by Dr. Radut

Q&A - CVSE Measured Speed, RCMP Wrote Ticket.

Published by Anonymous (not verified) -

Q&A ImageI was recently stopped for a speeding violation of going 122 kph in a 80 kph zone but I was going just slightly over 80 when I noticed the officer in the middle of the highway to wave me over and as I looked in the rear view mirror there was a black Honda approaching me at very high rated of speed suprisingly he pointed at me to pull over (I have a black VW Golf) When he approached my vehicle he told me I was going 122 kph and I noticed that he was a CVSE officer, he then walked back to a RCMP police vehicle and showed an Rcmp officer the Lidar gun and then went back and took more readings of aproaching vehicles. The Rcmp officer then wrote the ticket and came over and handed it to me.

Question is does the same officer have to make out the ticket that was using the gun and how does he thinks he knows that it was actually my vehicle that had exceeded the speed limit?

Published by DriveSmartBC - 2013/11/01 - 10:42 | Permalink

Having two (or more) officers involved in a speed enforcement action is common and acceptable. One officer is tasked with doing the measurement and they pass along violator details to the pickup team. They insure that the pickup waves over the correct vehicle and the pickup officer writes the ticket based on the information received from the spotter. If the ticket is disputed, both officers are required for court. The spotter tells about measuring the vehicle speed (or whatever other act resulting in the ticket may have occurred), pointing the vehicle out to the pickup and watching it being flagged in. The pickup officer testifies that he received information from the spotter, waved a vehicle in, received confirmation that it was the correct vehicle, gives details about the driver and ticket issue and the evidence for the Crown is in.

So, in short, no, the officer issuing the ticket does not have to be the one that actually made the measurement of your vehicle's speed.

CVSE enforcement personnel are peace officers in British Columbia and have the authority to enforce the Motor Vehicle Act, which includes the speeding provisions in sections 146, 147 and 148.

As for the use of lidar, it is extremely accurate when it comes to targeting a vehicle. One common device is the ProLaser III manufactured by Kustom Signals Inc. It has a beam width of 3 milliradians vertical by 3 milliradians horizontal. This means that the beam is less than 3m x 3m at a kilometer distance. At a typical distance of 300 m or so, the spot is about as big as an orange. One would have to be careless to not measure the proper vehicle.

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