The Alberta Court of Appeal has doubled the sentence of a man convicted of impaired driving causing the death of a teenager in Sherwood Park.

Bennett Rhyason was initially sentenced last year to 18 months in jail after he struck Jimmy Shelstad, 17, on July 31, 2004.

The Crown appealed and the judges bumped that sentence up to three years.

The ruling is a victory, but a small one, Gladis Shelstad, Jimmy's mother, said Tuesday.

"Three years does not seem sufficient and it will never bring back Jimmy, but it's a step up," she said. "It seems like these sentences have been going backwards, not forwards. And I think something like this is going to hopefully gear the courts [toward] stiffer and stiffer sentences."

Shelstad said she has channelled her grief into anti-drinking and driving campaigns.

Her son was returning home from a party and was in a crosswalk on Broadmoor when he was struck. The court heard he was thrown more than 17 metres and there were no skid marks.

Rhyason's friends testified that three of them had been drinking on Edmonton's Whyte Avenue that night, and that they ordered about three rounds of $1 highballs at the Purple Onion, with three drinks each per round.

One friend estimated Rhyason would have had between seven and 10 drinks in the span of a couple of hours, before the trio moved on to other bars and Denny's.