PHOTOS OF CONCERN - New Driver Signs

Displaying a sign, unless it can reasonably be deemed to confuse/mislead or affect somebody (i.e. a detour arrow into a chasm) is protected by the freedom of expression guaranteed to all Canadians. No law that explicitly forbids anyone from displaying signs can withstand a charter challenge.

Fair enough, but I don't think this thread is really about drivers choosing to display signs - there's some nut job who parks his car downtown with about a zillion biblical messages scrawled all over it, but hey it's a free country.

I do not agree with your assertion that the purpose of an L sign is to signify a pre-requisite of a supervisor; I contest that there is absolutely no prescribed purpose to displaying this sign in the law, and this is simply a short sighted regulation with no concrete reasoning behind it. I also think such law is patently discriminatory and I have in the past compared it to a yellow star of David being required to be worn on the arm of Jews by Nazi Germany. Therefore any reason you assign to it is strictly a construct of your imagination, and a reflection of the shortsightedness of the regulation.

In terms of the 'L' sign being required simply to signify the pre-requisite of a supervisor, you're correct; that may be - well, it is - one of the several restrictions that apply to the 'L' driver but it isn't the primary purpose for it to be displayed.

And there's nothing new, or different, in the idea of a Learner driver being required to display a sign in order to caution other road users that they are new at this game, and might do something unexpected or seemingly illogical. If you think about it, Driver Training vehicles have been required to display some kind of 'Student Driver' sign for decades, as well as having other devices such as certain dual controls and mirrors so that the Instructor can demonstrate skills, and/or take over physical control if necessary, whilst being able to see more of what's going on around them in the driving environment.

A Driving Instructor will typically be an individual with some degree of experience and knowledge about teaching a new driver. A parent? Probably not so much. So inasmuch as fewer than 15% of new drivers actually take lessons from a professional, then prior to August 3rd 1998 (when Graduated Licensing was introduced in BC) the situation was that the vast majority of new drivers were being taught on public streets by complete amateurs, without any sort of warning sign being displayed for their protection, and everybody else's.

Ridiculous. Just like your attempted analogy with the situation in Nazi occupied Europe and the persecuted Jews.

Incidentally, other jurisdictions - both Australia and the UK come immediately to mind - have been requiring Learner and Probationary signs to be displayed for ages; there's nothing new in this concept, and nothing particularly onerous or unreasonable.

But I am open to a discussion on what this sign should signify, and more importantly - a determination what the receivers of such information should do differently in relation to a vehicle displaying such a sign. I believe the sign should signify nothing, and drivers seeing the sign should do nothing different, therefore it should be abolished.

I disagree completely. Obviously, the idea that 'a sign should signify nothing' makes absolutely no sense. Otherwise, I would put a sign on my house that says 'this is a house' just in case anybody thought it was a railway station, or something.

The fact is that for any person, learning a new skill, there will be a learning curve; combine this with the fact that driving can present a huge task load, and you have a recipe for potential disaster. So the whole concept behind Graduated Licensing is to reduce the risk factors, and displaying the 'L' or 'N' sign is only one of the conditions applying. Most importantly, the evidence is that it's working, in terms of reducing collisions, injuries, and deaths.

My opening argument is: Since every road user is subject to the same subset of laws and regulations on the road users to avoid breaking the law, the sign is unnecessary.

That's not an argument. The purpose of the sign is to caution other drivers that the driver may make unexpected errors; these other drivers, if they have a grain of sense (I said 'if') will respond by allowing for a greater margin of error.

'Baby on board' - now that's an unnecessary sign. A discretionary sign; and I really wish the idiots who put it on their cars would realize this.  But it's a totally different concept from being required to display an 'L' or 'N' on your car as a Class 7 driiver.

Further, the sign signifies a class of road users and identifies it publicly; which results in public misconceptions - case in point the post above - and may subject the sign bearer to increased scrutiny by the police in cases where an observed infraction would likely result in the sign bearer being pulled over and ticketed, as opposed to non-signed vehicle being ignored under the same circumstances.

No, and yes. Let me explain, from what I've encountered after 30 years as a Driving Instructor in this province.

First off, that 'L' sign - or 'Student Driver' sign almost always results in the police turning something of a blind eye to the errors made by new drivers, the very opposite of increased scrutiny. For years and years I was the Administrator for the largest Driving School in western Canada, and on only one occasion was a student driver pulled over for an illegal maneuver - that's in thousands and thousands of hours of training conducted by numerous Instructors with even more numerous Student Drivers.

(In case you're interested, I got to see the video from the RCMP vehicle, and that driver totally started into the intersection after the light had changed to red - I also then pursued this with the local Traffic Sergeant, who agreed to have the ticket dismissed.)

Meanwhile, so far as the sign bearer - and I'm thinking here of the 'N' Driver, which is the original subject of this Thread - 'increased scrutiny' is the goal! All of the GLP laws are designed to reduce risk, and indeed to result in harsher penalties for new drivers who disobey traffic laws.

If an 'N' driver doesn't even try to come to a stop before turning right on a red, and gets nailed for it, I'm fine with that.

If an 'N' driver weaves through traffic without signalling his/her lane changes or showing consideration for other road users and gets nailed for it, I'm fine with that.

If an 'N' driver gets into the car, picks up his cell phone and starts chatting, and then backs swiftly out of the parking space whilst making pedestrians walking by leap out of the way - and gets nailed for it, to the extent of having his license suspended, massive fines and penalty points imposed, and his 2-year mandatory waiting period before being eligible for applying to get a Class 5 restarted ... well guess what? I'm just delighted with that, for the safety of everybody.

Meanwhile, I'll leave you all with this ...