I've been trolling through the DriveSmartBC inbox for inspiration this morning. There are a lot of odds & ends there that deserve to be mentioned. Thanks to all for these questions and suggestions.
The provincial courts handled 75,584 traffic and bylaw cases in 2016/2017, the lowest number in the past five years. Of possible interest in the report are complaints made against the judicial justices who hear these cases.
Robert Tomkowicz was issued a violation ticket for crossing a solid line and illegal use of an HOV lane while traveling southbound on Highway 99 in Richmond, B.C. The judicial justice in traffic court convicted him for both offences after a trial.
Question: I would like to use a 15 Passenger Van for a pleasure use trip and am wondering if a class 5 license is valid for this use? I have read CCMTA guidelines for the use of 15-Passenger Vans and it seems that for pleasure use a class 5 license is valid. But I'd like to confirm.
I've always been interested in driving and technology, so when I had the opportunity to combine the two, I jumped at it. eDriving provided access to their Mentor app for me to test. How would I measure up?
I installed the Mentor app on my tablet as I don't own a personal cell phone. The app is meant to be used on a cell phone but appeared to work properly on the tablet. It was just a bit awkward to put in my truck because of the size.
Just for fun: A French comedian impersonates a speed camera and ends up being arrested.
Addressing Citizen Requests For Traffic Safety Concerns is an interesting document from the Local Road Research Board in Minnesota. The following is taken from the document's abstract:
I happened to be on the Trans-Canada Highway (Highway #1) on Vancouver Island during the big snow storm just before Christmas, travelling from Victoria to Parksville, and there were some occasions where I wondered about the sanity of pick-up truck drivers.
Paul Hergott is a personal injury lawyer that practices in Kelowna are regularly writes on road safety. One of his latest articles compares the newspaper headline “Dangerously icy roads lead to crashes” with “Deep water leads to drowning.” His position is that we need to grumble and complain about drivers who fail to use good winter tires and who overdrive the conditions. Not about the naturally occurring ice and snow.
Quite some time ago I wrote about an initiative to trade your ticket for driver training. I was very pleased with the outcome of the one instance that I tried on my own, but the program never took off as the provincial government required the RCMP to provide it to all drivers if it was implemented. The Victoria Police Department is trying something similar through Restorative Justice Victoria.