Teen faces 13 charges after Ottawa police chase, crash

A 19-year-old Ottawa man has been charged with a slew of offences after Tuesday afternoon’s police chase and crash on Highway 417 that closed the highway for nearly nine hours.

Toronto Driver Charged After Going 140 km/h

… over the speed limit. Toronto Police stopped the driver on the Don Valley Parkway after he passed a police cruiser going 231km/h in his Mercedes SL600. Normally I wouldn’t blame this driver for wanting to test out his twin turbo V12 on the highway but the incident happened early this morning. Curiously, I decided to check into the DVP traffic cams and as I suspected, the roads are in similar condition as Calgary roads.

John Kowal, 29, of Aurora, is alleged to have passed a police cruiser on the Don Valley Parkway at about 1:30 a.m. on Friday morning at an excessive rate of speed, according to a news release from the Toronto Police Service.

Now, I’m not sure why but in the CBC article I linked to above, they make some stupid comparisons to F1 and Nascar as if that’ll help people understand just how fast this guy was going. Was that really necessary?

Its winter, the roads are slick and the guy was going 231 km/h. I’m pretty sure most people that read the article would have no problem coming to the conclusion that the guy was an idiot.

Poland Embraces Street Racing

How To Fight A Traffic Ticket, Or Not

A new thread on this topic is started at least every week on the car forums. An unfortunate driver gets a bunch of tickets from a “power hungry” cop, and doesn’t want to pay for them so he seeks advice on our forums on how to fight the ticket. The usual responses are to head down to talk to the crown to get the charges reduced or better yet, completely dropped.

Justin Bell was pulled over by an RCMP officer after being clocked going 109 km/h in a 60 km/h zone. While most drivers in this case would accept the ticket and slow down, Bell had other ideas. After talking to the officer and realizing he was going to get a ticket, he asked the officer to speak to him in french instead. When the officer informed Bell he could not speak French, Bell ignored this and continued speaking in french. He continued to ignore the officer who was still speaking english the whole time, that is until the officer uttered “You’re under arrest!”.

“For what?” Bell inquired in English.

“Well, let’s put it this way,” the officer responded. “It’s dangerous driving, 109 in a 60 zone.”

Yesterday, a Saskatchewan judge stayed the charges against Bell after deciding that the RCMP officer did not have legitimate reason to place Bell under arrest. Its important to note that when a charge is stayed, the court is not ruling that Bell is innocent, but instead the charges are invalidated. I’m not a legal expert by any means, but I think the RCMP officer can still re-issue a speeding ticket for the original violation under the Highway Traffic Act. However, even if this was a possibility, I doubt it would happen and more than likely Bell has successfully fought a speeding ticket.

I bet it would’ve been a hell of a lot cheaper to just hire someone like pointts to fight the ticket :)

Construction Zones

Signs? I didn’t see any signs! One wonders how a driver could possibly miss the series of orange three foot diamonds with attached flags flapping in the breeze beside the highway as they passed by, yet this is often what I heard when I stopped a motorist that has failed to obey them. Some drivers are so irate after being ticketed that they go back to make sure the signs are actually there!

I usually write on this subject each year at the start of the road construction season. I appeal to drivers to slow down, putting themselves in the worker’s place at the roadside. Would you like to have a vehicle whiz by you a foot or two away at significant speeds? Not likely!

I am also careful to point out that flag people and construction workers are hit by errant drivers in B.C. every year, despite all the traffic controls put in place to guide everyone by safely.

I even measured a construction zone one year and calculated that it cost drivers a total of 74 seconds to slow to the construction zone speed limit as opposed to what was posted before construction started. The only drivers who come to mind for me where 74 seconds are critical are those that drive an ambulance or fire apparatus.

Perhaps if violators were sentenced to be a flag person for a day to experience the abuse and close calls, they might be a little more inclined to slow down and pay attention.

To those of you who do put safety ahead of convenience, I am sure that the people who are improving the roads for your use would like to say “thank you!”

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