Friends honour man killed in crash, help MADD

Friends of a young man who was killed in an alleged drunk driving accident last week in St. John's are planning to honour him on Sunday.

The first annual Nick Coates Memorial Motor Show will take place at the Jack Byrne Arena in Torbay.

On August16, the27-year-old victim was driving his motorcycle eastbound on Kenmount Road, when Ronald Thistle, 65, turned left onto Kenmount from Polina Road.

Coates drove into the back side of Thistle's truck. He was taken to hospital but later died of his injuries.

Thistle has since been charged with impaired driving and impaired driving causing death.

All proceeds of Sunday's show will go to Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

One of the show's organizers, Corey Prosser, said numerous car groups in the city collaborated to put together the memorial in a week.

"Everyone jumped on it, they wanted to help out," Prosser said.

"They were so saddened by it, but at the same time they wanted to do everything they could to help us out to bring awareness to this tragedy. It's hard to stop it, but at least if we bring awareness to it, we can try and reduce the number of people drinking and driving."

So far, organizers have raised $3000, and that's not including in-kind donations from businesses across the province.

Brendan GuyofNewfound Imports said what happened to Nick Coates was a tragedybut he hopes it's something that people will learn from.

"You hear it everyday about people drinking and driving, about people being hauled over and caught for impaired driving ... but when it actually takes somebody that you know and somebody that you were around all the time, it's really hard on you," Guy told CBC News.

Prosser and Guy said their friend had a loveof cars and motorcycles. They restored Coates' car in order to enter it into Sunday's show.