Originally Posted by skins
On the Canada Day long weekend, I had pretty much the same experience as the guy in the Herald article.
Heading to Radium on the Friday of a long weekend, HWY 93 is filled with RVs and given the nature of that road, chances to pass are few and far between. Also, some drivers are too nervous to pass on the short straightaways, so it's not uncommon for there to be 2-3 vehicles behind each RV.
After a particularly lengthy stretch of curved road behind an RV and 2 cars, we hit a straight away, maybe 1.5-2km long. My passing strategy has always been accelerate quickly and get past the cars in the shortest time possible, then slow back down to cruising speed, which for me on that trip was around 100km/h (limit in the park is 90km/h). Right at the end of this straight away were 2 cops with a speed trap set up in a roadside turnout. I was clocked at the "pinnacle of my pass" at 140km/h.
The cop informed me of the law, which I was not aware of, and proceeded to radio a tow truck. I explained that I was passing and had intended to slow down after clearing the RV. I also explained that this was our family's only vehicle. He didn't care. Nor did he care that I was traveling with my wife and 6 month old. In fact, his exact words were, "I don't care if you're Stephen Harper. If you're doing more than 40 over the limit in BC, your car will be impounded". In the 2 hours we waited for the tow truck, we saw 4 other cars pulled over to be towed. One was a family like ours, the others were guys in the mid 20's (actually, one was 4 very tan, very young guys clad in muscle shirts, driving a Maserati - I didn't feel bad for them).
While it is probably a very effective means of reducing speeding, there should be some discretion from the officers enforcing the law. If I get busted speeding, I'll take the ticket and remember to slow down in the future. The strategic location these cops pick shows this to be a total cash grab. They would fill up the turnout with cars (6-7 at a time), hand out the tickets, then fill it again.
Going back to get our car a week later, the clerk told us they towed 35 cars on the long weekend. Final tally was a $380 ticket, $600 towing and impound fees (luckily we were only 25 minutes away from the impound lot) plus gas/time to drive back to Invermere the next weekend to get our car.
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