'Be the Driver, not the Danger’: Niagara students ‘drive’ message of not being impaired behind the wheel
By Victoria Nicolaou, Photo by Bob Tymczyszyn
OSAID is challenging students to post Drive-Check videos before getting into a vehicle: “No alcohol, no cannabis, no distractions — good to drive.”
Pines students lead campaign against impaired driving
By Darren Taylor, SOOTODAY
A group of White Pines Collegiate students have dedicated themselves to raising and spreading awareness about the dangers of impaired and distracted driving.
Four Grade 11 students - Ethan Kutcher, Jordyn Stadnisky, Ty Walls and Cameron Ciotti - appeared before Algoma District School Board officials at a Tuesday board meeting to speak about Ontario Students Against Impaired Driving activities being held at White Pines this week.
Students brought long paper chains - part of a ‘Chain of Life’ - and placed them on the desks of ADSB administrators at Tuesday’s meeting.
Impaired driving isn’t limited to alcohol, cannabis, Niagara students told
By Bernd Franke
Innovations in technology since Ontario Students Against Impaired Driving (OSAID) was established in 1987 have done wonders to keep drivers from getting lost and in contact with help should they take a wrong turn along the way.
However, a global positioning system (GPS) and cellphones — especially ones capable of sending and receiving test messages — can be potentially deadly double-edged swords if they shift a driver’s focus away from the road.
At a provincewide launch of the organization’s OSAID Day on Wednesday in Welland teachers and students from the eight Catholic high schools in Niagara region were told impairment is anything that impairs someone’s ability to operate a vehicle.
OSAID annual craft show brings first taste of Christmas to Goderich
By The Goderich Signal Star
GDCI’s Ontario Students Against Impaired Driving (OSAID) held their annual Country Christmas Craft Show on Nov. 2, bringing one of the first tastes of Christmas to Goderich. A record number of over 130 vendors took part in the 16th annual craft show, raising over $6,000 for OSAID.
OSAID Week sends sobering message to high school students at KDSS
By The Saugeen Times
The Kincardine District Secondary School OSAID (Ontario Students Against Impaired Driving) group spent all of last week sending a sobering message to high school students about the consequences of drinking and driving.
This is the 25th anniversary of OSAID and the awareness week began with a quiz day on Monday, and on Tuesday students were taken out of class by the "Grim Reaper" and pronounced dead due to an impaired driver. All of that person's friends wore name tags which stated they, too, had been affected by the death of their friend.
Students take stand against impaired driving
By Harry Carmichael, The Sudbury Star
Jaymie-Lyne Hancock can never escape the fact her younger brother DJ was killed by an impaired driver almost two years ago.
Whether it's as a result of her nursing job at Health Sciences North, hearing ambulance sirens, seeing the empty chair at the family dinner table, or simply watching her dad -- whom she had never seen cry before – break down hundreds of times, Jaymie-Lynn can't get away from the horrific crash that left her 18-year-old brother trapped, unconscious and dying in his badly mangled Subaru.
“I am constantly reminded of DJ,” Jamie-Lyne told several hundred students in the Lasalle Secondary School gymnasium Monday. “Usually, someone loses their loved ones to predictable things such as serious illness and old age. I am always reminded how his life was taken away from him ... It was due to someone else's choice."
Jaymie-Lyne, along with her mother, Kim, were guest speakers at the high school as part of a week of anti-impaired-driving activities organized by the Lasalle Ontario Students Against Impaired Driving chapter.
Central students create chain of vows to not drive while impaired
By Scott Wishart, Stratford Beacon Herald
The links are only paper, but the chain itself forms a strong message in the cafeteria of Stratford Central against driving while impaired.
Members of the school's OSAID club hung the lengthy multi-coloured chain Friday to help spread the word, what with summer holidays right around the corner.
"There are so many things in this world that are tragic that you can't prevent," said club vice-president Shelby Oldford, but this is something that is really preventable."
Welland youth receives prestigious provincial honour
By Steve Henschel, Niagara This Week, Welland
Dario Smagata-Bryan recognized with Junior Citizen of the Year award
Dario Smagata-Bryan has a resume of accomplishments that would belittle most adults. It’s no wonder the Ontario Community Newspaper Association has recognized him as one of its 12 Junior Citizens of the Year. Last year the 17-year-old Welland Centennial Secondary School student had been nominated for the award, and this year he won, earning recognition as one of the best of hundreds of nominees, all who dedicate themselves to improving their communities, province and country.
For Smagata-Bryan those community efforts are varied and plentiful.
He explained his path to community involvement started in Grade 9 when he signed up to participate with his school’s chapter of Ontario Students Against Impaired (OSAID) Driving.
