so noone had insurance?

Unlicensed driver loses wife in fatal crash

By SHERRI BORDEN COLLEY
Staff Reporter, The Chronicle Herald


Wayne Hubley only meant to pick up his common-law wife from work last Friday. He never imagined it would be their last day together.

And now Mr. Hubley, whom police charged Wednesday with driving without a licence, is left to reflect on his mistake in a crash that cost Diann Marie Weeks her life.

"It’s a tragic loss, it should not have happened," Mr. Hubley, 58, said in a tearful interview Wednesday, after Halifax Regional Police announced the charges against him and a second driver.

Ms. Weeks, 45, of Dartmouth, was a passenger in Mr. Hubley’s Chevrolet Corsica that tried to make a left turn into the lot at Ben’s Bakery and Dave’s Farm Market at 322 Main St. in Dartmouth and was struck by an oncoming PT Cruiser at 12:40 p.m.

Ms. Weeks, a mother of two who worked at Sobeys, was pronounced dead upon arrival at hospital. Mr. Hubley was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

"The thing is I shouldn’t have been driving but I just buy cars and I sell them and I took the car out to pick up Diann coming from work and that was the end of the car, I wasn’t going to drive it anymore," Mr. Hubley said. "I just wanted to see how the car worked before I fixed it up and sold it."

Since the crash, the days have been "very, very sad," he added.

"I lost somebody I loved," he said. "I loved my wife and miss her very much."

On Wednesday, police ticketed Mr. Hubley, whom they did not identify, with failing to yield the right-of-way, driving while his licence was revoked, driving without insurance, operating an unregistered vehicle and operating a vehicle with expired inspection.

The four occupants of the PT Cruiser were not seriously injured. The driver of that vehicle, a 23-year-old North Preston man, was charged the day of the accident and issued a summary offence ticket for driving without a licence.

"In this case, this person has never had a driver’s licence but he has had his privilege of obtaining one revoked, which I believe would mean he does have some history with the Registry of Motor Vehicles," Const. Jeff Carr, a Halifax Regional Police spokesman, said Wednesday.

The penalty for each ticket is a fine. There’s no evidence to indicate that speed was a factor, Const. Carr said.

Since February, the RCMP-Halifax Regional Police traffic services unit has stopped 43 suspended drivers and seized some of their vehicles in a crackdown to get as many of the province’s roughly 10,000 unlicensed drivers as possible off the road.

.........................................................................

Yes. Sad and horrible. And terrible for her children.

But the thing that struck me most was the last sentence.
....of the province's roughly 10,000 unlicensed drivers......

In 2006, the population of the entire province of Nova Scotia was 934,405. That's a pretty small group to have so many of us wandering around without drivers licenses.

Now, I have no great love for the RMV. But 10,000 people without licenses? 10,000 people on the road without the benefit of the checks-and-balances system of a driving test?

Doesn't that seem wrong?