Police

I received a warning this evening, for speeding. I was trying to get out of the way of the person behind me (who ended up being a police officer). Anyway, he told me my name would be in some sort of data base in case an officer sees me and pulls me over for speeding again.

The police must follow the provisions of the Emergency Vehicle Driving Regulation when they intend to employ the exemption from the rules of the road set out in the Motor Vehicle Act. In this case, Constable Jacobson was driving his police vehicle on Highway 97 at Daimler Drive in West Kelowna approaching a red light. Hoping to save a few minutes arriving at a complaint he activated the police vehicles's emergency lights and siren about 4 - 5 vehicle lengths’ back from the beginning of the left turn lane on Highway 97 going south.

If I have a dashcam and capture traffic violations and reported them, is it of any use for police to prosecute? If so does it depend on the level severity? What steps or how much involvement would be required of me? eg. appear in court, just sending a video etc.

One of the more frequently asked questions that I receive from visitors to this site concerns reporting bad driving behaviour to the police and having the offending driver held accountable. Until recently, I would point the person to the article Q&A - Making a Driving Report to the Police and encourage them to take an active role in the complaint so that something effective would be done.

Occasionally I would stop a driver who had committed a traffic violation that would roll down their driver's window half an inch, poke their driver's licence out and roll the window back up to await service of a ticket.

I was not given my copy of a speeding ticket. Will it be mailed to me or should I phone? I know which RCMP detachment wrote the ticket.

I was talking on the phone while driving. Guilty. However, while at a red light a cop in plain clothes came up to me and told me to pull over to the bus stop. I had know idea who this dude was and said as much. He flashed a badge and said "Victoria Police" and walked to the curb. I drove away wondering if he actually was a cop, thinking he probably was but continued on.

Is a Police officer also an inspector under the motor vehicle regulations? For noisy exhausts it is the opinion of the inspector that seems to critical in determining whether the vehicle exhaust is too noisy.

So it would be great if a police officer could issue a ticket or a notice to correct just based on their opinion, which should be just more useful than trying to do decibel testing.

Over the course of my service in traffic law enforcement I saw many things that made me shake my head. Examples include a pickup truck that had a rope strung through the vent windows and tied to the windshield wipers so that they could be operated by the passenger, another pickup with black plastic tape stuck over the brake warning light so that the brightness would not bother the driver at night and a car had no working lights on the rear because ICBC had not arranged for collision repairs yet.

Police reports quoted in the media sometimes deliver the wrong message to the public. Here's an example from the Victoria Times Colonist newspaper.