STAFF PHOTO/STEVE SOMERVILLE
York Regional Police conduct a spot check on Red Maple Road in Richmond Hill as part of the start of the Festive RIDE program.
Regional News
November 28, 2008 11:45 AM
Be responsible this holiday season: police chief
Joe Fantauzzi, Staff Writer
With her voice quivering at times, Jessica Seymour told the story of how her life changed when she was hit by a drunk driver.
At 3 a.m. Oct. 1, 2005, Ms Seymour, 17, was changing a tire on the side of the road after watching a movie with friends.
While she was at the back of the car, taking the spare tire out of the trunk, a drunk driver struck her vehicle, pinning her between two cars and severing her leg.
Ms Seymour, who did not wear a prosthetic on her leg, spoke with confidence as she addressed the crowd on hand for this year’s launch of the holiday R.I.D.E program.
“My dreams, my hopes, soccer were taken away from me. My independence all gone Oct. 1, 2005,” she said.
A few kilometres away, red vehicle brake lights flashed on and off as cars and trucks slowed and moved into a single traffic lane along a Yonge Street-bound Hwy. 7 ramp Thursday morning.
Small triangular cones dotted the divided roadway and drew motorists toward York Regional Police cruisers, their emergency lights flickered red and blue. Occasionally, horns blasted when the lines of traffic slowed from a crawl to a halt.
Sgt. Gordon Bond stood with his back to the concrete island on the Yonge-bound side of the ramp, a fluorescent vest over his dark police-issue uniform. When a cream-coloured Smart car rolled up to the front of the line, he walked over.
“Good morning,” Sgt. Bond said to a woman in the driver’s seat. “We’re just doing a R.I.D.E. spot-check for drinking drivers. Are you one of them?”
“You’re starting early,” the woman responded. “No, I’m not.”
The spot check lasted briefly that morning. The officers had set it up following the holiday R.I.D.E. launch. While drivers may encounter a R.I.D.E. blitz at any time during the year in York, the program is enhanced during the holiday period, according to police.
York police dedicate the holiday R.I.D.E. to the memory of someone killed in an impaired driving-related collision.
This year, that person is Johnny Agelakos.
On Jan. 7, 2001, Mr. Agelakos, 18, a Vaughan Secondary School student, avid hockey and soccer player, attended a party with his girlfriend. Mr. Agelakos chose not to drink that night.
At 12:30 a.m., Anthony Losacco and three friends left a Markham bar after drinking, according to police.
About 30 minutes later, Mr. Agelakos was headed east on Hwy. 7 when the westbound car driven by Mr. Losacco crossed over the raised centre island into the oncoming lanes and slammed into Mr. Agelakos’ car.
Mr. Agelakos died in the crash. His girlfriend and another friend were also badly injured.
Mr. Losacco was charged with a slew of offences and, in 2004, pleaded guilty to impaired operation of a motor vehicle causing death and two counts of impaired operation of a motor vehicle causing bodily harm.
He was sentenced to three years behind bars for each charge, received a five-year concurrent sentence and a five-year-driving ban.
That ban will end in early 2009, police said.
Mr. Agelakos mother had hoped to attend the R.I.D.E. launch but the memory of her son’s still weighed heavily, Chief Armand La Barge said.
“I think we all know the expression that time heals all wounds but there is no amount of time that can heal the loss of a loved one — a son or a daughter, a mother or father,” Chief La Barge said “There are real people behind the impaired driving statistics that we use.”
John Hewson, now an operations supervisor with York EMS, was the first paramedic on the scene of the crash that eventually took Mr. Agelakos’ life, he said.
“It’s huge and it never goes away , it stays with me,” he said of the magnitude of a fatal collision scene. “Our coping mechanism is to take our uniform off... everything goes away, it gets filed away — until years later. I can recall this call vividly. I can still see the patients in the car, I still see how I coached my partner to do some medical care to this gentleman.”
In June 2007, York police launched the Safe Roads...Your Call program which encourages you to call 911 if you spot a suspected impaired driver. In the first year of the program, police took 2,221 calls — an increase of 67 per cent over the same period a year earlier. And, of those calls, police made 305 arrests.
The York Region chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving also launched its red ribbon campaign, which aims to raise the profile of safe and sober driving.
“We need to make personal commitments to care for each other and to keep our community safe,” new MADD York Region chapter president Kylee Goldman said.
“Whether or not you have been personally affected by impaired driving, we are all victims. York Region is our home; we drive on our roads every day and so we are all affected by impaired driving.”
Chief La Barge is urging all drivers to be responsible during the holidays.
“Impaired driving is not an accident, it is a senseless and selfish — and I think most importantly — it is a completely preventable criminal act.”