Drunk driving victim's kin want Patullo Bridge made safe

A young drunk driver who killed a man on the Patullo Bridge in the summer of 2004 has been given a two-year conditional sentence and banned from driving for six years by a Surrey provincial court judge.

Felicia Mitchell, then 18, had a blood-alcohol level that was twice the legal limit and was talking on her cellphone when the vehicle crossed the centre line and slammed head-on into an oncoming car.

John Heida was killed when an oncoming car crossed the centre line. (Courtesy: The John Heida Project)

While members of his family are satisfied with the sentence handed down on Wednesday, they said they're angry that nothing has been done to make the bridge safer.

They maintain that if there were a centre median divider, Heida would not have died.

• LINK: Campaign for Pattullo Bridge median

Nineteen people have been killed on the narrow bridge between Surrey and New Westminster since 1990, most of them in head-on crashes

One of the worst accidents happened earlier this year, when four people died in a head-on crash on the old bridge.

• FROM JAN. 3, 2006 : 4 killed, 4 injured in Patullo crash

Ever since his brother was killed, Dick Heida has been lobbying local MLAs to do something about the Patullo Bridge. "I think we should put a median down the middle, and put one lane on each side. I think they should do that right now."

There are plans for a steel and concrete median barrier down the middle of the Patullo to make it safer. But it will be next year at the earliest before the work is completed.

The bridge was built in the late 1930s and carries more than 79,000 vehicles a day over the Fraser River.