When people sign up for a ride with Operation Red Nose, it’s with the intent of preventing a collision caused by impaired driving.
The organization provides volunteers who drive intoxicated drivers home in their own vehicles during the holiday season.
But in Kamloops on New Year’s Eve, a trio of Operation Red Nose volunteers and their three clients were themselves the victims of a collision with an allegedly impaired driver.
Kamloops RCMP say the incident happened minutes before midnight on Dec. 31, on the East Trans-Canada Highway near Grand Boulevard.
According to police, the driver of a black Dodge Ram 1500 pickup truck slammed into a Subaru Forester and a Ford Focus from behind, before crossing into incoming traffic then leaving the highway.
Police say the vehicles that were struck were filled with the volunteer drivers and their passengers, but that fortunately none of them were seriously hurt.
The alleged drunk driver found himself down an embankment, and needed emergency crews to extricate him from the truck, police say.
Mounties said he refused to give a breath sample, and was handed a 90-day Immediate Roadside Prohibition and charged with driving without due care and attention under the Motor Vehicle Act.