BC Impounds Excessive Speeders Vehicles

[burn_this_city]

There was an article from a couple years ago when this law first came out. A family of four with two small children was dropped off at the Greyhound bus stop in the interior and had to wait 12 hours or so for a bus back to Calgary.

[speede5]

I thought the impound rule was to target street racing. I don't feel too bad for the guy getting ticketed for speeding so excessively, but he wasn't street racing. Although having driven those roads and seen lots of close calls from people passing at high speeds, it can be pretty dangerous.

[jar_e]

141 in an 80 to pass a single vehicle is still ridiculous IMO. Maybe 141 in a 100 is reasonable, but 141 in an 80 is crazy.

edit: I see it was actually three vehicles, a single car and two semis.

[flamesfan6]

Originally Posted by transplant99

ANY law that allows the peace officer to act as judge and jury is an abomination to the Charter IMO. Its no different than the .05 law.

IMO the peace office isn't judge and jury, either you are going 40km over or you are not. There is no grey area as with the .05 law.

If you are going over 40km/h you can't argue it, it's in the law that your car is to be impounded and taken away, the peace officer isn't making that choice, he's following the law.

I also don't mind this law, I never go 40km / h over the speed limit, and I would like those that do off the road anyways.

[Tinordi]

The cop isn't the judge, it's the laser speed radar.

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

The cop isn't the judge, it's the laser speed radar.

Which much like a breathalyzer must be calibrated to give the correct reading.

[Travis Munroe]

Anyone know what the ticket is for having a radar detector in BC?
Sounds like it might be worth it 10x over to get caught with a detector vs being impounded.

[Huntingwhale]

I'm on the law's side on this one. Low speed limit or not, the guy was going 60 over. He could have waited for a passing lane. Yes it sucks being stuck behind a semi going 10 under, but you have wife and kids in your car. Wait the extra couple minutes to safely pass. I get the impression he does this on a regular basis. Even worse, he went whining to the media about it and they printed his sob story.

I see drivers like this guy on the highway every time I drive it. He seems like the kind of guy who weaves in and out of traffic, because making it to your destination a couple minutes earlier is the #1 priority. He just happened to get busted, then got so mad about getting his vehicle impounded that he had to call up the Herald and get them to print a story so he could enact revenge on the cops who pulled him over.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Realtor 1

Anyone know what the ticket is for having a radar detector in BC?
Sounds like it might be worth it 10x over to get caught with a detector vs being impounded.

As far as I know they are legal in BC, AB and Sask.

[bc-chris]

Originally Posted by Realtor 1

Anyone know what the ticket is for having a radar detector in BC?
Sounds like it might be worth it 10x over to get caught with a detector vs being impounded.

radar detectors are completely legal in bc

[Mazrim]

I drove 2300 km in BC a couple weeks ago, most of it single lane highway, including Highway 3 from Crowsnest Pass all the way to Hope.

Never once during my trip did I have to go 40 over the limit to pass a single vehicle. You're not doing it right if you're needing to speed THAT much to pass someone. The fastest I did was 120 km/h in a 90km/h zone to pass an idiot from Alberta between Nakusp and Galena Bay who hated corners and loved passing lanes with a passion.

Most of the time you could easily get away with 15 over at most to get past someone, and if you needed to do go that fast to pass, you probably weren't in a safe situation to start with. (ie. Strugglers who aren't paying attention to the road and notice the line paint change to passing halfway through that section. I saw that often.)

I certainly don't have any sympathy for the idiots racing down the road who got caught doing this. If I did 40km/h over the limit, I wouldn't even want to embarass myself in public about getting pulled over. =\

[Wormius]

I think if the goal was really to prevent accidents and speeding, public safety would be better served by trying to ensure drivers don't speed up to 140kph in this particular passing lane. The photo radar warning signs all over the place in Calgary are a good deterrent, I think. Even the photo radar cameras themselves are not hidden or camoflaged - they prevent speeding in the first place.

Whatever is going on in this part of BC is only a cash grab with no interest in serving public safety. It's not only entrapment, it's complicit in its allowance of potentially dangerous driving. Unless you drive that stretch of road frequently and know that police have speed traps set up, your driving behaviour won't change.

Thank you so much for your concern over my safety that you allow other drivers to do 60kph over the speed limit. I wish the police who have to man these speed traps had the gull to do something about it. Surely they must know what they're doing is useless.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

I drove 2300 km in BC a couple weeks ago, most of it single lane highway, including Highway 3 from Crowsnest Pass all the way to Hope.

Never once during my trip did I have to go 40 over the limit to pass a single vehicle. You're not doing it right if you're needing to speed THAT much to pass someone. The fastest I did was 120 km/h in a 90km/h zone to pass an idiot from Alberta between Nakusp and Galena Bay who hated corners and loved passing lanes with a passion.

Most of the time you could easily get away with 15 over at most to get past someone, and if you needed to do go that fast to pass, you probably weren't in a safe situation to start with. (ie. Strugglers who aren't paying attention to the road and notice the line paint change to passing halfway through that section. I saw that often.)

I certainly don't have any sympathy for the idiots racing down the road who got caught doing this. If I did 40km/h over the limit, I wouldn't even want to embarass myself in public about getting pulled over. =\

I think the problem is the log jam of cars that you have to pass when you eventually get to the passing lane, that necessitates the speed.. If you're only going 15kph faster than the speed limit, that's fine when it is only 1 or 2 cars you need to overtake, but when its 12 or 15 following behind some guy hauling a boat or trailer, the best you'll do is end up a few cars ahead of where you were.

[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.

[Cuz]

Originally Posted by flamesfan6

IMO the peace office isn't judge and jury, either you are going 40km over or you are not. There is no grey area as with the .05 law.

If you are going over 40km/h you can't argue it, it's in the law that your car is to be impounded and taken away, the peace officer isn't making that choice, he's following the law.

I also don't mind this law, I never go 40km / h over the speed limit, and I would like those that do off the road anyways.

Under section 11(d) of the charter, we have the right to the presumption of innocence. Immediately impounding one's vehicle, to me, is a clear violation of this principle.

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by Wormius

I think the problem is the log jam of cars that you have to pass when you eventually get to the passing lane, that necessitates the speed..

...and the strugglers who were previously going 10kph below the speed limit plant their foot during the passing lane.

[Cuz]

Originally Posted by Burninator

...and the strugglers who were previously going 10kph below the speed limit plant their foot during the passing lane.

That in itself is worthy of the RGMG thread

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by Wormius

I think the problem is the log jam of cars that you have to pass when you eventually get to the passing lane, that necessitates the speed.. If you're only going 15kph faster than the speed limit, that's fine when it is only 1 or 2 cars you need to overtake, but when its 12 or 15 following behind some guy hauling a boat or trailer, the best you'll do is end up a few cars ahead of where you were.

My goal was never to pass an entire pack of cars, though. It was always to pass one to three vehicles in small spurts. I was going to be on the road 4-8 hours a day on my trip while traveling between destinations...trying to be Superman and pass them all in one go is not worth the stress or the likely dangerous situation I'd get myself in to do it when there's always another pack of cars down the road. There was always another spot to pass down the road anyway, or a passing lane coming up.

The worst place on Highway 3 to pass that I saw was between Princeton and Manning Park, but I knew there was roughly 25 km of 4-lane divided highway at Manning Park, so I didn't push hard through the real twisty sections. The guy who made the dangerous passes probably saved 5 minutes on his trip by not waiting for that long 4 lane stretch.

[Bigtime]

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.

Was the straight stretch that area with the nice wide grass shoulders? That is the same spot I got nailed coming back from the valley.

I know not everyone can do this, but if I am going out there on long weekends I now leave on the Thursday afternoon/evening and try to come home the day after the long weekend. Makes the traffic much better, allowing you to find a sweet spot and just chill with the cruise set.

[MacDaddy77]

if we both left for a 300 km drive and you drove @125 km/h you'd arrive in 2.5 hrs approximate

If I drove 95 km'h I'd arrive in 3.15 hrs. I have found very few things that I need to be there 45 minutes "faster" I just leave earlier

Especially with your kids in the car