by Dr. Radut

CASE LAW - Regina v Dolson

Published by DriveSmartBC -

BC Courts Coat of ArmsThis case is out of Kamloops, B.C. where Philip Dolson disputed a violation ticket for operating his Jeep without proper doors. In this instance he had replaced the OEM doors on his vehicle with Adventure Doors manufactured by Warrior Products. These are tube doors described by the manufacturer as "Designed to replace the vehicle’s full or half doors, Adventure Doors provide additional protection to front seat occupants while off-roading."

 

Judicial Justice Hughes examines the Motor Vehicle Act Regulations with regard to doors and explains why he convicted Mr. Dolson.

Link:

Update July 14, 2021:

According to the Kamloops court registry, this conviction was overturned on appeal. Details on the reason are not currently available. Please note that having a decision overturned does NOT mean that it is legal to use tube doors!

Published by Soundy - 2019/08/26 - 09:07 | Permalink

You might want to update this, as I just had a conversation with someone who was operating on the assumption that tube doors were okay because of the claim here the decision was overturned.

From a properly connected person:

"I was able to look up what happened on appeal. It seems it was never heard on the merits but that Mr Dolson made a deal to plead to speeding in exchange for the door ticket being dropped. 

This means the provincial court decision remains good law and the proper advice to give to jeepers is to keep your factory doors on while on roads or FSRs."

Unfortunately, a search of Supreme Court decisions does not find a result. This means either the information that it was appealed is not correct or the decision was not reported.

This is a good illustration of making a decision based on incomplete information. While the decision might have been overturned on appeal, it is not confirmation that the accused did not break the law. Sometimes it is dismissed because the Crown did not prove the case sufficiently.

In this case, it was a Crown attorney who passed on the information, so I'd tend to trust what he told me... which narrows it down to "the decision was not reported".

But you are correct, it's a good illustration of the perils of making decisions based on incomplete information.

 

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