Cst. Jeff McMichael and Cst. Alex Hutt, of the 100 Mile House RCMP, have both been honoured by being selected as part of the 2016 Alexa’s Team. The criteria for RCMP and municipal police officers to make the team is taking 12 or more impaired drivers off the road.
Alexa’s Team is named for Alexa Middelaer who was killed by an alcohol-impaired driver in 2008, while feeding a horse with her aunt in Delta, B.C. and now has grown to over 2,000 officers in B.C. with 268 new members in 2016.
Together, McMichael and Hutt took 43 impaired drivers off the road in the South Cariboo.
“As a traffic member, it’s the goal that you set for yourself to reach at the end of the year. I just missed the mark because I transferred up here from Clinton last year so I just missed the mark … [but] yeah this year we both made it onto the team which is kinda nice because there’s [just] two of us on traffic right now” says McMichael. “It’s good that we’re taking drunk drivers off the road. We’re not just out there giving tickets out there all the time but we are trying to save lives and people not getting the hint every day about not drinking and driving, it’s still present every day which is sad.”
According to McMichael, Cst. Hutt has been on Alexa’s Team for several years. McMichael says it’s important to remember why it’s important to keep impaired drivers off the road.
“Just going back to the Alexa Team … she was four years old and it happened nine years ago so she would have been 13, the same age as my daughter, and I lived in the lower mainland when she was killed by a senseless act of drunk driving … it’s sad that people aren’t getting the hint. As good as it is yesterday and exciting and happy to get an award, it’s still sad because we’re having to battle drunk driving,” says McMichael.
Especially in a small town such as 100 Mile House people really notice the consequences of drunk driving, he adds.
“There are some people in town who have been killed recently by drunk driving and it impacts a community that’s nice and small and tight like 100 Mile House.”
The Alexa’s Team awards come on the heels of a blitz against drunk driving on the May long weekend for McMichael and Hutt.
“We know that with the resorts and lakes that we have here, and the population that grows seasonally, that the people from maybe the coast or out of the community they come up here and they travel and they think I can drink and drive my quad or my boat and they don’t realize that all those things are illegal and it’s still a motor vehicle.”
McMichael also helped bring Alexa’s Bus to 100 Mile recently, which he says helps spread awareness as students at Peter Skene Ogden Secondary School and the 100 Mile Elementary School could go check it out in addition to helping get a few impaired drivers off the road during road blocks.
“I just want to keep the word out there that impaired driving is a serious offence,” adding that people should just plan ahead. “There’s no excuse to drive drunk … The biggest thing I can say is don’t drink and drive.”