It was just past midnight on June 21 when Dan Gauthier came upon a scene he said will be forever in his mind: the flashing white, blue and red lights of a police cruiser.

He was about 15 minutes behind the car that struck the three teens walking on the side of the road, instantly killing two and sending a third to the hospital, who later died.

Twenty-six-year-old Nicholas Piovesan, who was later arrested and charged with three counts each of impaired driving causing death, criminal negligence causing death, failing to stop at a collision and driving with more than the legal limit of alcohol in his blood, struck three teens who were walking on the side of the road. Piovesan eventually crashed into the side of a house at 21 Oscar St.

Over the next day few days, Gauthier and his friend, Zach Clattenberg, talked about what Gauthier had seen. As more details about the accident became available, as well as news of the deaths of the three teens, Gauthier said he really wanted to do something to prevent an accident like what he had seen from ever happening again.

He and Clattenberg worked together to develop the Drinking and Driving Monitoring System (DDMS), which uses coloured bracelets to determine whether an individual is a drinker or a driver. Those who are drinking wear yellow wristbands on the right wrist, while those driving wear a red wristband instead.

For servers and bar security, this indicates who is allowed to drink and who isn't, and allows designated drivers to receive free, non-alcoholic drinks.

The system is currently being used by My Cousin Vinny's in Hanmer, and Cranky Joe's Roadhouse on Notre Dame Avenue. The system debuted at Cranky Joe's, and DDMS worked with the owner, Rob Ferrucci, to tweak it. To address those who may remove bracelets, the bar instituted a no bracelets, no drink policy.

Other bars, however, don't seem too interested in the program, said Gauthier.

"What I found this summer, when I talked to the bar owners here in Sudbury, is they feel they don't want to spend the extra (money) on hiring extra bouncers to monitor, to administer bracelets, things like that. So a lot of the bars weren't interested because of that factor."

Even the bars that use the system sometime run into difficulty during the holidays, or on very busy nights. The bouncers can't keep up with the amount of people coming in.

"We didn't do it last night, because we didn't have enough manpower to actually put it out there," said Ferrucci, speaking about a bracelet-less night on Dec. 22.

Ferrucci says he believes DDMS is a valuable tool to help prevent impaired driving.

"It helps. Every little bit helps. It's not going to solve all the problems, because you're always going to have your drinking and driving. You just have to really get them to understand and say 'you know what guys, you can't have just one drink and drive. It's got to be 100 per cent that you haven't had a drink,'" he said.

Gauthier says he isn't deterred by the lack of interest. He wants to continue to push DDMS and hopefully see it be adopted by more drinking establishments.

Ferrucci said other bar owners should take a look into DDMS.

"I would recommend it," he said, though he notes the system isn't perfect. It does allow him and his staff to stop several people from driving after drinking, which makes it worth it.

According to Ferrucci, three security staff are out in the parking lot watching to see if yellow-bracelet patrons are getting into vehicles to drive. If they won't get out of the vehicle and let a red bracelet drive, or use alternative methods to go home, security will inform the driver the police will be called.

He has also funded a ride-home system not unlike Operation Red Nose that runs on all nights, all year long.

Bar patrons are given a yellow bracelet if they intend to drink, and a red one if they don't. Red bracelets get free, non-alcoholic drinks during the evening. Supplied photo.

"Now people don't have an excuse (to drink and drive)," he said. He and his staff have called the police after impaired drivers have left the bar, though Ferrucci couldn't comment on the results of those calls.

Gauthier and Clattenberg held a fundraising car wash this summer to raise the money to create bracelets, and are now looking for volunteers to help DDMS make a difference.

"We want to get a team of volunteers together so we can supply (bars) with people - volunteers - to put bracelets on and to monitor, just so they don't have to have that extra cost," he explained. He said he hopes that having volunteers to help during the holidays and on other busy nights will convince local bars to adopt the system.

For more information about DDMS, to obtain bracelets for a private party, or to volunteer, visit www.ddmscanada.com, or e-mail ddmscanada@hotmail.com.