Miscellaneous

When I was posted in the Okanagan in the 1990s I was answering phones in the detachment dispatch office. A caller from Summerland asked what would happen if he decided to take his protest sign down to the highway and conduct his own personal blockade. He expressed the opinion that if he did that the police would arrive quickly and if he did not move he would be removed.

Holland has a serious pollution problem from nitrogen oxides and particulate matter in the air. The air pollution levels are above those permitted by European law and are mainly caused by motor vehicle traffic and factories.

Question: I bought a used newer truck from a dealership and was told prior to signing the final documents that the truck had gone through a full safety inspection. Less than two weeks later I was pulled over and issued a ticket for improperly equipped motor vehicle and issued a box 2 inspection order for my 2017 Dodge Ram 3500.

Our streets, particularly in business and residential districts, are slowly becoming thought of as more than just a place to drive motor vehicles. Citizens are engaging their governments and demanding that streets be re-developed into multi-user spaces that are shared with the entire community.

Electric cars are extremely quiet, offering some welcome silence in our cities. But they also bring new dangers, since they can easily sneak up on unsuspecting pedestrians. What kind of sounds should they make to keep people safe? Get a preview of what the future may sound like as acoustic engineer and musician Renzo Vitale shows how he's composing a voice for electric cars.

This is a short trip down memory lane with a retired traffic cop: me. I've just recently completed a round trip from Vancouver Island to the West Kootenays and back and had plenty of time to think along the way. There were ghosts along Highway 3 from the Manning Park works yard to Rock Creek, one of my old patrol areas.

I just finished reading an article titled "Old People Should..." in the May 2019 edition of the Reader's Digest. It explained that we could find out what people ask Google most often by seeing how the search engine auto filled our queries. The top result for "old people should" was that they should not drive.

I took the idea one step further and searched on "drivers should."

The Malahat highway is the main north / south artery for southern Vancouver Island. Due, among other reasons, to it's relatively serious collision history that shuts down this highway for hours at a time, the provincial government is looking at ways to improve travel on the highway.

Does your community have a Traffic Safety Commission? The Capital Regional District's Traffic Safety Commission suggests that if you don't, you should. The Start a Commission page on their web site lists 10 reasons why and 10 suggestions on how start one.

Matthew Catling received two traffic tickets, one in Richmond for speeding in a municipality and one in Vancouver for using an electronic device. Mr. Catling filed separate Constitutional Question Act notices on both the Richmond and Robson Square prosecutions on November 2, 2017, and November 24, 2017, respectively. He asserted that s. 63.1 of the Offence Act violates Sections 7 and 11(d) of the Charter.