Interesting interpretation of new speeding laws?

[SumAznGuy]

Originally Posted by taylor192

The majority of drivers do not excessive speed.
The majority of drivers do 10-20 over.
The majority of officers will not write a ticket for 10-20 over.

Want to bet? 20 over is excessive speeding and is a $368 fine and I am sure most cops will ticket.

[taylor192]

Originally Posted by SumAznGuy

Want to bet? 20 over is excessive speeding and is a $368 fine and I am sure most cops will ticket.

Are you prepared to lose that bet?

Excessive speeding

148 (1) A person who drives a motor vehicle on a highway at a speed greater than 40 km/h over the applicable speed limit set under the authority of an enactment commits an offence and is liable on conviction to not less than the aggregate of the fine amount and the applicable supplemental fine amount, if any, prescribed under section 148.1 for this offence and, subject to those amounts, section 4 of the Offence Act applies.

[taylor192]

Can an officer clarify this:

The DUI rules include impound and license suspension periods (ie impound for 3 days, license suspended for 3 days).
The excessive speeding rule only includes impound periods, no license suspension.

So, in theory after getting an excessive speeding charge, I could go home and get my other vehicle? or rent a vehicle for a week?

Also, does a license suspension include all license classes? Ie I lose my class 5 and 6 at the same time?

[SumAznGuy]

Originally Posted by taylor192

Can an officer clarify this:

The DUI rules include impound and license suspension periods (ie impound for 3 days, license suspended for 3 days).
The excessive speeding rule only includes impound periods, no license suspension.

So, in theory after getting an excessive speeding charge, I could go home and get my other vehicle? or rent a vehicle for a week?

Also, does a license suspension include all license classes? Ie I lose my class 5 and 6 at the same time?

Yes. You can lose your car for 30 days, go home and grab your other car and drive that.

Suspended license means no driving anything. No class 5/6 or 7/8 like you would if your license was suspended for too many tickets.

[SumAznGuy]

Originally Posted by taylor192

Are you prepared to lose that bet?

Are you? Bet was cops issuing tickets for 10-20 over the speed limit. Not what is defined as excessive speeding. But you are correct, excessive speeding is 40+.

[sebberry]

Originally Posted by taylor192

The majority of drivers do not excessive speed.
The majority of drivers do 10-20 over.
The majority of officers will not write a ticket for 10-20 over.

Where did I say that the majority of drivers speed excessively? Or that I supported it?

Yes, the majority of drivers do 10-20 over and yes officers write tickets for that. I've witnessed it firsthand.

[Oleophobic]

^
true but I don't think the majority of cops write tickets for it.
otherwise you'll see people being pulled over left and right for going 10-20 over

[sebberry]

Originally Posted by T.T

^
true but I don't think the majority of cops write tickets for it.
otherwise you'll see people being pulled over left and right for going 10-20 over

Unfortunately the ICBC collision stats don't differentiate between 0-10, 11-20, etc... over the limit, just "exceed speed limit" and "excessive (40+ over the limit) speed".

Perhaps this is where a traffic officer here could chime in and tell us what range most speeding tickets are written in.

[gars]

Originally Posted by sebberry

It's sounds like you'd be most comfortable with US style traffic enforcement where if you don't have the cash available at the roadside to pay your fine, you go to jail.

I am very much in favor of the GLP because the result is generally a better educated driver who is better able to make decisions on his own based on what is going on around him. Unfortunately the cost of such education is out of reach for many, but we've already covered where ICBC would rather spend their next $20 million. (Just doing the quick math here, you could educate 20,000 new drivers for that in a full YD or DW course at a bulk rate..)

The true irony here is that I am simply arguing in favor of legalizing what the majority of drivers do on a daily basis with very few problems. I don't think there is any evidence to back up your assertations that doing so will result in mass carnage on the roads. In fact, all you need to do is look at the removal of street signs and lights in the Dutch town of Drachten (PDF) to see that when drivers get to think for themselves, collisions can decrease. I'm sure there were opponents to that experiment who held the same position as you - that there would be countless collisions resulting from people making their own decisions.

I'm more of a moderate right, and find that traffic fines (due to their high amounts) cannot be done like that. Transit fines, on the other hand, are completely ok to be done like that. I've been in many european cities, which has a rule like that, and I'm sure is a much better system than what we have.

The Netherlands, again, is a very hard country to compare to - like Germany, it is very expensive to obtain a licence - at the minimum age of 18 again. And a town of 45'000 which had an average of 8 accidents a year, is not a very good system to compare north american systems to. I've driven through many small towns in Europe that don't have minimal traffic lights or signs, and don't feel like I'm in danger, but it is certainly not a very efficient system. Just like when a traffic light here goes out, everybody treats it like a 4-way stop, it's just that traffic slows to a crawl - but might not be a problem for a 45'000 pop city, that already had numerous roundabouts in their city.

to contribute to the remainder of the discussion, I've have seen and heard of traffic tickets being given out to 10-20km/h, definitely, but not often is it given while you are driving the flow of traffic. There are exceptions, like when they had the big campaigns to slow down traffic, especially on Knight St (which at certain curves, it is actually quite dangerous for the flow of traffic to be 70km/h). But most of those campaigns were focused on the idiots who would go even quicker than the flow of traffic.

[Soundy]

Originally Posted by sebberry

I am very much in favor of the GLP because the result is generally a better educated driver who is better able to make decisions on his own based on what is going on around him.

Perhaps you could explain where this mystical education comes from? The GLP does nothing to educate anyone on anything except how to drive paranoid.

[sebberry]

Originally Posted by Soundy

Perhaps you could explain where this mystical education comes from? The GLP does nothing to educate anyone on anything except how to drive paranoid.

Sorry, I left that statement somewhat half-baked.

It could go either way - people either learn from their parents and fail their road tests a couple of times until they figure it out, then keep on driving with their parent's bad habits, or they take an approved course and learn strategies for safely dealing with traffic.

Unfortunately I think the incentives to take that course is now less, and there is no incentive to take it at the beginning of the L stage where it counts the most.

In an ideal world, ICBC would spend less on red-light cameras and use that money to subsidize driver's ed courses that would give drivers greater skill everywhere they drive. The benefits would cover a much larger area than a few intersections.

[taylor192]

Originally Posted by sebberry

Unfortunately I think the incentives to take that course is now less, and there is no incentive to take it at the beginning of the L stage where it counts the most.

In Ontario my driver's ed course cut my insurance in half and took 4 months off my learner period. The insurance savings alone was worth it.

In many states you can take traffic school to settle violations instead, as you don't get the fine/points as long as your driver record stays clean for a year or two after. This encourages people to become better drivers rather than just pay the fine and take the points.

Both of these would be great ideas for BC, and I agree, BC should be tackling proactive ideas too. It is a shame Bill-14 does not include more proactive measures.

[Soundy]

Originally Posted by sebberry

Sorry, I left that statement somewhat half-baked.

It could go either way - people either learn from their parents and fail their road tests a couple of times until they figure it out, then keep on driving with their parent's bad habits...

That doesn't make them any safer... at least not inherently. It arguably makes some WORSE drivers - all they learn is how to do what they need to to pass the road test; it does nothing to teach them PROPER driving, defensive or otherwise; it does nothing to teach them the rules of the road.

[Soundy]

Originally Posted by taylor192

In Ontario my driver's ed course cut my insurance in half and took 4 months off my learner period. The insurance savings alone was worth it.

In many states you can take traffic school to settle violations instead, as you don't get the fine/points as long as your driver record stays clean for a year or two after. This encourages people to become better drivers rather than just pay the fine and take the points.

Both of these would be great ideas for BC, and I agree, BC should be tackling proactive ideas too. It is a shame Bill-14 does not include more proactive measures.

Some jurisdictions also have mandatory driver education in the high schools - nobody (well, except the drop-outs) escapes at least learning the proper rules of the road, defensive driving theory, laws and penalties. How LITTLE would it realistically cost for ICBC to back such a program, compared to what they spend on commercials and billboards and bumper-sticker campaigns to attempt to get the message through?