Boyd Coddington Passes Away

Iconic hot rod builder Boyd Coddington died yesterday, February 27, 2008, at a hospital in Whittier, California. He was 63. The cause of death was not given at the time but it is reported that Coddington had been in and out of hospital on several occasions recently.

Known primarily to custom car fans for such vehicles as the Aluma Coupe and ZZ Top's Cadzzilla, and for his line of high-end billet aluminum wheels, he gained fame with the general public through his television show American Hot Rod. Coddington and his shop won the coveted America's Most Beautiful Roadster award seven times, as well as the DaimlerChrysler Design Excellence Award twice.

Coddington was also inducted into the SEMA Hall of Fame, the Grand National Roadster Show Hall of Fame, the National Rod & Custom Museum Hall of Fame, the Route 66 Wall of Fame and the Street Rod Marketing Alliance Hall of Fame, and was voted 1988 Man of the Year by Hot Rod magazine. Chip Foose and Jesse James are just a couple of well-known past employees of Boyd's shop.

Boyd's vision for hot rods was legendary and his presence will be missed in the hot rod world.

Ontario Targets Drunk Drivers

Kudos to the Ontario Attorney General for stepping up to the plate and taking the problem of alcohol on our roads seriously.

On February 20, 2008, a new civil law came in to effect that will mean repeat DUI offenders run the risk of losing their vehicles. If a vehicle has been involved in, or is likely to be involved in, a DUI offense and is owned or operated by someone with two or more DUI convictions, the courts can impound the vehicle and force its forfeiture. The vehicle will then go to public auction and victims of the crime can apply for compensation from the proceeds of the sale.

Responsible vehicle owners can apply to have their vehicles returned if certain court-imposed conditions are met, such as the installation of an ignition interlock or having the owner agree that the DUI offender would no longer have access to the vehicle.

This new law is a good start and one for each and every province to follow suit on.

The next step is to stiffen fines, sentences, and driving bans on DUI offenders. Driving is a privilege and the message needs to go out that if you abuse it, you lose it. A DUI conviction should mean an automatic license suspension. Repeat offenders should run the risk of being permanently banned from driving as well as facing serious jail time.

In this day and age, there is no excuse for getting behind the wheel of a car after you've been drinking. That applies not only to the problem drinkers but to the casual drinkers who have 'a few' and then drive.

4 killed, 233 Injured In Canada Yesterday

You would think that this would make headline news across the country, but it did not. Could it be that we've become complacent with alcohol-related crashes? Each and every day, alcohol is a factor in crashes that kill, on average, 4 people and injure another 233. Every single day.

The latest statistics for 1999-2004 confirm these numbers and also state that there are 669 crashes, on average, every day in Canada.

If you don't think that alcohol-related collisions affect you, did you know that if this problem were eliminated, your insurance would drop between $288 and $1,734?

Just a sidenote: You'll notice that I use the terms "alcohol-related" and "crashes", not drunk driving and accidents. Here's why: drunk driving assumes a blood alcohol level (BAC) of .08% or higher. A large percentage of the carnage on our streets is caused by people who have been drinking but are under this legal limit. The term "accident" assumes an element of chance or a mistake, as in "we met by accident".

Getting behind the wheel of a car after the consumption of alcohol does not fit into that category. It is the Number 1 cause of criminal death in Canada.

According to the Adult Criminal court Survey, of the 452,000 cases before our courts in 2001/02, 12% were for impaired driving offenses, making it the most common criminal action in the land.

In 2007, Transport Canada and MADD commissioned a survey on public attitudes toward impaired driving. Part of the survey involved focus groups in which participants agreed that reducing imparied driving should be a priority for our government and that it was a completely preventable problem that could be eliminated in the short term. The vast majority of participants agreed with vehicle confiscation for repeat offenders and lowering the BAC limit to .05%.

With all of the facts before them; with virtually no changes in our impaired driving laws in close to a decade, and with the overwhelming support of the public to get tough on crime, our government balked.

The new "tough" crime bill that was just passed by the Senate went soft when it came to alcohol. The bill was more focused on drug impaired driving than alcohol and simply gave police the power to test for drug impairment. It did eliminate the "two beer" defence and will now only allow scientifically valid defences. (In case you're wondering about this, up until now you could actually fight the scientific data from the breathalyzer and blood samples by simply stating that you only had two beer and that the tests must be wrong. Google "two beer defence" and you will see that I didn't make this up.) The new legislation also increases the penalties for impaired driving to (get this) a minimum of 120 days in jail for a third impaired offence. No, I'm not kidding. Get caught driving while impaired three times and you could get 4 months in jail. That's it. Wow. Now that's tough!

It is looking quite likely that Canadians will go to the polls in the not too distant future. When speaking with the candidates, ask the tough questions and ask them specifically how they plan to protect Canadians from the #1 preventable killer of our population.