City installs four-way stop at crash intersection as ‘miseryversary’ looms for family of drunk driver’s victim

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This article was published 18/04/2024 (552 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

City workers installed a four-way stop Thursday at a Transcona intersection where a speeding drunk driver killed a young woman in a crash nearly two years ago.

Designated driver Jordyn Reimer, 24, was on her way to pick up a friend when her SUV was hit by a pickup truck at Kildare Avenue West and Bond Street shortly after 2 a.m. on May 1, 2022.

The driver of the truck — Tyler Scott Goodman — blew a stop sign while travelling 108 km/h in a 50-km/h zone on Bond, and then fled with his passengers, taking beer with them.

Reimer had the right of way, as there was no stop sign for east-west traffic on Kildare at that time.

Her parents, Karen and Doug Reimer, were pleased and relieved to learn the four-way stop is now in place.

“We strongly feel it could save somebody else’s life,” said Karen Reimer. “Our feeling is that had Jordyn had a stop sign (on Kildare), she would have stopped and looked both ways before entering the intersection, and she would have seen this truck barrelling towards the intersection.”

Doug Reimer thanked city hall’s public works committee for approving the four-way stop in a bid to improve safety.

“From our personal perspective, it’s too late for us, but it makes me feel good that, hopefully, another family and a good person doing the right thing isn’t killed or injured,” he said. “No one has to go through this again, hopefully. If it saves one person, then it’s a good thing.”

May 1 will mark two years since the collision. It’s a day Doug Reimer refers to as a “miseryversary.”

“It’s the day our misery started,” he said.

“It’s very triggering, having the date of Jordyn’s death coming up,” said Karen Reimer.

Goodman received a seven-year sentence in November, after pleading guilty to impaired driving causing death and leaving the scene.

He is seeking to appeal the sentence, claiming it is unfit. Reimer’s family has described the term as incredibly lenient.

Goodman will be eligible for parole after serving one-third — or 28 months — of his sentence.

His mother, Laurie Goodman, pleaded guilty to obstructing justice after she lied to police about her son’s whereabouts at the time of the crash. She was sentenced to six months of house arrest.

Court heard Goodman and his friends had been drinking at the Joe’s Pandora Inn bar before the crash. He told police he drank nine or 10 beers before getting behind the wheel of his mother’s truck.

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He rebuffed an acquaintance who took his keys and urged him not to drive. One of Goodman’s friends took the keys back, claiming he would drive, but Goodman, then 28, drove the vehicle and caused the fatal crash.

Surveillance video showed him chugging his last beer before leaving with friends to buy a case of beer.

Karen and Doug Reimer have called for an independent review of the Crown’s decision not to pursue charges against the passenger who handed the keys back to Goodman.

In March, they had a second meeting with Justice Minister Matt Wiebe to discuss the matter.

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca

Chris Kitching
Reporter

Chris Kitching is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He began his newspaper career in 2001, with stops in Winnipeg, Toronto and London, England, along the way. After returning to Winnipeg, he joined the Free Press in 2021, and now covers a little bit of everything for the newspaper. Read more about Chris.

Every piece of reporting Chris produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.