In the driver’s hot seat

The number of bad drivers in Manitoba is growing, but they're helping the good ones reap huge savings on their licences.

In the last two years, according to data provided by Manitoba Public Insurance, there has been a 424 per cent increase in drivers holding a -20 driver safety rating (DSR), the worst possible rating in the new system. Drivers holding a -20 rating pay a $2,500 premium yearly to hold onto their licences. As of October, 921 drivers on the road in this province were stuck at -20.

Every driver's licence in Manitoba costs $20, but drivers are charged premiums on top of that depending on their rating. The premiums the worst drivers in the province pay bring in almost as much revenue for Manitoba Public Insurance as those with the highest rating of +15 pay, even though there are almost 200 times more terrific drivers than terrible ones.

"When it was implemented in 2010, the maximum discount was 30 per cent. It is now 33 per cent," said MPI spokesman Brian Smiley. "It was felt that the high-risk drivers that pay additional driver premiums would cover off the additional discount at the top."

Impaired-driving arrest stats revealed

Four days before his 24th birthday, Grant McLeod was a passenger in a car struck head-on by a pickup truck travelling the wrong way down the Perimeter Highway.

The Sept. 9 crash left McLeod in a coma and killed the driver of the car, 21-year-old Samantha Schlichting, a mother of two.

Police charged the driver of the pickup truck, 49-year-old David Deslisle, with impaired driving causing death, impaired driving causing bodily harm, refusing to give a breathalyzer test and possessing marijuana resin.

While the pickup truck driver was not injured, McLeod suffered memory loss and brain damage that makes it difficult for him to speak.

Migrant workers ‘invisible’

Saying goodbye to two young children and leaving to work in a foreign country for six months isn't something most Canadians have to do.

Explaining to your spouse and children that as much as you'd love for them to join you, strict immigration laws ensure they probably never will, is also something most Canadians avoid.

This is the reality migrant farm worker 44-year-old Luis Galvain faces each year.

"It was difficult at the beginning," said Galvain, who is from the Mexican state of Guanajuato. "For me, it's a need. There's no choice."

Playground safety tool missing in action

An $18,000 tool intended to reduce the severity of playground accidents has sat in city storage for more than a year.

In 2010, the City of Winnipeg contributed $3,600 toward the purchase of an $18,000 Triax 2000 machine, which measures the impact of falls from play structures. The remainder of the money was raised through grants and partnerships with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and the Manitoba Association of School Trustees.

The Triax 2000 stands on three legs and has a steel baseball-size device hanging by a cord in the centre. When the device is activated, the ball drops to the ground and measures the hardness of the surface in G-force units, generating a graph that can be viewed on site and later uploaded to a computer.

Accidents happen, but the severity of them can be reduced if the machine's measurements are used to make changes to a playground.

Cabbies want data on taxi attacks

Winnipeg cab drivers are concerned provincial regulators are not keeping track of a growing number of serious attacks against cabbies.

According to the Manitoba Taxi Cab Board's response to a freedom-of-information request, records of assaults against cabbies "do not exist."

But although they have no statistics on the number of attacks on cabbies, the board has made various safety recommendations, including making partial shields mandatory in cabs in January 2011. The shields cost cab owners approximately $400 to install.

Unicity Taxi manager Andrew Ross said the lack of any official assault records for the 440 cabs currently serving the city is frustrating. Ross said the taxi industry, the taxi board and police need to work together now more than ever because of the increased risks that drivers are facing.

Red River students find info far from free

Want to check the maintenance records of Winnipeg School Division playgrounds for the last three years? That will be $2,714.25, please.

That's how the division responded to a recent request from three Red River College journalism students.

For the fourth annual Open Secrets, a freedom-of-information project sponsored by the Winnipeg Free Press, the students followed the process available to anyone under Manitoba's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

One group requested copies of monthly playground inspection reports and incident reports from 2009 to 2011.

Information ‘freedom’ comes at a price

Want to check the maintenance records of Winnipeg School Division playgrounds for the last three years? That will be $2,714.25, please.

That’s how the division responded to a recent request from three Red River College journalism students.

For the fourth annual Open Secrets, a freedom-of-information project sponsored by the Winnipeg Free Press, the students followed the process available to anyone under Manitoba’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

One group requested copies of monthly playground inspection reports and incident reports from 2009 to 2011.

Parks and wreck

Many of the city's 500 play structures are past their prime and potentially dangerous, but budget realities mean only 25 are replaced every year.

MS sufferers losing hope for Manitoba trials

Saskatchewan has abandoned homegrown clinical trials meant to test a new multiple sclerosis therapy, and MS sufferers are worried Manitoba might do the same.

After it put out a call to researchers willing to study the so-called liberation therapy, Saskatchewan received only one proposal for clinical trials last June, and that proposal did not meet criteria. Saskatchewan has since farmed out trials to the United States.

Meanwhile, Manitoba was slated to announce last month which researchers will share $5 million earmarked for clinical trials in this province. But the government won't say how many research proposals it received, how many were chosen for peer review or how many made the short list.

Local MS sufferers are starting to lose hope.

Documents reveal 54 cases of abuse over 2 years at Manitoba agencies

A caregiver knowingly administered an incorrect dosage of medication. Another touched a client inappropriately. Yet another caregiver skimmed petty cash from a client's bank account.

In all three cases, the victim was a vulnerable person. And in all three cases, the offender was a support worker who was subsequently fired.

According to documents obtained through freedom of information, there were 54 substantiated cases of abuse lodged against residential support workers in Winnipeg group homes in 2009 and 2010.

The incidents involve homes serving adults with intellectual disabilities, though the province would not reveal the names of the homes.

Freedom may not be cheap for students

Talk about student debt!

Two Red River College journalism students wanted to know how many children have been injured on City of Winnipeg playgrounds.

They filed a freedom-of-information request, waited the maximum 30 days specified by Manitoba’s legislation, but received no response. So they made a second request, followed up twice during the next 30 days, and heard back on Day 29.

The city wanted more than $26,000 to find and copy the documents they requested.