Well, here is the latest info on the new crazy law ...

http://www.thestar.com/News/Ontario/article/269825

Oct 23, 2007 09:22 PM
Josh Wingrove
Staff Reporter

Police have suspended 863 drivers since Ontario’s new speeding law came into effect last month.

Drivers caught street racing, stunt driving, or speeding more than 50 km/h over the posted limit face an on-the-spot, one-week suspension. Suspended drivers also lose their car for a week, and pay for the towing (about $250) and storage (up to $75 a day). The new regulations are part of the Safer Roads for a Safer Ontario Act, and came into effect Sept. 30th.

The number of suspensions each day has dropped slightly - from 40 to 38, on average - indicating a shift in thinking among Ontario drivers, said OPP Sgt. Cam Woolley.

"It’s been probably one of the most successful pieces of legislation in traffic," Woolley said. "I think we’re seeing a real shift in the public attitude to this, and the people who are late to this are in for a big surprise."

The act came after a series of collisions and deaths from street racing in the GTA, and gives police the power to get speeding drivers off the roads. Drivers convicted under the law also face a fine between $2,000 and $10,000. OPP handed out 630 of the suspensions, while Toronto police handed out 67 and York Regional Police another 35.

The suspended drivers range in age from 17 to 69, and 84 per cent are male, Woolley said. The most common age of suspended drivers was 22. While street bikes and sports cars have been impounded regularly, police have seized their share of family vehicles - often belonging to the driver’s parents.

"We’ve seen some pretty upset parents, but we think we’re probably saving people’s lives," Woolley said.

The new law also allows courts to hand out 10-year suspensions for a second conviction. "Some of these people have been drinking, are suspended, have terrible records. It looks to me like it’s getting the right people," Woolley said.

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I wonder how many of the 863 drivers will cite their Charter of Rights and protest their charges...

 

Yeah, a 40 to 38 shift is a real green light that drivers are getting the message. Just like those two brothers racing after this law came in to effect and cost the lives of two innocent women. Nonsense. It's a fear-mongering cash grab of a poorly thought out sham law from a limp spined government.

I've rubbed noses with 150 twice since the law came in to effect, once while simply not paying attention to my speed. It's not the 50 over that bugs me as much as the broad interpretation of the law available to an officer. A lane change to one officer may seem a little agressive while to another it could be a stunt.

My soon to be father-in-law is a politician and told me this past weekend that the courts so far are not pressing hard in the "Street Racing" cases that have come before them.

 

Here is a really interesting scenerio ...

http://www.toronto-subaru-club.com/f...d.php?t=105836

Here is the first post ..

"Friend just got booked for 'street racing', car is impounded. Here's what I managed to gather over the phone in 2 minutes... he was driving next to a civic going about 120 on 404, merges right to exit at Finch. Sees an OPP pull the civic behind him and keeps going. Stopped at red light on Finch, a Toronto police cruiser pulls him over, accuses him of street racing and impounds his car. I know for a fact my friend was not racing. His car is a modded civic and is very loud though, catless. There's no way in hell since his motor blew a few weeks ago and its running in limp mode. What to do now? I told him to call a lawyer, he's scared his car might get crushed. I'm not familiar with the details of Bill 203, do they have this power?"

 

Well my phone finally rang to assist one of these unfortunate fellows that have had their car siezed. I will seek to get permission from the accused to outline the incident and whether he or she will allow you all to follow along. Should be interesting.

 

Should be very interesting indeed (I know the story already :P0). I can't wait to see how this unfolds!

 

Hey Charn, should I send anyone else who has gotten this sort of ticket your way?
There were 4 bikes impounded in K-W last week I think and from what I heard the police just showed up to their house and took them. I guess the police acted on a complaint from someone else....

 

How can they act on complains? Thats rediculous, they can't prove who was driving, can't prove what was going on, hearsay is a wonderful thing!

 

I know! Thats what I said.

Mind you I haven't talked to them yet, I heard this through a freind of theirs. SO I dunno, maybe they were doing wheelies right in front of the cops.

 

The law does say "If an officer BELIEVES someone has been racing, stunting ...." they can pound your car.

If you argue, they'll give you another 5k fine for obstructing police business....

 

All that, and you still don't get to sleep with his wife. That Wooley guy is a real arsehole.

 

Wooley is a puppet, Fantino is the Speed ****...

 

Wooley is an idiot. It would be interesting to see what percentage of the population actually believes the crap that guy says.

 

http://www.thestar.com/News/Ontario/article/271572

More madness ....

 

What that fool needs to look into is the specific impound locations that those 38 cars per day have been taken to. Then he needs to cross reference that by the officers that made the initial arrest and the tow drivers/companies. I am sure he will find a link. This thing is becoming kickback city.

 

Thought I'd celebrate 2500 posts in my favourite rant thread of all time!!!!

It's been an interesting, entertaining, and educational six years here.

Screw you Fantino!!! I'm going to start calling in every poor lane change I see! A friend of mine on this forum had the idea. Let's fill the impound lots, hell even call innocent people, call in a cops license plate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Flood the system to make them sweat!

Dial * (star) O-P-P

 

30 over? When was the last time Fantino drove on a highway? I agree with the cop / tow truck link. I almost always know where there is a speed trap now because there is a tow truck a few km's back in the middle of an offramp waiting for the call. These tow trucks only starting appearing on the highways since this new law.

thewird

 

Jeeze.. they make it sound like they never caught 50kph+ speeders in the past.

 

Last night I watched the first episode of "Canada's Worst Drivers III" and was shocked at the people they have on the show. The previous seasons have been pretty depressing but this one dwarfs them all. There are least two "contestants" with more then 40 collisions on their record, and one that had her license suspended 7 (or 8) times. Another actually doesn't know her left from right. Another blew through nearly every stopsign he passed because he doesn't check his peripheral vision.

My question to Sgt. Cam Wooley (who is on the show representing the OPP) is "Why in the hell are these people allowed to drive?!". A person who's license has been suspended 7 times should NOT BE ALLOWED a license, period. Anyone involved in 40 collisions should be banned from driving for life. In the hours I spend on the road everyday making service calls, THESE are the people putting everyone else in danger.

 

I think what really needs to be done is start a formal campaign agaist this, and going public. As in going to your local TV station or such and bring up all these arguements. Our voices are barely heard on the internet. I would even go as far as getting a whole bunch of "modified car" (we would need something like 100 cars), go on the 401, and all of us just setting our cruise at 100km/h and taking all the lanes. See how much of a jam we can create.

 

Is that for real? *OPP ? I didn't know that we could call in cops plates.

 

We should do what the farmers do: block and entire section of the 401 on some random Wednesday afternoon.

 

Calling in OPP plate numbers was just a thought, why not screw with their heads a bit? I'd call in a police plate if I saw them do something unsafe. If we flood them with calls about this car and that car doing what we each individually perceive as dangerous driving then they'll be overwhelmed and have to re-examine the law. Make it a point to make 2-3 calls an hour when driving. I know I see enough poor driving that I'll have that many to call in.

I'd be in for any kind of demonstration or organized rally also. Many of us are now in danger of being wrongly targeted or having charges brought against us even without a police witness.

 

I'd be in also but who has the pair to organize this? Someone would have to step up to the plate. Also, it would have to be done both ways. If there would be enough people we could flood the 401, 400, 403, 427, QEW, DVP. 600 people would be good enough for that, 50 each way lol. That would cause a stir indeed.

thewird

 

I'd really recommend NOT showing up to block the highway with your modded 7's or other sporty looking cars! That will just allow the cops and media to spin it as a bunch of whiner scoff-laws disrupting traffic and life for others. And to start looking for cars with illegal exhausts, tint, ride heights, lighting, etc to tow away and impound.

I really am amazed that such a flimsy excuse for a law, so patently subjective and open to abuse by the authorities, has actually come to pass in Canada (although I'd have been less surprised if it happened in BC under an NDP government, or even here in Alberta, the land of the unquestioned one-party state). All this law does is invoke immediate penalties for largely subjective offences, while denying the accused due process.

Beyond that, a reduction from an average of 40 to 38 charges per day is truly meaningless in all senses - that's exactly a 5% change, assuming the numbers aren't already rounded - eg., from 39.7 to 40 and from 38.4 to 38. In pretty much any area of scientific research, 5% variance is not considered a meaningful result, even if there is rigorous controls on the variables. Given that this is essentially a social science experiment, with no apparent controls on the process, 5% is statistical noise. Besides the fact that reduction falsely assumes correlation=causation (the new law initially vs. a few weeks later), there are a number of other possible explanations for the supposed reduction in the incidence of "streetracing crimes" under the new law, any, if not all of which, are probably more likely.
One likely cause would be the season - less opportune driving conditions, and less vehicles on the roads (especially as modified cars are driven less or stored for the winter). Many aren't aware, but traffic accidents actually spike in the summer months - simply related to more cars spending more time on the roads. And as the modded and riced cars spend less time on the roads, that gives police fewer targets of opportunity. And I don't mean fewer streetracing crimes being committed, I mean that sports cars and modded vehicles really do get singled out by police as targets of opportunity. I've had police officer friends and acquaintances freely admit that they tend to focus on sports and modified cars, and to be more likely to give their drivers tickets, for lesser offences, because there's an underlying assumption that the officer is making up for bad behavior he didn't get a chance to spot.

Which brings up the matter of subjectivity in charges under the new Ontario "streetracing" law. Since what constitutes an offence is largely up to an officer's discretion, there's no way you can infer meaningful results based on the rate of charges. Beyond that, the change in real numbers charged (14 per week) could be entirely and easily accounted for by a single officer who zealous in applying the charge taking a few weeks vacation. Or more likely, that a larger pool officers, after initially powertripping a bit on the new law, have gone back to a more normal and substantiable pattern of charges. Or most likely, the police made an initial point of laying a lot of charges under the new law to make a splash and show immediate results to the their masters in the government and to the media, and have gone back to a more regular pattern of patrols and enforcement.

All of which is to say, what a crock of $#!+!!

 

This is the latest development..

http://www.thestar.com/News/Ontario/article/274514

________________________________

Drivers stunned by new speeding law

Nov 07, 2007 04:33 PM
Michael Oliveira
THE CANADIAN PRESS

When Jason Stainthorpe was caught speeding on his way to church last Sunday, he figured the worst he was facing was a hefty ticket and some heat from his fiancee for being late.

Instead, he wound up stranded by the side of the highway, desperately trying to figure out how to tell her he'd just lost his licence and her SUV for a week, faced a fine that could run into the thousands and might no longer be able to afford his auto insurance.

He didn't realize it at the time, but doing 50 over the speed limit – 150 km/h on a highway with a posted limit of 100 km/h – meant Stainthorpe had run afoul of a stringent new speeding law in Ontario, billed as a tough measure to combat street racing.

Stainthorpe joined the more than 1,300 drivers who have been nailed since the new law took effect on Sept. 30, all of whom were off the road for a week and faced the possibility of a staggering fine that ranges between $2,000 and $10,000.

The ranks of those caught under the new law are hardly the street-racing type: They run the gamut from teenaged girls to elderly men and just about every demographic in between.

The most common age of offenders has been 21, the average age is 30, and half the charges have been laid against drivers 26 and under. About 13 of the drivers were 65 or older, and 41 were 17 or younger. Almost 84 per cent were male and 16 per cent were female.

When police lobbied for the new law, they expected the province's most aggressive drivers would get caught and hopefully learn a lesson. They didn't anticipate the number of charges would be so high and represent every segment of the driving public.

Stainthorpe, a 33-year-old registered nurse, admitted he was speeding, but was furious that police wouldn't let him off with a warning since he had never heard of the new law.

"I certainly would not have been doing 50 over if I knew this was going to happen to me," he fumed as he waited for police to finish his paperwork on the side of Highway 403 in Mississauga.

"I have three kids, I have to go to work for a week and they just do not give a crap. They have no sympathy for people and it's unfair and they treat people like crap."

About an hour after a shell-shocked Stainthorpe tried to come to grips with his dilemma, police stopped another vehicle going 155 km/h on the same highway – this time a 34-year-old woman with three pre-teen kids in the car.

"Look, I was speeding," said the inconsolable woman, who declined to give her name, as she waited for a taxi.

"I expected a ticket, and then I was like, `Oh, crap.' I did not expect to have my car towed and have them leave my nephews and I no way to get home."

She told the officers on the scene she was driving a brand new car, and didn't feel her speed climbing until she heard the sirens behind her.

Ontario police Sgt. Dennis Mahoney-Bruer has heard that excuse too many times, and after hearing the same thing over and over – he's even watched grown men bawl their eyes out in front of him – his sympathy is wearing thin.

"A little indication (is) if you're going down the highway and you're passing everybody – hello, chances are you're speeding," Mahoney-Bruer said, before adding that some excuses do tug on his heart strings and make him pause before calling a tow truck.

"We're all human, we all have a certain amount of feelings . . . but we have that rule now and we're really sticking to it. We really want to get the message to the people out there that you're not going to talk your way out of this."

The relentless blitz on speeders – dubbed a "shock-and-awe" campaign by provincial police Commissioner Julian Fantino – is likely catching drivers by surprise because people often don't acknowledge that they act dangerously on the road, said Spencer McDonald, the founder of Thinking Driver, a road-safety program designed for people who drive for a living.

"Culturally we all have a higher opinion of our own driving than it actually is, thinking we're better than we really are," McDonald said.

"If you go speeding down the road you can say, `Well, I'm not a bad person, or I'm not an idiot, I'm just simply late for a meeting,' but when the guy speeds past you down the road, he's an idiot."

A forthcoming report from Transport Canada also finds that most drivers don't recognize their own bad habits, and the unfortunate power they have to kill with their car, said Paul Boase of the Canadian Association of Road Safety Professionals.

"For a very long time, speeding – while illegal – was not really treated as a problem," Boase said.

"When people thought about speed and risk, they thought about the risk of getting caught, but the real risk is hitting someone."

And because the new law is classified as a street-racing offence, Boase said many drivers don't believe they're being targeted by police and think they can continue to speed at will.

"There's definitely this perception that street racing is a real serious problem and we ought to hit those people hard, but drivers say, `That's not me, even if I'm doing 50 over that's not me because I'm not racing, I'm just trying to get home."'

There's no doubt some of the offenders are habitual speeders, but it's also likely that some of them were simply unlucky, and were caught using bad judgment that may not reflect their normal driving style, McDonald said.

"Most people are sane, responsible, law-abiding drivers, but they will – when placed under stressful or difficult circumstances – make inappropriate decisions and expose themselves to excessive risk."

While an average of 35 drivers continue to get nabbed every day – and that average has dipped only slightly since the law took effect – many have wised up and are now remaining just below the 150 km/h threshold, Mahoney-Bruer said.

"The last two night shifts when I went out exclusively looking for 50 km/h and above I had none," he said. "The highest speed I had was 48 over, so definitely the knowledge is getting out there."

Brian Lawrie, president of Pointts, which bills itself as Canada's original and most successful traffic court agency, said the new law may bring him more business, but he considers it a bad idea that could cost someone their job because of human error or an equipment malfunction.

"It sounds good to everybody that doing 50 over should be punished right on the spot, but where does the presumption of innocence go when you do that?" Lawrie said.

"When we finally find out that . . . the person is found not guilty, then who gives them their job back?"

Ontario's new transportation minister, Jim Bradley, said he has no qualms about the law and rejects the idea that most people don't know about it.

"I see signs on the highway about it, it's been in the newspaper, it's been on the radio, it's been on television," he said.

"I think people know. It's an excuse that people try to use, and it's never an excuse not to know what the law is."