Make vehicular homicide a crime, says grieving family

The family of Dilbag Singh and Bakhshish Kaur launched a petition drive Sunday seeking new legislation to make vehicular homicide a crime in Canada.

The elderly couple died in July as they returned from their daughter's engagement party. The BMW in which they were passengers was rear-ended by an Acura that police say was involved in a street race. Their car crashed into a street pole, killing the couple.

Witnesses saw two young Indo-Canadian men crawl from the Acura and run away, but no one has ever been charged for the crash.

The couple's daughter Varinder Badh, who was in the car with her parents and badly injured, said the family had to act because the laws were too lenient.

"I knew we didn't have an option, we had to do something," she said.

"If this was an accident we would have let it be, but my brother started advocating. The biggest gift you can give your family, your loved ones, and your neighbours is the gift of public safety and we're jumping on board with this initiative."

Her sister Rupi Badh, the bride-to-be who had been celebrating with her family that day, said her life had been changed forever because she was driving her family home.

"I replay the situation thinking I should have turned earlier... maybe two seconds so we'd missed the hydro pole... Now we're fighting for mom and dad," she said.

Along with the petition, the family has written to provincial and federal politicians, asking them to add vehicular homicide to Canadian criminal laws.

On Sunday they came to the Surrey temple their parents attended to ask members of the Sikh community to sign their petition.

The family was supported in their quest by Gord Penner of Families Against Crime and Trauma, who recalled other high-profile deaths of innocent people from car accidents.

"We really feel people aren't getting the message that you can't go out and kill people with a vehicle," he said.

"There is no justice for the families in cases like this and it's about time they started to get it. We don't have vehicular homicide. It's only in the U.S. and we would like a charge of murder, where applicable."

With a report from CTV British Columbia's Carrie Stefanson