Dear Editor:
I am responding to your Sept. 7 story, Police Looking for Distracted Drivers. I recently was featured on the front page of the North Shore News talking about my recent DUI and my drinking and driving organization, IDIOTIC.
I will have an ignition interlock device installed on my car Sept. 10. This is an electronic device that requires you to blow into the machine and have a zero alcohol reading. Little do the public and our peace officers know, this device asks you randomly to blow while you are driving about every 15 minutes.
We can ignore our cellphones if they ring while we are driving, we can wait to change the songs on our iPods if we have to, but participants in the Ignition Interlock Program cannot ignore the request to blow into their device. We must blow within three minutes or our car will sound an alarm, the horn will sound, then possibly cause a lock out no matter where we are. If the Office of the Superintendents of Motor Vehicles understood for one moment how dangerous this device actually is, maybe they would understand the participants' frustrations of being distracted on the road having to blow every ounce of oxygen out of our lungs while also observing the lights on the device.
It is not always safe to pull over, especially if there is no shoulder on the road, and stopping on a highway, no way. Yet we cannot ignore our devices.
Karina Stampfli North Vancouver
