6 - Wednesday, January 6, 198% - North Shore News o . THAD VINEE OE MOOT ADEE? WHE ET VAMC OUIE Dt _ : a 980-0511 News Viewpoint aay" er 986.6222 : Rcis L—Al 985-2131 — y 986-1337 986-1337 Display Advertising Classitied Advertising Newsroom Distribution Subscriptions mr erreectn North Shore News, * + FRIDAY ra pe 1139 Lonsdale Ave. ene te North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4 ¥ Publisher Peter Sock Managing Editor Associate Editor Advertising Director Barrett Fisher Hows Wérgtt tinda Stewart Break the bottle ET'S TIGHTEN the squeeze on those who per- sist in mixing the bottle and the wheel. The Christmas CounterAttack season has come and gone. Some of us got caught in the drinking driver's dragnet. Some of us drove around the road- blocks. Some of us are listening and have stopped drinking and driving. But local police statistics show the roadblocks, up in force to Jan. 3, yielded about the same number of in- fractions as last year’s tally. Police admit an impaired driver, capable of laying on a straight face and a string of semi-coherent words ata roadblock check, stands a yood chance of passing through before passing out. While only the truly pickled are being plucked, roadblocks have proven an effective public awareness tool. Tougher measures must be considered if law en- forcement is (o move beyond the public relations stage and toward a real effort to banish booze from the streets once and for all. The Turks may have just the ticket —— drunk drivers are taken 20 miles out of town by police end are forced to walk back under escort. The issuing of a red licence piste to convicted drinking drivers is znother potential penalty worthy of consideration. What better way to break the bottle than on the wheel of immediate, public accountability? re a Sta gest Abbe oe power Entire contents @. 1988 North Shore Free Press Lid Mi nghis reserved 58,804 caverage, Vlednesday Fralay 4 Sunday) SDA DENIC WEVE MIDE SURE THAT OUR NDP FINDRASING TV, SPECIAL WILL BE Nae ORE IN THE iViake the bad guys, Noel Wright ® wednesday world @ the good, pay ICBC Tiddlycove over the New Year's the bad (at-fault claim) drivers. That’s some small comfort, of PENALTY BOX DEPT.: ICBC boss Thomas Holmes takes your weekend was the list, finally scribe gently to task for his Dec.2 column on this year’s whopping auto insurance rate hike. Tom points out that 22 per cent is the “average’’ jncrease, not ‘across the bourd’’, and notes that the bad guys will. pay around 80 per cent more in 1988, while the good (claim-free) guys will get up to 40 per cent off. Presumably this means that the very good guys with a top dis- count, will pay only 60 per cent of the ‘‘average’’ 22 per cent hike, which is still a premium 13 per cent higher than last time, as against the 80 per cent higher premium for course, but the thrust of my argu- ment was that the spread should be much wider. Hold the increase for the angels to, say, a nominal infla- tion-related five per cent — and if this raises the premium for the devils to very nasty three-figure percentages, so be it. That’s tie tab they owe. Isn't the whole object, Tom, to smarten up the baddies by making them pay until they really hurt — or are even forced off the road for lack of cash? HOT TOPIC of conversation in published, of those 75 ‘Achiever Awards’ handed out to com- memorate the municipality’s 75th Anniversary last year. Judging by some of the comments overheard, one is tempted to wonder just how good the idea was after all. The recipients are to be honored later this month at an awards cer- emony and in a special community TV program. But there'll be a maximum of only 50 of them pres- ent — two-thirds of the list having already passed on earlier to the Big Awards Ceremony in the Sky. ; With no disrespect to these lat- , ter, it's open to debate whether | confining the list to living DINNER HOUR FUN coming up...(-r) North Van City firefighter Pete Deness, Local 914, and Beaver Lumber's Monica Farrell present propane barbecue — a joint gift of Local 914 and Beaver Lumber — to Florence Morello at Margaret Fulton Centre. achievers might have been preferable, particularly since numerous of the names of the deceased mean little to the younger or even the middle-aged generation of ' Tiddlycovians. Your scribe, himself a West Van resident for 30 years, admits to his shame that half of the names were unfamiliar to him. Stretching hindsight further, a still better idea might have been TWO ''75"* lists — one for the liv- ing achievers, the other for pioneer achievers now departed from us. This would have at least eliminated 75 of the weekend’s beefs. ‘The judges in such an affair, as awards program co-chairmen Diane Hutchinson and Bob Hicks have noted, have a thankless task in paring the mass of submissions down to size. Damned if they do and damned if they don’t, they have mercifully been allowed to remain anonymous. But that, alas, does not pacify the curiosity of disgruntled sponsors demanding to know just WHO rejected their man or woman — and why. Personally, being in the name game myself, 1 can warmly con- gratulate most of the 50 living achievers who made it. Four out of five of them have also graced this column during the past year or two, so the judges must obviously be on the right wavelength. Their main problem lay in being unable to pick TWICE as many names from Wednesday World, Friday Focus and Sunday Brunch! How much, however, their no- win dilemma has contributed to community harmony among those involved seemed last weekend to be another question again. s**t @ WRAP-UP: Talking of achievers, a queen-size birthday card to Anna Willcox, grand old lady of In- glewood Lodge and a North Shore resident since 1913, who turns 106 tomorrow (Jan.7)! ... Watch out, centrefold fans, for former West Van Secondary grad Kimbertey Conrad, now 24, who this month becomes Playboy’s 10th Lower Mainland ‘‘Playmate’’ ... And Vancouver Rotary Club still has some tickets available for the Ice Capades — call Andy Danyliu, 660-1888 or 926-5018 to snatch. WRIGHT OR WRONG: It may be every citizen’s duty to support the government — but not necessarily in the style to which it has become accustomed. _ NEWS photo oe! Weight ANNA WILLCOX...queen-size birthday card.