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THURSDAY
Thursday, January 17, 2013 X Volume 26 No. 5
THIS WEEK
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Province looking at problem drivers But, says superintendent of motor vehicles, ‘sometimes, short of incarceration, there’s little we can do’ By Dale Bass STAFF REPORTER dale@kamloopsthisweek.com
Changes are being discussed at the provincial government level on how to deal with risky or problem drivers. However, in cases like that of a man in Kamloops who has violated several driving prohibitions — one of which allegedly is connected to him hitting and killing a woman in a downtown crosswalk in November — it can be difficult to find a remedy that will work, said Stephen Martin, the province’s superintendent of motor vehicles. Martin said drivers who ignore prohibitions are considered high risk. “But, sometimes, short of incarceration, there’s little we can do,” he said. “They go into the criminal system and a judge would have to look at it.” Police can request Martin review the situation to determine if he should use provincial powers granted to his office to intervene. The superintendent can prohibit people from driving for a variety of reasons, including not paying damages from an accident, having a licence suspended in another province or in the U.S. and if he considers it to be in the public interest. Martin could not say if he has been asked to review the Kamloops driver who police say has violated several prohibitions. The 62-year-old is being investigated in relation to an accident on
Nov. 21, when a man driving a pickup truck struck 66-year-old Valerie Brook as she was crossing Victoria Street at Sixth Avenue. Kamloops RCMP allege it is the same driver. On Wednesday, Jan. 9, police, tipped off the man was again driving, staked out a vehicle at the Lake City Casino at Victoria Street and Sixth Avenue and, through a traffic stop, charged the same man with driving while prohibited. He was driving a vehicle loaned to him. Martin said it is challenging to deal with such situations, particularly when others provide vehicles to prohibited drivers. The province’s driver-improvement program, created to identify and address high-risk drivers, “is a narrow program that just looks at a two-year driving record,” Martin said, “and many high-risk clients can work their way through the system. “For example, if someone has been in jail for two years, they come out and they have a really great driving record.” Preliminary discussions have begun through his office to look at education and counselling components that could be addressed to deal with risky drivers. A similar set of guidelines works with impaired drivers, Martin said. “We see a lot of them change their behaviours.” Work on the adaptations is at the early stage, Martin added.
Westsyde resident Katie Britton opened her barn door to find this arresting sight — a majestic bobcat staring right back at her. Fortunately, Brtton had her camera in hand and managed to snap a photo of the animal, even though it had, apparently, just dined on a quasi-pet pigeon. For more photos of the Barnhartvale bobcat, go online to outsyderadventures.com.
A close encounter with beautiful bobcat By Dale Bass STAFF REPORTER dale@kamloopsthisweek.com
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OOR BENNY. Odds are the disabled pigeon living in a barn on Dairy Road in Westsyde is no more. Remains of a pigeon were found outside the barn earlier this week, a day before Katie Britton and her landlady discovered a bobcat inside the barn. And, for the recent immigrant to Canada — and Kamloops — it was quite the sight to see, one she has written about on her blog, outsyderadventures.com, for her friends and family back in England to read. It was the first time Britton has seen one of the big cats, alerted to it by her landlady, who had seen
the creature earlier on Tuesday, Jan. 14, walking through the five acres of land she owns. Britton went out with her camera, planning to shoot photos of any footprints the animal left and use them to confirm its identity. Instead, when she entered the barn, she confronted the large brown furball staring back at her. Britton said throughout that encounter and one about an hour later, the animal seemed relaxed and calm and didn’t react as she took its picture. Indentations and signs of rustling in a pile of sawdust were taken as signs the cat had made itself a bed; on Wednesday, Jan. 15, there was no sign of any change on the “bed” and the animal was gone from the barn. Britton and her husband use a
stealth-camera — similar to what hunters would use to record wildlife movement in areas — to track the animal and had no recordings of it on Wednesday. For a former police officer who said in her homeland “you could never find a piece of land that didn’t have 10 people on it,” living in Kamloops has been a daily learning experience in being surrounded by wildlife and space. “We haven’t had our first bear encounter, on foot at least,” Britton said, “but, we’ve seen them when we were in the car.” Britton is pretty sure there’s been a coyote on the property recently as well, as evidenced by the tattered ear the landlady’s dog received in a fight with another animal. X See B.C. WILDLIFE PARK A16