Information related to the police.
I recently passed the scene of what appears to be a serious motorcycle/car accident on the Connector between Cumberland and Courtenay. There were 3 police cars there and very professional traffic control devices and flag people. The investigation appears to be underway.
One way of preparing for a traffic ticket dispute is to request disclosure from the officer who issued it. It was relatively rare to receive such a request but when one did appear the disputant often asked for everything, including the tread depth of the right rear tire on the police car. It was fairly clear that the request was based on advice found on the internet rather than obtained from a lawyer. Disclosing less than what was requested (but still reasonable in the circumstances) resulted in complaints to the justice at the hearing.
I have been a property owner in Mirror Lake BC for over 5 years & have yet to see any speeding related citations being created here. Hwy 31 at Mirror lake is posted 50 kmh but rarely see anyone obeying the speed limit.
Rather than try and tie together many comments in disparate places places around this site, I will make a topic here about the Capital Regional District Integrated Road Safety Unit (CRD IRSU) and the Malahat Drive portion of Highway 1 for user Phil:
I contacted the CRD IRSU via their Twitter account (@CRDIRSU) and learned the following about speed enforcement activity on the Malahat by them:
I'm one of those odd drivers who tries their best to drive at or below the posted speed limit. I include the word below here as sometimes there is a need to slow down to less than the posted speed limit for safety reasons. This often has consequences for me when I have to share the road with other drivers who do not subscribe to my philosophy on road safety. A good example of this is looking in my rear view mirror and finding the Volvo logo on the grille of a heavy transport truck following me closely enough that I could count the bugs stuck to it.
You may be interested in the number of distracted drivers nabbed by police in the Comox Valley in a recent 5 day campaign. They caught 91 drivers including one who received 2 tickets in one day - likely the same bad habit as the lady in Vancouver with 14 tickets.
I received a warning this evening, for speeding. I was trying to get out of the way of the person behind me (who ended up being a police officer). Anyway, he told me my name would be in some sort of data base in case an officer sees me and pulls me over for speeding again.
The police must follow the provisions of the Emergency Vehicle Driving Regulation when they intend to employ the exemption from the rules of the road set out in the Motor Vehicle Act. In this case, Constable Jacobson was driving his police vehicle on Highway 97 at Daimler Drive in West Kelowna approaching a red light. Hoping to save a few minutes arriving at a complaint he activated the police vehicles's emergency lights and siren about 4 - 5 vehicle lengths’ back from the beginning of the left turn lane on Highway 97 going south.
If I have a dashcam and capture traffic violations and reported them, is it of any use for police to prosecute? If so does it depend on the level severity? What steps or how much involvement would be required of me? eg. appear in court, just sending a video etc.
Three swings and three strikes, figuratively speaking. This describes my experience making driving complaints to the police. In each case it appears that there was little interest in following up. In fact, one of the complaints was initially refused by the civilian complaint taker.