Representatives from MADD Lethbridge and Area and the Lethbridge Police Service with staff at Cornerstone Funeral Home for the Project Red Ribbon wrap-up event on January 10, 2024. (Photo: LNN)

By Joel Mendelson / Justin Goulet

Annual MADD holiday season awareness campaign wraps up

Jan 10, 2024 | 1:24 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB– The annual Project Red Ribbon has wrapped up.

The campaign is an awareness initiative from Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). It is aimed at promoting sober driving throughout the holiday season.

Officials said the campaign occurs during the holiday season because this is seen as the busiest time of the year for social gatherings and the risk of impaired driving is high.

From November 1, 2023, until January 1, 2024, MADD chapters across the country distributed thousands of red ribbons and red ribbon car decals for Canadians to display on their vehicles, and backpacks.

Anita Huchala, president of MADD Lethbridge and Area spoke at a campaign wrap-up event on January 10, 2024. She said the campaign had a bit of a slow start in November, but things picked up in December.

Nighttime construction on Hwy 3 in Lethbridge starts April 17

Apr 17, 2025

SASHA launches #BuyABed fundraiser to support vulnerable Lethbridge residents

Apr 04, 2025

$20K grants available: TELUS STORYHIVE Pan-Asian Edition opens applications April 1

Mar 18, 2025

Huchala said, “We were out there a lot with the LPS [Lethbridge Police Service] at various check stops, Blood Tribe Police as well, and [in] Coaldale and we were handing out our red ribbons.”

She noted that although the holiday season is viewed as the busiest time of the year, “impaired driving does happen throughout the year”.

Huchala stated, “As much as this is technically our wrap-up of our largest campaign, we never stop trying to bring awareness to impaired driving and the dangers of it.”

She estimated that they handed out thousands of ribbons and window clings.

“If we save one person from being involved in a crash that’s not killed or injured, it was a success.”

MADD’s message remains consistent throughout the year. However, during Project Red Ribbon, MADD and its volunteers reminded everyone to make the following safe choices:

• Never drive impaired or ride with an impaired driver
• Plan ahead if you’re going to be drinking or consuming cannabis or other drugs
• Arrange another lift, take public transit, or stay the night
• Call 911 if you see a driver you suspect to be impaired

Sergeant Danny Lomness with the Lethbridge Police Service’s (LPS) Traffic Response Unit spoke at the event as well. He had a positive view of the past year’s impaired driving enforcement.

He said, “In 2023, we ended up removing 277 impaired drivers from the road compared to 251 in 2022. I believe the increase in those numbers is strictly based on strategies and tactics that we deployed this year, [which] allow officers to basically cover more areas and check more drivers more efficiently.”

Lomness said in 2024, a plan is to train more officers in using drug screening devices.

He said incidents of drug-impaired driving are on the rise.

Lomness noted, “Alcohol, I would say, is still the vast majority of those [impaired driving cases]. Are there more impaired by drug charges that we’re laying more recently? Yeah, and that’s simply just because of more experience, more education, more training, more tools and instruments to assist us with that.”

This year’s Project Red Ribbon materials honoured Beryl Hanson, who was struck and killed by an impaired driver while taking her morning walk in April of 1999.

Hanson was the mother of MADD Canada’s national president Tanya Hanson Pratt.

READ MORE: Lethbridge News Now.

—

If you have a news tip, question or concern, please email Lethbridge.newsroom@Pattisonmedia.com.