Mother of daughter killed by drunk driver spends New Year’s with RCMP at checkstop
Posted January 1, 2020 12:14 pm.
Last Updated January 1, 2020 6:28 pm.
SURREY (NEWS 1130) – With more than 1,000 Canadians still losing their lives to impaired driving ever year, one grieving mother spent her New Year’s Eve with police on the counterattack, saying she’s shocked at what she saw on the road.
As Surrey RCMP handed out sobriety tests and impounded vehicles, Markita Kaulius stood next to them, holding up images of the dead.
Her daughter, Kassandra was only 22 years old when she was t-boned by Natasha Warren in May 2011 while making her way home from a softball game in Cloverdale. Warren had drank a bottle and a half of wine before getting behind the wheel.
Warren, 35, was sentenced to three years and one month in prison and banned from driving for eight years.
“It’s been eight years, but every single day we miss her and we think of her,” Kaulius said. “What keeps us going and why we go out there is because we do not want this to happen to another family,”
Holding up a banner with the faces of 100 dead Canadians, killed by impaired drivers, Markita Kaulius stood at the side of the road, watching @SurreyRCMP as they conducted one of hundreds of check stops across the country. She says she's shocked at what she saw. on @NEWS1130
— Ash Kelly she/her (settler) (@AshDKelly) January 1, 2020
Kaulius and other volunteers with Families for Justice held a banner showing the faces of 100 victims of drunk driving from across Canada. The counter attack was only two hours long, but Kaulius estimates Mounties netted nearly a dozen offenders.
“We saw a few people have their cars impounded due to drug use. Several tested for alcohol that were given sobriety tests. Open alcohol was in the car. It was a very busy night. They caught I think one of two people driving on suspended licenses.”
She says since the immediate roadside prohibitions started in 2010, more than 231,000 people have been taken off the road, “and that’s only the ones they have caught.”
“Sadly we lose between 1,250 to 1,500 people per year to impaired driving,” she said.
She says ride hailing should be here by now, and believes penalties for impaired driving should be harsher.
