DriveSmartBC

Drivers in the Graduated Licensing Program (GLP) are forbidden to use electronic devices while driving. Mira McEachern was a 17 year old novice driver on September 17, 2016 when she was issued a traffic ticket for violating this rule. She was convicted of that offence (records do not indicate if it was because she paid the fine or was not successful in a traffic court dispute).

When I learned to drive more than 4 decades ago, seatbelts were becoming standard equipment on all vehicles. Fast forward to today and we have seatbelts, multiple airbags and a host of automatic systems designed to either avoid a crash or minimize the damage to us if we are in one. Why then do some of us ignore the systems that are there for our protection?

Putting human life at risk to save an animal on the road is negligent. Paul Hergott discusses two cases where drivers attempted to do this and serious collisions were the result. There are also links to the case law involved in these stories.

35 intersection safety cameras in British Columbia have been upgraded to perform automated speed enforcement in addition to penalizing red light runners. The cameras capture the images and speeds of the fastest vehicles passing through monitored intersections on red, yellow and green lights.

In my travels this week I was overtaken by a marked police vehicle travelling at 110 km/h in the posted 90 km/h zone. No emergency equipment was being operated. Instances like this are often complained about by the public as they see the police failing to follow the same traffic rules that they force everyone else to obey.

Tejveer Parmar successfully used the defence of necessity to defend himself against a charge of speeding. He was initially convicted in traffic court but appealed the conviction. The justice agreed, allowed the appeal, quashed the ticket conviction and acquitted him of speeding.

This all started with a simple question from my e-mail: "Are right turn lanes allowed at 4 way stop intersections?" The story evolved as I asked questions to try and understand the situation before answering here. It turns out to involve the intersection of Trail Avenue and Cowrie Street in Sechelt.

Question: I was driving down Pinetree Way in Coquitlam and had a slow driver in front of me, maybe driving about 25 to 30 km/h. After passing the intersection of Tanager Court, I overtook a slow car over a single solid yellow line since there was no other traffic on both sides and it was safe to do so.

On the 14th of November, 2015 at about 9:00 am, Ken Chung was operating an Audi northbound on Oak Street approaching West 41st Avenue in Vancouver. Evidence suggested that his speed was about 140 km/h in the 50 km/h zone.

The RCMP's advanced driver training course was without a doubt the most fun of any course many of the participants had taken in their service. What the majority of the course taught us was to be aware of the location of all four corners of our vehicles in relation to everything around us on the track.