A suspected impaired driver has been criminally charged in a crash that has killed one person and injured two others.
Toronto Police Const. Clint Stibbe says the driver was steering a sedan on Bloor St E approaching Parliament St just before 10 p.m. Monday when he lost control of the car and hit a pole.
The impact killed a 25-year-old man and critically injured a 20-year-old woman, both passengers in the vehicle. A second 20-year-old woman suffered minor injuries.
23-year-old Galeeb Abau-Jabeen faces charges of impaired operation of a motor vehicle causing death, impaired operation of a motor vehicle causing bodily harm, criminal negligence causing death, criminal negligence causing bodily harm, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing bodily harm.
The crash comes on the heels of a weekend in which OPP laid 104 impaired driving charges though they could not say how many drivers were nabbed. Police in York and Durham Regions charged 20 and 27 people respectively over the same period.
"It's troubling to see that the message isn't getting through," Stibbe tells NEWSTALK 1010. "We've got a situation where a person has died, somebody's son is not coming home today, somebody's daughter is in life-threatening condition and we've got somebody that made a decision to get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle and drive and now unfortunately, take somebody's life."
The crash marks the 74th fatality on Toronto roads in 2016, tying a mark set in 2003. 97 people lost their lives in crashes on city streets in 2002. 65 people were killed in crashes in Toronto in 2015.
Stibbe attributes the spike to drivers making bad decisions.