“But seriously, we’ve been talking about this for 31 years,” Tiana Tozer told MyPGNow.
A resident in Portland, Oregon, Tozer will be one of the road safety speakers traveling across Northern B.C. as part of talks organized by ICBC as a way to share their stories with high school students about risky driving and the importance of making smart decisions.
“It feels like we should have been able to solve this by now, and the issue is that we don’t care enough about our community to obey the traffic laws and to make good decisions,” said Tozer. “I feel like we’re very narcissistic drivers.”
Tozer will be speaking about how her life was impacted by an impaired driver at the age of 20. She draws from her experience as a humanitarian worker in Iraq helping people with disabilities advocate for themselves, as well as being a two-time USA Paralympic medalist.
“I know some people I’m reaching, and some people I’m not,” said Tozer. “My mindset is if I can get just one person to change their behaviour then I’ve done something.”
Prince George will have two talks scheduled for May 2 with Tozer being the spokesperson at each.
The first will take place at Duchess Park Secondary at 10:05 a.m.
That will be followed by the second one for the day taking place at CNC later at 1:00 p.m.
According to B.C. Coroner data from 2016, the latest figures show that vehicles crashes represent the greatest number of unintentional deaths for people age 15 to 18. To go along with that, distracted driving represents 33 per cent of all vehicle injuries involving youth.
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