Police

In British Columbia, the authority of a peace officer during a traffic stop is broad, grounded in both provincial safety statutes and federal criminal law. While the Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects against arbitrary detention, the courts have consistently ruled that the state's interest in road safety justifies certain "reasonable limits" on those rights.

I was working traffic enforcement and had stopped a speeding driver. When I was serving a copy of the speeding ticket to her I noticed a pickup truck pull in behind my police vehicle. When the ticket recipient pulled away the driver got out and approached me. "You can't write speeding tickets here" he stated.

Got your quota yet? It was a jab that I heard often at the roadside and some days I really wanted to respond to it. "Yes, thank you. This ticket means I get a new toaster!" Somehow I don't think the driver would have seen any humour in it.

BC's Director of Police Services has created standards aimed at promoting unbiased policing. Sub-section 6.2 of the standards deals with police stops, a term "intended to refer to any interaction between a police officer and a person that is more than a casual conversation and which impedes the person’s movement.”

Question: When driving I noticed a police car with flashing lights following the vehicle that was following me. I pulled over - the car behind me went by followed by the police vehicle - who put on his siren on a little ways up the street. Was I right by pulling over for flashing lights. My husband says I should have kept driving until the police used the siren.... who is right?

When a vehicle is in yaw it is rotating around a vertical axis through it's centre of mass. The long, curved yaw marks left by the tires on the pavement were characteristic of this motion. If they were striated and of constantly diminishing radius they were of great interest for collision reconstruction because the vehicle's speed could be determined from them.

First off, no disrespect to the police. I have a problem when day in and day out the police are pulling people over for traffic violations and running road blocks when there is so much crime going on in B.C cities and towns.

Question: The police officer used a radar gun to check my speed. According to him, there are no records for radar calibration on it. This is a real, live issue for my trial. If the radar gun does not have service records, then how do we know that it is functioning correctly?

Question: I just came back from a trip I thought I would see what you have to say about an issue that bothers me about how the police do their job. One can not drive very far without encountering one of what I call the crazies. The driver who drives like a fool, way too fast for either weather or road conditions, passing when its not safe and generally putting everyone in his or her path at risk.