Ten signs have recently popped up around the city of Estevan with a simple message: “Impaired driver caught here.”
Connie Hagel with Estevan’s chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving says she hopes the signs send the message that impaired drivers are being caught in the community, regardless of where they hit the road – all part of a larger effort to get more people to give driving impaired a second thought.
“They’re not only just on the side of the roads in the main areas, they’re in the residential areas,” Hagel said. “I think with people seeing them there they’ll think twice about getting into their vehicle and driving impaired.”
“People will see these signs and realize just how many impaired drivers we’re dealing with in the community, and more importantly how many are being caught,” Estevan Police Chief Paul Ladouceur said. “The message is you don’t want to be one of those people that is caught.”
The signs are the result of brainstorming between the Estevan Police Service, MADD, and members of the public to help curb impaired driving in the city, a move most residents are supportive of.
“We aren’t surprised that there’s good support for it,” Ladouceur said. “Saskatchewan tends to lead the country when it comes to impaired driving and Estevan’s no different, so it’s going very well.”
“No other community has done anything like this, so we wanted something unique to our community,” Hagel said. “It’s just a different awareness. People are used to seeing the big signs and the social media that’s on the TV and stuff like that so we wanted something different.”
Estevan’s impaired driving number has been on the downward trend for the past few years after a spike police attribute to increased enforcement, and the hope is this campaign will continue that downward trend in 2019.
