The Korth Shore Hews ts pabliched by Korth Shore Free Press Ltd., Poblisher Peter Speck, from 1139 Lonsdale Avense Worth Vancouver, 8.C., V7M 214 Publisher - $85-2131 (101) =—S = 61,582 (average circulation, Wednesday Friday & Sunday) ae & pal * Entire contents © 1997 North Shore Free Press Lid. Ail rights reserved. mailbox Fire departments atin tate of onemet eeth guarding budgets Dear Editor: : : Tread with interest the advertise- “ment by the West Van Fire: : Department outlining its‘desire to . respond to all emergency medical cals. _ Some years ago when I worked - for the. ambulance service the fire’ department was also lobbying to go on all ambulance calls. At that time ‘there was no first-responder pro- gram, and possession of a valid first- ‘aid’ ticket» by fire department _" employees was optional. fire crews arriving at the scene often had no first-aid training and many were uncomfortable with their inability to be of any real value, but still their management insisted thar they be sent. Fire prevention measures were " becoming ‘more and more efficient, stricter building codes, sprinkler i tems, compulsory smoke and alarms; it was casy to conclude that perhaps they desired to go on all medical calls because the number of : fire calls was diminishing and a large number of - medical _ responses fleshed out a thinning call volume. ' Since fire department budgets depend on productivity, this was a way to keep the money rolling in mews Wiewpolrt ~ Pensions and ‘hence the employment num- rs Up.” "Now they. have the first-respon- ° ders program which trains fire crews in ‘basic. first-aid skills, enhancing their value at an emergency. scene. This does not justify their.demand: ; to go to'all medical calls: There are many situations where _ their. presence is not required, * specifically those calls to which they cannot arrive before the ambulance and those calls requiring the police to secure a dangerous scene before the waiting ambulance paramedics can enter. This latest infomercial would have one believe that the first- responders are the highly trained experts and that those ambulance drivers will show up to take you to hospital. ‘ Such misleading innuendoes are not worthy of any so-called profes- sional group and again makes their motives suspect. It would seem that with all the hand-wringing in the guise of pub- lic concern they are still just lobby- ing to keep the numbers high and the budget dollars secure, P. Twohig Gibsons ICBC premiums require some tough action THE louder the raucous debate over no-fault wuto insurance waxes, the clearer it becomes that both sides are missing the real point. _ Which is simply this: How to lower the claims rate by drastically reducing the num- ber of accidents. Last year, the worst in ICBC’s history, brought 100,000 more claims than in 1995 “. = fora 1996 total of 949,000. Quite obviously this has to be halted - regardless of what type of insurance is provided. The differences between our present open-ended “sue-the-bastards” 7 "approach and the various models of no-fault (pure, “lite,” threshold) . have already been aired ad nauseum. No-fault champions stress savings in “legal fees by cutting down on court actions, plus fast settlements. Defenders of the current system reject the concept of compensating drivers who cause accidents on an equal footing with their innocent vic- tims. They argue that personal injuries have far too complex effects on individual lives to be reduced to a mathematical formula and denied ©. - redress in the courts. And that no-fault favors bad drivers. : The kind of gap separating the two approaches is dramatically shown: ‘om 1990 to 1996 that ended. : up in court. The average original ICBC offer was $18,842, the average * in just 13 cases of head-injured children final court award $506,231 — plus ICBC legal costs. Small wonder we're looking at a 20%-plus hike in premiums in 1998. - ; Meanwhile, there is no conclusive evidence that no-fault cuts costs. Premiums have risen over the past four years in all four Canadian provinces adopting no-fault — by 35% in Quebec and 29:5% in Ontario,” ; a compared to 15% over the same period in B.C. And one recent U.S.” study found that of the 15 states with the biggest premium hikes from 1989 to 1994, 10 offered some form of no-fault. ; Clearly the problem isn’t going to be solved by messing around with. ~ the form of insurance offered. It demands nothing less than a radical ~~ crackdown on bad driving. And equally on fast-growing automobile crime. re “Tighten up driver-licensing. B.C. test standards are pathetic compared ®: .” to numerous European countries (and where else would drivers ignorant - of the country’s language be licensed?). Confine all first-time drivers to graduated licensing — if you can’t buy booze or tobacco until 19, why. should you have unrestricted use of two tons of lethal metal ac age'16? - Lower Maintand car thefts and insurance fraud are both at all-time: | highs. Hundreds of vehicles are being driven by unlicensed or suspended - wok drivers — in many cases uninsured too, with stolen or “borrowed” i y , plates. .. an intensified scale: roving day-and-night spot checks of driver and vehi- cle documents, year-round drunk driving roadblocks, photo radar and - public education. And throw the book at offenders, once convicted. Costly? Sure. But diverting part of the $2.2 billion ICBC spent on.” 1995 claims to pay for extra police and justice system resources could be a much healthier use of premiums — and do a lot to stabilize them. Unless you're resigned to being eventually driven off the road by pre- miums you can no longer afford, what other way is there to go?- ees ot ‘ HAPPY BIRTHDAY tomorrow, March10, to West Van’s Eve Kemble— : who shares it with our Consul in San Francisco, Avril Phaedra (Kim) ar Campbell. WRIGHT OR WRONG: Sweat is the cologne of accomplishment.’ .: . - — The North Shore News believes strongly in freedom of speech and the right of all sides in a debate to be heard. The columnists published in the News present: differing points of view, but those views are not necessarily those of the newspaper itself. ; a a I erase cet Combatting this mayhem on the roads calls for police surveillance on” vee CREWED again. Royally, roundly and federally. Citizens, it is long past time to revolt over the mis- management of your tax dollars. Water under the bridge, you say? Not a new idea, true. But the issue on the table today is water that has yet to flow under the bridge. Fiscal water. Your fiscal water. More specifically, your pension money — what you have been faithfully contributing te the federal government all yovs working life through payroll deductions or self-employed earnings. A small payoff, you might have thought, waiting for you at the tail- end of your working life, Sorry. All gone. Frittered away on God only knows what federal boondoggle. Devoured by the $600-billion deficit. Most Canadians won’t see much or any of that pension money. The federal government has decreed that, as of 2001, taxpaying Canadians will no longer automatically receive a pension cheque from the federal gov- ernment when they turn 65. Only seniors of extremely modest means will qualify to get back any of the money they have contributed to the federal pension plan: those with a fam. ily income of $40,000 or less, and that figure will include Canada Pension Plan income, will qualify. That compares with the current fig- ure of $170,000 in family income that a senior is allowed to carn and still col- lect a federal pension. The MPs who approved this high- way robbery of working people every- where do not, of course, have to worry about the loss of their pensions, which are fully indexed. No this is an inside job all the way. Screwed again, taxpayers, and at a time of life when most can afford it least. ty Keer ; ae ot pea pe einen A A OO CET NRE RIA Pt 8, ER RES RTO PRT