Letter: School Board Needs Policy Change to Protect & Educate Students About Driving
A former Saugeen District Secondary School student shares concerns about safe driving education and suggestions Bluewater District School Board could implement to improve young driver safety.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
The tragic deaths of three John Diefenbaker Senior School students following a single-vehicle crash that left one other in critical condition was a heartbreaking event felt deeply by members of the Bluewater District schools’ community. The devastating impact of student deaths behind the wheel is a matter which deserves immediate attention.
2025 has already been a devastating year for youth motor vehicle incidents for Grey-Bruce, including a multi-vehicle collision resulting in the death of four Walkerton students and a teacher returning from London, a traffic incident near Wiarton taking the life of a 17-year-old male, and a collision outside Dundalk killing two, including a high school-aged teen.
These stories, and the countless others this year alone, tell the story of the real dangers posed to our community’s youth by motor vehicles. We need to see tangible policy changes at the school board level to help prevent further devastation to parents, classmates, and the community at large.
Recently, the Ontario government pledged to spend 210 million dollars across the province to boost road safety, mentioning school zones as an area of specific importance. This investment might help to change our region's cityscapes with traffic safety in mind, should our region be approved for funding, yet does little to speak to youth directly about the dangers of the road.
Bluewater District School Board has a unique position as the largest provider of education in Grey-Bruce to do exactly that and bring about serious changes by opening dialogue with students about road safety and drafting policies to enforce changes for students who choose to drive.
According to the government of Ontario’s driving school register, Bluewater maintains its active licensure for driver education at 8 sites, but does not offer a publicly available curriculum online nor the provincially approved Driver Improvement or defensive driving courses.
As of the writing of this article, it seems the board may not actively offer any drivers education programs; there is certainly no evidence of any active offerings online, and as a recent graduate of a Bluewater district school (Saugeen District SS ’23) I can’t recall any being offered.
Bluewater’s failure to offer driver's education presents a serious issue when a student’s school would be among the most accessible places to receive driver’s education.
Additionally, Bluewater does not appear to create dialogue about the inherent danger of driving. From personal memory, I recall a police constable speaking briefly on the morning announcements for National Teen Driver Safety Week at my school, but the limited reach was obvious.
The Board could make some immediate changes to this lacklustre approach by inviting police to speak directly to students and answer questions they might have about road safety.
The Board could go further by inviting officers to conduct RIDE checks outside school parking lots or to conduct random inspections of students’ parked cars to preemptively catch issues like illegal tint or missing snow tires.
This is already precedented by the widely accepted practice of schools inviting police inside to use dogs to detect substances in students’ lockers.
Each year, our region is victim to the preventable deaths of countless teens behind the wheel. Bluewater District School Board is in a unique position to reach out to students directly about preventing further devastation.
Serious policy changes, like relaunching drivers’ education and collaborating with police, could help Grey-Bruce reduce its annual youth motor vehicle death count and make driving safer for students and the community in its entirety.
Curtis Metcalf
Saugeen Shores
Letters to the Editor do not necessarily reflect the opinions or beliefs of The Owen Sound Current and its editor or publisher.