Miscellaneous

LED street lighting is controversial where I live. When BC Hydro upgraded some sections of the Town of Qualicum Beach the complaints started. For the most part they were about the new lights being too bright. There were many references in the media to colour temperature but none to the number of lumens that these lights were actually producing.

British Columbia's view of what consists of acceptable methods of transportation on our roads had changed considerably since I started policing in the 1980's. Back then, cars, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles and feet were pretty much all that was allowed. Devices like rollerblades, skateboards, motorized bicycles and scooters were either strictly controlled or forbidden completely.

A reader asks about an incident where a ladder had fallen off a truck traveling on the highway. The driver following behind the truck took evasive action that resulted in a collision. This question raises many important issues including hazard avoidance, duty at a collision and load securement.

I spoke with a father once about his teen's vehicle. I had inspected it at roadside and because of various defects I had issued it a Notice & Order #2. The father was trying to convince me to withdraw the order because he knew that the vehicle would not pass inspection and it would be too expensive to repair.

Requesting disclosure from the issuing officer should be one of your first steps in preparing to dispute a traffic ticket.

According to John Sullivan, a RAF pilot, we are the result of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. Our eyes, and the way that our brain processes the images that they receive, are very well suited to creeping up on unsuspecting antelopes and spotting threats such as sabre-toothed tigers. These threats are largely gone and they’ve been replaced by vehicles travelling towards us at high speeds. This, we’ve not yet adapted to deal with.

Our Motor Vehicle Act defines traffic as pedestrians, ridden or herded animals, vehicles, cycles and other conveyances, either singly or together, while using a highway to travel. That's right, horses being ridden on the highway are considered to be traffic.

The People's Law School is a non-profit BC society whose goal is to make the law accessible to everyone. The section of their website dedicated to Cars & Getting Around has a section on Your Rights & Driving.

I enjoy tinkering with electronics in my spare time and was pleasantly surprised to come across instructions on how to build my own speed camera system using a Raspberry Pi and Python based software that was freely available to download and use. You can probably create the whole system for less than $100!

This site has existed since 2004 and contains a lot of material. It can be a chore to find exactly what you are looking for, so this guide on how to search the site effectively may help you.