the province's Agricultural Land Commission. This was the commission established when Dave Stupich was the NDP Minister of Agriculture. The purpose of the commission was, and still is, to preserve farm land from being gobbled up by land speculators and land developers. After all, reasoned Mr. Stupich, we only have a smail percentage of land in British Columbia that is valuable for agriculture and therefore we need to preserve it for that purpose. The land so preserved is kept that way by being - placed in the agricultural land reserve. There are procedures whereby land in the reserve can be taken out of the reserve and then become available for non- agricultural purposes. Enter here the recent and current controversy over the decisian by Cabinet to remove some 600 plus acres of land from the agricultural land reserve in the Langley area. As a result of the decision by the Provincial cabinet to remove that land, a member of the Agricultural Land Commission resigned. That spot is still vacant, _ The Fraser-Fort George regional district took the initiative to point out that Northern B.C, apart from the Williams Lake area, has no representative on the Land Commission. They want all regional districts and municipalities in the North to endorse the idea that someone from this Northern area be appeinted to that vacant position. I certainly endorse that proposal and: hope that all such districts and municipalities will Of course there is the question of who this new ap- pointee should be, there are many knowledgeable, perceptive and sincere people around who would fit the bill. The Fraser-Fort George Regional District does not propose that any particular person get the. appointment. They only concern themselves with the principle, Other regional districts or municipalities may come to conclusions about individuals, elther one person or a panel from which government may make a choice. If they do, of course, that is their full right. The Land Commission is so important to the agricultural community that any member thereof must meet the criteria of supporting the concept of the land commission; of having a favourable interest and or investment in agriculture, and generally be ac- ceptable to the farming section of our economy.