The Current - ‘Not again’: Why does drunk driving persist among young men?

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

Tanya Hansen Pratt was frustrated to hear of three children killed in a Toronto highway crash this week — she lost her own mother to a young drunk driver almost 30 years ago. With a 19-year-old now facing multiple impaired-driving charges, we dig into why young men still take the most risks on the road, and how to talk to them about drunk driving.

Other People's Problems was the first podcast to take you inside real-life therapy sessions. I'm Dr. Hilary McBride, and again, we're doing something new. The ketamine really broke down a lot of my barriers. This work has this sort of immediate transformational effect. Therapy Using Psychedelics is the new frontier in mental health. Come along for the trip. Other People's Problems Season 5, available now. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is the current podcast. On Sunday, a Toronto family suffered a devastating loss. Three of their children were killed in a car crash.

A 19-year-old man is facing 12 charges, including three counts of impaired driving causing death. The tragedy has reignited questions about why drunk driving still happens and why young men are still the riskiest drivers. Tanya Hansen-Pratt is the National President of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or MADD Canada. She started doing this advocacy work after her mother was killed by a drunk driver nearly 30 years ago. Hansen Pratt is the National President of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or MAD Canada. She started doing this advocacy work after her mother was killed by a drunk driver nearly

30 years ago. She is in our Winnipeg studio. Tanya, good morning. Tanya Good morning. What went through your mind when you heard about this awful story in Toronto? Tanya My first thought was just, not again. It's so frustrating and so heartbreaking to hear these stories over and over again. You're doing this work, as I mentioned, because of what happened in your own life.

Do you mind telling me what happened to your mother? Of course. I got the phone call from my brother and he was an RCMP officer at the time and he heard through the RCMP grapevine that there had been a crash in Portage-le-Paris, Manitoba, where my family was from. It turns out that my mom had gone out for her morning walk. It was a Tuesday morning, April 20, 1999, which is also the same day as the Columbine massacre.

She had just gone out for her regular morning walk and a young man, a 19 year old man and four teenage passengers were all out joyriding after a night of partying. And he lost control of his vehicle going in excess of 150 kilometres out on the country road and hit my mum from behind. That's the kind of thing, I mean obviously that shapes your life as her daughter, just as somebody who is trying to reckon with this. But as I mentioned, it's also shaped the work that you do now. How do you use what you have gone through to speak with people who have lost a loved

one due to impaired driving? I don't want it to happen to anyone else because I know how life-changing this is. Your life is split into this before and after. And so when I meet other victims, I know that their lives have just been split into a before and after. And they don't need to explain to me what they're feeling. They don't need to pretend anything with me. They don't need to water their story down with me to make me feel comfortable,

because there's nothing that's going to make me feel worse than what I've already been through. So they can just share exactly what they're going through and it's okay. And so I know I can provide that kind of support to another victim in a way that other people can't. The first thing you said when I asked you about your reaction to what happened in Toronto on Sunday was not again. Are you surprised given what you have gone through and given the work that you do that we are still talking about impaired driving in 2025? I don't know if surprised is the right word, disappointed maybe.

It's so frustrating because I feel like a broken record. I don't know if surprised is the right word, disappointed maybe. It's so frustrating because I feel like a broken record. When I do media, I'm always repeating myself and I feel like, how do I change this message up? But you can only say the words, please don't drive impaired so many different ways. And I really wish I could just get it into the brains of every single person that we just don't want you to combine the act of consuming alcohol and consuming drugs with the act of driving. Just don't combine them. That's it.

Matthew Feeney It was a 19-year-old man, as you said, who was driving and hit your mother. It is a 19-year-old who was charged in Sunday's crash with three counts of impaired driving causing death. The statistics show that young men are most likely to drive impaired. It's something like 62% of those who end up behind the wheel while they are impaired. What are the challenges of getting the message through to young men in particular, but the dangers of, not just drunk driving, because it's more than that now about driving while impaired. It is a difficult group to get through to, obviously the numbers show that. And I think one of the big challenges is, well, we've all been there, right?

We've all been young people before our brains have stopped growing and it's really hard to get through to someone that this could be you. Can I stop you right there just about what's going through people's minds? I mean, as you said, we've all been through there. We all remember, perhaps, a little bit of what it was like to be 18 or 19 years old. What's going on do you think? What is this about that is hard for somebody at that age to understand the consequences of the implications of their actions. I think at that age in particular, people feel invincible. It's just never going to happen to you. This is something that happens to someone else.

It's something that happens on the news. It happens out there. But it won't happen to me because I'm somehow immune to the effects of the world, right? At that age in particular. And I think we grow out of that. We realize that our choices have impacts outside of us, right? But that's a difficult message to get through to people who are very consumed with themselves at that age.

And we all are, I'm not trying to pick on anyone. I think we all go through that phase where everything is about us. Yeah, so I think we just have to tailor that message to help people understand that yes, it can happen to you. That was what I was going to say. How do you go about crafting a message that will break through that if you can? Because it's not just young men, I mean, we all, I think, have a sense of invincibility. There are things that we do that we know are dangerous, that we know we shouldn't be doing,

but we do it. But if you're speaking to that cohort in particular, how do you get through to them? Well, I wish I had the magic answer to that because then we could solve this right now, right? But I think the key here is to continue to let this message evolve so that we're not saying it one way every single time, because you know, that, that hasn't worked, right? Otherwise we would have solved this already.

So we have to continue to evolve our messaging until we find something that reaches some people. And then once we've reached those people, now we can reach some more by changing that message again. In your work, I mean, you do a lot of speaking. Have you found anything that turns the heads of those teenagers who, again, they're 19 years old, you're in this point in your life where you think anything is possible and nothing will touch you?

Well, I have three young people in my house. I have three children and between the ages of 16 and 20. So the we're talking right in that demographic and my son is 18. So the conversations that we have at home I think are far more important than anything that we can put as an organization out. Do you mind me asking what you say to them? Of course. We talk about it all the time. It's just something that we talk put as an organization out. Do you mind me asking what you say to them? Of course. We talk about it all the time.

It's just something that we talk about around the dinner table or just as we're standing next to each other in line somewhere. You know, we just talk about what they're doing on the weekend. Is there going to be alcohol? If there is going to be alcohol, what's your plan to get home? How are you getting there? How are you getting home? And we come up with a plan and then they also

know that they're, if they're ever in a position that they don't know how they're getting home, they can call us, no questions asked any time of the day or night. And they have used that card before and I've schlepped myself out of bed at three o'clock in the morning and gone and picked up my kids so that they get home safely.

That's a powerful card to play, that kind of immunity card, right? You can call at any time and there's no judgment. No judgment, no questions asked, you're not in trouble, you're going to get home safely and so are your friends. I have a van, I can load it up, we'll make sure you all get home safely. And so I think asking parents and asking the older, wiser people in their lives have those conversations with young people is extremely powerful, much more powerful than having someone like me come talk to them at their school because, you know, I don't go home with them at the end

of the day. I'm just some person they saw at school and, you know, it might have had an impact for a few minutes. Uh, maybe I do reach some kids, I hope I do, but I think hearing it from people that they know, they love, they trust is, has a much more powerful impact. I mean, something must be working because the overall number of fatalities caused by impaired drivers is down significantly over the last three

decades. So something has to be sticking, right? Absolutely. And I think we have been out there and we have been bringing this message to people. So I don't want to make it sound like all doom and gloom, right? With the message has been sticking and the numbers have been going down, generally speaking, over the last, you know, 30, 40 years, right? There is good that has been done. One of the other things that people talk about is taking this out of our hands, that there should be technology. If we are going to get behind the wheel of a heavy

vehicle that can cause all sorts of damage and mayhem and destruction, if used improperly, that there, that we take it out of our hands and there has to be technology that ensures that the people who are behind the wheel are capable of being behind the wheel. What do you make of that? People talk about ignition locks and that that could help prevent impaired drivers from being able to turn the car on. Is that a solution to this?

Well, we have to clear up what the technology would do. And an ignition interlock is something that's currently being used for people who have been convicted of or caught and been sentenced to have an ignition interlock placed in the vehicle. So they have to do something. They have to blow into a device and prove that they don't have any alcohol in their system. So there's an action required by the driver. If we're talking anti-impaired driving technology to install in vehicles, this technology has to be passive so that the driver has to do absolutely nothing, just like you would with any other technology installed in your vehicle. If you look at something like a lane departure, some kind of technology that shows whether you've left your lane, right? There's nothing the driver has to do aside from

accidentally swerve out of their lane. And then that sensor goes off and tells you, oh, you're leaving your lane. And it tells you, you should move back over. That's right. You think that that sort of passive technology should be in every car? Absolutely. And I think we need to follow suit with what the United States will be doing at some point in the near future. The United States passed the HALT Act a few years ago.

This was passed by president Biden at the time. And it says that anti-impaired driving technology must be installed in all new vehicles in the United States in the next few years, starting in 27, 28, somewhere around there. The complication is that just finally, before I let you go, impaired means a number of different things. So it can mean drinking, it can mean drugs, it can mean you have a giant screen or a small screen that is pulling your attention away from what's in front of you.

What would you say, and we're not now just talking about teens, what would you say to all of us who think I'm, I can handle that. You know what? It's fine. The phone or the screen is there and I'm a good enough driver that I don't need to worry about that. I would say think again. There are so many of us here whose lives have been destroyed by somebody who thought, you know, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. And you're not fine. And there's no way to know that you're fine in the moment because once you've had that first drink, once you've taken those drugs, you are impaired in some way.

It's either impaired your decision making, it's impaired your ability to make that call. So you need to plan ahead. And so I would beg anyone who thinks, you know, I've heard people say so many times that when they consume cannabis, they're a better driver. And there's so much evidence to the contrary. So I would beg people to please plan ahead. Do what you want to do as far as consuming alcohol, consuming drugs.

I'm not here to tell anybody they can't do that. But what I beg them to do is to remove driving from the equation if they're going to be consuming alcohol or drugs. Tanya, thank you very much for this. Thank you so much. Tanya Hansen-Pratt is the National President of MAD Canada. It was over 30 years ago

that Clifford Olson first called me. Secret phone calls from Canada's most notorious serial killer. I knew I was killing the children, but I couldn't stop myself. Now it's time to unearth the tapes because I believe there are still answers to be found. I'm Arlene Bynum from CBC's Uncover,

Calls from a Killer, available now. Maria Begdonas is the Chief Operating Officer of Young Drivers of Canada. She started with the organization as a driving instructor in 1989. They train young drivers in locations across this country. Maria, good morning to you. Good morning.

What sort of conversations did you have with your colleagues in the wake of Sunday's tragedy in Toronto that left three kids dead? I mean, at any time there's a massive fatality situation, it becomes sort of water cooler talk. Did you hear about it? What can we learn from it? Because there has to be a reason that something happens.

This week, the conversation has really been we have to continue to focus our conversations with anyone that we can, that driving is a job, that it's not something you do until you get to your next destination. It is the number one thing that you need to focus on, whether it's midnight or 12 noon or any time in between. I know the focus today is on impaired driving, but there are a lot of drivers that just make mistakes that involve other drivers that can cause very, very serious injuries or fatalities. How do you get that message through to young people in particular who, as we were saying earlier, might believe they're in this point in their life where they think nothing can

touch them? It's interesting that you say that on the number of driving lessons that I've done in my career. It's that moment of – and you can't even set it up. It's the moment of, okay, you know what? I just want you to pay attention to what's going on between the two parked cars on the right and I'd like you to cover your horn and your brake because I want you to get ready for something to happen.

They give you the roll of the eyes. The next thing you know, a pedestrian steps out with, you know, seven shoe boxes in front of their face and they can't see anything and they step right out into traffic. But because as the, you know, the trained observer, I noticed the person walking out of the business stepping toward the roadway and it's like, whoa, how did you know that? And you know, you have the conversation about look, I was just looking for things that could go wrong. And a lot of it is habit, right?

A lot of it is actions speak louder than words. How do you specifically talk to people about young people about impaired driving? And again, that can be booze, that can be drugs, or that can be the screens around them. I think that the frank and candid conversations and being in a position to answer some of the questions that they may be a little bit apprehensive about asking to say someone in their family or what have you. Like what?

But it's not the health class conversations anymore about how alcohol affects your judgment or your physical reaction time. It's very much like your previous guest said, it's about those situations that I get myself into about how alcohol affects your judgment or your physical reaction time. It's very much like your previous guest said. It's about those situations that I get myself into or that I could potentially get myself into and what should I do? A common one is what if I'm at a party and I've gone there with a bunch of friends and

I chose not to consume any alcohol. And the person that got me there is now, in my opinion, too drunk to drive home. I only have my G1 license. I technically can't drive unless I have a sober co-driver beside me. What do you say? It's one of those, listen, you have to make the decision at that moment about what the best choice is for that situation. If there's an alternative to get yourself home

without breaking the law, then that's what you should do. But if you're out in the middle of nowhere at a bush pit somewhere having a bonfire, it's almost like the person that gets injured in a rural area and the only person that's next to them doesn't have a driver's license but can operate a motor vehicle and they're injured and they now need to get to a hospital. What do you do?

Do you know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. And it's like, which consequence is more dire? And you take them through that logic of you have to make the decision, right? You have to use the best information that you can at that time. And again, having that plan prior to that your previous guest talked about is oh so important so that you're not in that situation. I have to let you go, but just finally and very briefly, have you seen the conversation

around that idea of driving is a job that this is not something that cars are very powerful and the technology is very seductive but that this is something that you need to be all in on. Have you seen the conversation change since you started training drivers? From my perspective no but I think from the new driver perspective, I think that everyone is so engaged in their technology now when they're a passenger in the vehicle that they're not actually paying attention to the same degree that maybe my generation was because we were looking out the window and we were paying attention and our drivers at that point took the opportunity to say, look, this is what can happen.

You need to pay attention. Whereas now everybody's tuned out. They're just in the car as if it was an Uber ride. And 100% of the responsibility is now on the driver. It's a scary situation for passengers to be in. It absolutely can be. I'm the worst Uber passenger in the world. That idea of driving is a job.

I think it's something that will stick with a lot of people. Maria, we'll leave it there. It's good to talk to you. Thank you very much. You're very welcome. Maria Bagdonis is the Chief Operating Officer of Young Drivers of Canada. You've been listening to The Current Podcast. My name is Matt Galloway.

Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon.