Traffic Tickets

"I'll see you in traffic court!" This hollow threat often ended conversations at the roadside after a driver was issued a traffic ticket for a violation. I knew that few of them would actually carry out their intention and if they did, there would probably be no coherent defence made.

On May 3, 2023 Barry Johnson entered the intersection of West Hastings and Bute Streets in Vancouver. He was issued a traffic ticket for failing to stop at the yellow light. That ticket showed the location of Hastings and Bute Streets which Mr. Johnson told the justice did not exist at his dispute.

The case of R v Robinson involves a traffic ticket for disobeying a traffic control device. Kevin Robinson was issued the ticket for disobeying a speed sign in Abbotsford instead of a ticket for speeding against highway sign which was more expensive.

I’ve always understood penalty points to be a kind of score keeping method to assign a level of risk to the breach of a traffic rule. The more dangerous the violation, the more penalty points that would be assigned to a driving conviction. Rack up too many points in a set period of time and you would have to pay ICBC premiums and risk a driving prohibition from RoadSafetyBC.

The case of R v Zhang involves the dispute of a traffic ticket for speeding and not displaying a new driver sign. Mr. Zhang pled guilty to disobeying a traffic control device instead of the speeding offence. He did not know that the disobeying a traffic control device conviction included penalty points.

What can I expect at a Traffic Court Hearing? is a page on the Provincial Court of British Columbia web site. It's a short overview of the process for someone that has never disputed a violation ticket before and doesn't have the time to view a trial in order to gain experience ahead of time.

When an officer writes a traffic ticket the description of the offence is required to give the driver enough information to understand what they are being charged with. If that is not the case, the judicial justice could choose to dismiss the offence. This case is an example of that.

This article was written in May of 2015 when there was a brief flurry in the media about the implementation of electronic traffic tickets and dispute adjudication replacing traffic court. Amendments to the Motor Vehicle Act to allow these changes were made in 2012, but fast forward to March 2022 and no changes to traffic ticket disputes have occurred.

In the past, if you were curious to find out about the traffic tickets issued by B.C. law enforcement officers you could either read a PDF document published by ICBC or make a request for specific information from their stored data. The trouble was, sometimes those information requests took a significant period of time to fill and you had to know how to manipulate the information once you had received it.

Question: When I drive into a construction zone I see the sign about double the fine, but have been told that the fine incurred is actually excessive speed if the speed is too high. Is there an actual regulation about double the fine or is this sign just a deterrent?