I'm reasonably certain that happens as well.

"The public" doesn't modify their vehicles in ways that vary from could possibly be to most definitely unsafe/less safe to drive. The automotive enthusiasts who do modify their vehicles in hazardous ways are primarily at fault for causing this mess and encouraging dubious shops or overly sympathetic inspectors to pass unsafe vehicles.

The only reason those rcmp officers get away with issuing these kinds of N&O's is because they know there is no easy and effective way for you to dispute it. If it was disputable like a traffic ticket, any JP or Judge familiar with the MVA would explain to you the legal implications you subject yourself to as a public official by ordering someone to spend their money at a specific business that you have chosen. That is an intentional misinterpretation of the MVA and an abuse of power, plain and simple. You may have the best intentions, but that doesn't make it okay.

Because, this is not communist China. We don't just do what the police tell us to do when it seems very wrong. We question it. AS WE SHOULD. And there are several reasons why I may not want to take my vehicle to a dealership. The cost of labor for the inspection may be as much as double what a licensed independent specialist may cost. In fact, as soon as the shop sees the N&O specifies THEIR shop, they know they have you by the balls and can charge whatever they want to fix it, and you have no choice. That is reason #1, and it can and DOES happen. There are a plethora of other personal reasons why I may not want to spend my money at the specific shop that a police officer has forced me to use, anything from location, poor past experiences, inconvenience, poor business practices of the shop, etc etc, the list goes on. In my experience, a dealership is every bit as capable of wrongfully passing an illegally modified vehicle as any independent shop. I can actually think of three examples where a provincially certified dealer gave cars a VI pass with no front plates and/or tinted side windows

I just don't understand how any unbiased and educated individual could agree with you on this matter, zulu.

But I digress,

At the end of the day, the only thing the cops really care about is that you get your car safe and legal.

Rich, I see that the MVA has been rewritten since I used it and now the section that permitted Police to name a specific location now says that Police can direct it off road to permit them to inspect it...OR be taken at owner's expense and inspected at a licenced facility.

Equipment of motor vehicles
219 (1) A person must not drive or operate a motor vehicle or trailer on a highway or rent a motor vehicle or trailer unless it is equipped in all respects in compliance with this Act and the regulations.

(2) A peace officer

(a) may require a person who carries on the business of renting vehicles or who is the owner or person in charge of a vehicle

(i) to allow the peace officer to inspect a vehicle offered by the person for rental or owned by or in charge of the person, or

(ii) to move a vehicle described in subparagraph (i) to a place designated by the peace officer and to allow the vehicle to be inspected there by the peace officer, or, at the expense of the person required, to present the vehicle for inspection by a person authorized under section 217, and

(b) must remove any inspection certificate of approval affixed to the vehicle if, in the opinion of the peace officer or a person authorized under section 217, the vehicle is unsafe for use on a highway.

The reason Police would designate a specific location was that some inspectors, through ignorance or corruption, would pass non-compliant vehicles. The ones I came across varied from ignorance, lazyness, friends of the owner, friends of the owner's kids, corruption...all the way to organized crime connections. The common thread was that vehicles got passed and they did not comply. I saw mods like frames being cut out so low riders would get closer to the ground, exhaust pipes ending under the car/truck body, lights/signals so small that they could not be seen, limo tint on side windows and even on windshields, motorcycles with no front fenders, signal lights, front brake, open primary chain cases..inspected by the guy who built them.

Several of the biggest car dealers on the Island were some of the biggest offenders and I would drive by their car lots and see non-compliant vehicles being offered for sale...that in itself is illegal. I knew that any vehicle sent there would not be properly inspected. One dealer tried to get around being prosecuted for selling vehicles with tinted windows by having the new car delivered to a local tint shop to have the side windows tinted, then having the owner pick up the illegaly tinted car at the dealership...once again illegal. He offered the cars with a special "tint package" of illegal tint.I would designate a local facility where the owner was a long time hot-rodder. He knew his stuff and the car was safe and legal when he passed it. The owners trying to cheat knew the game was up when it went to him.

Anyway any ambiguity seems to have been removed by the re-write of the regs....and I agreee 100% with your closing statement.

Zulu

Do you have a link to this version of the act? The only one I am pulling up says April 20th 2012, I am not seeing the same thing as what you have here.

Edit found it I think. For those looking:

http://www.bclaws.ca/EPLibraries/bcl...eside/96318_00

So the way this is written, I would see this as an officer no longer has the ability to tell you where to have a VI done, correct?

If you're given a designated shop for the inspection, it doesn't mean that the repairs must be done at that shop. You can have the repairs done anywhere or even do them yourself, but the inspection must be done at the specified shop.

Zulu, have you or your colleagues successfully charged and convicted an individual for not taking their vehicle to the shop they were told to visit?

Hmm, my reading of 219(2)(a) gives the peace officer two options.

First, a peace officer may ask the owner of a vehicle to move that vehicle to a place designated by that peace officer and then that vehicle must be inspected by that peace officer. (I think this might apply when an officer nails you for tints and asks you to take it off and come show him afterwards?)

Second, the peace officer can ask that the owner of the vehicle must present that vehicle for inspection by a person authorized to do an inspection. They may have done this because peace officers may be unable or unqualified to conduct an inspection.

Nowhere does it say that the peace officer can tell the owner that the vehicle must be inspected by a specific authorized person at a specific place, just that the owner has to present the vehicle to someone authorized. So this should give owners a choice on where to take their cars. This makes sense because a peace officer can require someone to take their car to some place very far and inconvenient.

Yeah, that section has been re-worded - it was rather ambiguous before. Now, not so much.

That is the current version though. What was it before?

I don't have the old wording but it was interpreted different ways by some. The Traffic Members & CVSE Inspectors I worked with acted on the authority we believed that permitted a specific inspector because of the reasons I listed above Othders believed that it didn't. I had legal opinions from Crown that we were correct but the wording has been changed to it's current form for whatever reason Govt has for doing those types of things. I don't know of any prosecutions for not taking it to the inspector we designated. If I found a non-compliant vehicle with a passed inspection, I issued a #1 on the spot and it was towed from the scene. If the operator continued to drive it later then they got towed again and a $598 fine for non-compliance and individual VTs for each defect. Only had 2 slow learners try that dodge.