Dad Patrols Streets After Losing Son to Drunk Driver

Les Yasinsky patrols Winnipeg's streets on weekends
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 16, 2015 8:14 AM CST
Man Gets Even After Losing Son to Drunk Driver
Les Yasinsky watches for drunk drivers.   (YouTube)

There's an extra set of eyes watching for drunk drivers in the Canadian city of Winnipeg, and they don't belong to a police officer. Les Yasinsky spends most Friday and Saturday nights staked out near bars looking for people who "are falling over drunk and … get into their cars and drive away," he tells the CBC. He follows them, records evidence with his dash-mounted camera, then calls police. It's a small service he wishes could've caught the driver who—with a BAC level five times the legal limit—killed his 22-year-old son, Brett, in 2010, per Global News. But Yasinsky says he's helped catch five drunk drivers since, which is some consolation. He hopes to form Dads Against Drunk Driving—involving "guys like myself volunteering their time, going out sitting and watching," he says—to catch even more.

"These drunk drivers don't understand it's not only the victims. Their families also become victims of this. It affects so many people," says Yasinsky, who wants to see tougher penalties for impaired drivers. Though drunk drivers have their vehicles impounded, Yasinsky wants to see them lose their vehicles permanently for the first offense. "It's a weapon," he says. "If somebody shoots somebody, they take the gun away. They don't get it back." In the meantime, "it does feel pretty good" to "say I got another one off the road ... and somebody's not dead because of that one person," says Yasinsky. He adds he "never really vented from losing Brett" and tells CJOB, "This is my way of channeling that energy, to do something that's going to hopefully save lives." (This cop caught 4,000 drunk drivers, then tragedy struck.)

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