SURVEY - Reforming the Police Act

To all concerned

Being a frequent cyclist and almost the same distance, a driver, I see a tonne of unsafe behaviour. Some of it directed at me the cyclist, and some of it, I swear is directed at any other vehicle on the rode.

When the near accidents occur, whether I am insulated in my 1.5tonne truck, or squeezed, narrowly missed by a mirror, a flapping piece of Cedar bark whizzing by on a logging truck or startled by a gang of senseless angry sounding motorcycles, one thing is always supposed to be recognizable. And that is the registration plate of whatever offending vehicle the hapless, intentionally dangerous, distracted, childish or maliscious malcontent that passes by.

 It is incredidbly difficult, when a near death experience has amped up the adrenaline to a place of instantaneous direct vocal feedback to the event, to ascertain where and what colour the registration plate may be or to read the small, irrespective of wheteher the plate is dirty, oily or both, letters and numbers, concealed by a trailer, a load, in the case of macho bikers on noise makers, flapping frills around the panniers, or other gear.

 The BC registration plates which have the background coloured, surely a bent idea of some brilliant designer to strike a scene behind the alph-numeric registration, and surely did not think it through well.

  The camouflaging does not do any favours of those that try to decipher a plate speeding away. Motorcycle plates are sometimes mounted on end, are small and there is only 1and none on the front. A person has to be following quite close to garner the letters and numbers. For the cyclist, the difficulty is sprinting fast enough to catch sight of the plate. For a driver, it would be an offense to catch up to the speeder.

So when the report goes to the local dispatch, a crucial piece of info may be missing. If so, the unsafe driver doesn't get the attention he/she deserves or the special conversation with the police, or magistrate.

Cameras help, but not every cyclist can afford one that shoots aft and forward; a lot of cars and trucks don't have them either.

 So what is to be done?

Standardized plate location should be enforced. In European countries, an unhinged, sloppily displayed plate gets a lot of attention. 

When is it ever a good idea to have camo regi plates?

 Be safe out there people.

Best,

 Jay    

So the same Parks that are bereft of necessary provincial funding, get plates dedicated to a feel good about our Parks, that are so neglected. Having spent so much time in the Kokanee Glacier Park, then to see the funding slashes and the whole context of Parks, from trails to hierarchical management at the district level being gutted, gave great pause for cynicism.

 Sufficiently visible? Huh, satisfactory is able to be construed either way too

 The same whole damned stinkiness of private contractors doing the job is played out with the ratty state of our highways and secondary roads. The latter, oft forgotten until the neighbourhood that depends on them, raise a stink. Then the Y why R really B bother office sometimes decides to do something.

Our highways were better maintained way back when the Department of Highways(dept. of holidays), were often derided for people leaning on shovels. Side roads were mainatined, potholes were patched, Graders and other winter plowing equipment were in abundance.

Regi plates on Motorcycles are really too small.

Red against white is a pretty good idea; add one to the front and they would get an award for best plates.