This is the National Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims.
On Friday, a special ceremony was held at Confederation Building to mark the event.
The people who filled the lobby of Confederation Building all have one devastating thing in common – all of their lives have been forever altered by the impacts of drunk, distracted, and dangerous driving.
Those people are family members and friends who are forever grieving the loss of a loved one, first responders who work on accident scenes, and police who have to deliver the news that a loved one has died.
Sarah Pittman (left) and Gail Thorne (right) (VOCM News)
Many in the room were teary-eyed listening to the raw emotion of family members speak and plead for people to drive safely, their stories made all the more impactful with pictures of people who have died laid on a nearby table, and their names hung amongst the flickering lights of an all-white tree.
It has been nine years since Gail Thorne’s daughter, Hannah, was killed on the New Harbour Barrens. Two men were convicted and sentenced for street racing causing her death in connection with the crash.
Thorne says she will never get over her daughter’s death, noting that when she hears of other accidents she breaks down knowing what the families of the victims will go through.
“For the first three years after Hannah’s death, I did nothing but cry; for three solid years I did nothing but cry.”
