Q&A - Raising a Charter Issue in Traffic Court

Q&A ImageI have done fairly extensive on-line research on disputing tickets and, in particular, requesting a stay based on the Charter argument related to delay (seeing as we are in the 18 month range from date of offense to first appearance) and I have found a lot of interesting material related to how to do this (Charter argument) in other jurisdictions (like Ontario), such as the kinds of forms you need to file, the style of cause et

CASE LAW - R v Kaiser

BC Courts Coat of ArmsRichard Kaiser was ticketed for failing to slow while passing a police car while that car’s emergency lights were activated. He disputed that ticket on two grounds, the regulation offended the Charter by being too vague and that the officer was merely making notes concerning a previous violator at the time and so had entrapped Mr. Kaiser. Judge Takahashi convicted Mr. Kaiser.

Consider the Simple Traffic Sign

Pedestrian CrossingConsider the simple traffic sign or signal.  It stands by the side of the highway doing it’s job regardless of the season.  We rely on it to tell us when to stop, how fast to go, which way to turn or whether we can travel in a certain direction as well as many other controlling functions. This is a reliance that we might not consider until we run into trouble because it is lacking.