Chantelle Morgan's Blog

Chantelle Morgan,

130 272 Street

Aldergrove, BC

V4W 2M4

February 3rd, 2019

Information Access Coordinator

Transit Police

Suite 300-287 Nelson’s Court

New Westminster, BC, V3L 0E7

To whomever it may concern,

Under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act please provide me with:

Any incident reports that have been filed (including theft, assault, sexual harassment, discrimination and or, public indecency) that occurred on the 503 transit bus route departing from Surrey Central to 272 Street on Fraser Highway from January 2016 to February 2019

If there are any problems releasing some portions of the documents requested, please do not withhold release of all documents, but instead forward what you can release.

Please do not photocopy these documents, instead, send them in a PDF format via email.

You can reach me via phone: 778-808-5282,

or by email: chantellelovesmusic@gmail.com

Please advise me when all material is available for release.

Thank you,

Chantelle Morgan

I decided to ask for the incident reports of the 503 bus route because that is the bus some of my family, including my dad, aunt, and my boyfriend, take the most to travel to and from home. It is also the same bus route that a lot of my friends from high school take too. I requested the past three years because that is when my boyfriend started to take the bus and ever since then I have heard some crazy things from him that he witnessed on the bus. I also heard stories from my dad, my aunt and seen posts on facebook about incidents that happened while taking this bus. I am hoping to uncover how many incidents have happened on this bus route alone to see how safe taking the bus really is for my family and friends. If I were to make another request it would most likely be to ICBC to see how many accidents this bus has gotten into as well.

There was no name to address for the freedom of information coordinator, so I hyperlinked the freedom of information contact page in the words “information access coordinator” found above the address.

Photo by: Johnny Silvercloud/Flickr

Alcohol should be illegal because consuming it is dangerous for our health. A study done by John Standridge found that there are health benefits of alcohol consumption, for example, reduced risk of heart failure, reduced risk of a stroke, and reduced risk of dementia. Although this study points out the benefits of consumption, these benefits only apply to certain people who consume alcohol lightly, which is very rare. (The recommended amount; men:1-2 drinks per day, women:1 drink per day,) Even then it is advised that people who drink should be monitored, and be careful with the amount they consume. “A cautious approach should be emphasized for those individuals who drink even small amounts of alcohol.” In order to obtain these benefits from alcohol, it must be consumed moderately at all times, and there should be no family history of substance abuse disorder. It is also recommended that people who currently do not drink, and are okay with that lifestyle, should not be encouraged to start drinking alcohol for the benefits simply because of the belief that it could lead to bad drinking habits and the negative effects of alcohol outweighs the benefits. It is not worth it to start drinking for the potential health benefits because it will ultimately cause more damage. You know what else has plenty of health benefits that won’t slowly destroy your mind and body at the same time? Water, fruits, vegetables, exercising, a healthy diet. Drinking alcohol frequently and heavily can destroy every organ system in your body. “There is evidence that chronic consumption of as little as two drinks per day increases the risk for upper respiratory and upper digestive tract malignancies and breast cancer.” Even drinking a small amount of alcohol per day is a danger to potentially everything inside your body. Alcohol is a legal poison that everyone can purchase once they are the legal age. It should not be legal to sell a poison, and it should not be legal to poison yourself. Another reason I believe alcohol should be illegal is because, alcohol can be a main factor in most car accidents. An article in CBC news stated that, “107 people were killed on Manitoba roadways and 36 per cent of those crashes involved impaired driving.” Statistics Canada found that, “impaired driving is the leading cause of criminal death in Canada.” People crash everyday while they are sober and are aware of their surroundings. So why are we increasing the risk of more car accidents with allowing alcohol to be legal? Why is it so easily accessible for people to drive drunk? Yes, driving impaired is illegal, but people are still doing it! So, why not take away the thing that is making them impaired? Make it extremely difficult for people to even have the option of driving drunk. Why not just make alcohol completely illegal? Reduce the risk, make our roads safer, save a few thousand lives, so the police and doctors no longer have to inform families that someone they love has died in a terrible accident and alcohol was involved. Many accidents could have been prevented if alcohol was made illegal and not as easily accessible as it is right now. Yes, there is plenty of people who don’t even drink alcohol and wouldn’t even think about driving impaired, but there are also still people out there who think they can drive safely after having a drink or two. This means, more trips to the hospital, and more funerals. Think of it this way, do you feel safe as a passenger of someone who is drunk? Would you be okay with your family or friends in the car with someone who was driving drunk? If alcohol is made illegal, we wouldn’t have to worry about alcohol poisoning, and the risk of being on the road, or in the car, with someone who is driving impaired will decrease drastically.

SEO: Personally, if I got to choose my own title, I would have went with something basic for example, "Make Alcohol Illegal" or "Why Alcohol Should Be Illegal," but what I found in google trends made me change my mind. My title is search engine optimized because the term "alcohol" scored a low 59, compared to the term "beer" which scored a 61, and "Liquor" which scored 100. The term "beer" is the most searched in the past 12 months, but the term "Liquor" spiked above beer in December 2018 to January 2019. So, I decided to go with the most recent and more popular term in my title.