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The Immediate Roadside Prohibition scheme in British Columbia has been criticized for its failure to provide many of the ordinary means by which the truth is discovered. Rather than allowing for witness testimony, cross-examination, and face-to-face hearings, the British Columbia law only allows drivers to provide their evidence in written form. If you select an oral hearing, you can testify. But your testimony and your arguments are limited to 30 minutes. This barely gives enough time to cover the material, much less provide a full case to the adjudicator. 

The types of protection you don’t have with an IRP are the types of protection you get if you are issued a speeding ticket, which is considerably less serious. It seems ridiculous that the more significant consequences of an Immediate Roadside Prohibition have fewer means to challenge them than a simple traffic ticket.

So what do you do if you have a witness to your IRP?

In a recent post, I discussed traffic court excuses that never work when you are issued a cell phone ticket. From the feedback I received, I believe I cleared up a lot of misconceptions about British Columbia’s cell phone laws. However, misconceptions about traffic laws in British Columbia are not limited solely to cell phones. In my experience as a traffic and driving lawyer, I have come to learn that there are also a number of misconceptions about speeding laws that permeate the way people approach their defences in traffic court. This post will clear up those misconceptions.

If you are charged with and convicted of a criminal offence, you get a criminal record. Your criminal record is not necessarily for life. After a period of time, a person is eligible to apply for a criminal record suspension, also known as a pardon. This is a fair and reasonable process, because people change. As you grow older and move on with your life, the drunk driving charge you got when you were twenty doesn’t necessarily reflect the circumstances you have at age thirty five, when you’ve got children and a steady job. Your criminal record shouldn’t follow you forever and impede your ability to travel and obtain employment.

But in British Columbia, your driving record does follow you everywhere. And unlike a criminal record, which is arguably far more serious than a driving record, there is no such thing as a pardon for your driving record.

There has been a lot of attention paid to the issue of bicyclists and the use of the roadways lately, particularly given recent stories involving a cyclist’s alleged assault on a pregnant woman or the cyclist ICBC is blaming for an accident because he was impaired. As a driver, I can say that my experience on the roadway is that many cyclists appear to be either ignorant of their obligations on the roadway, or willfully reckless about following the rules. It’s frustrating as a driver, and as a person who defends drivers because I can see the way that cyclists pose a significant risk to the public, but do not have any accountability when they violate the rules.

As a result of the increase in discussion on this topic, many people have been calling on Government to regulate cyclists in the same manner as cars are regulated: compulsory insurance policies and bicycle registration with plates. To my mind, this is the only reasonable system that keeps cyclists accountable to drivers, pedestrians, and one another, and it is the only reasonable system that protects cyclists from harm.

Over the last several months, numerous articles have been posted discussing the development of a marijuana breathalyzer. The theory is that through the miracle of science (or a complex technical formula the explanation of which is not relevant to this blog post) a sample of a person’s breath will reveal the concentration of marijuana in their bloodstream. This is similar to alcohol breathalyzers, though the process by which the sample is analyzed and the marijuana detected is vastly different.

Many groups like MADD Canada have pushed for a mechanism of roadside testing for drivers suspected of being impaired by drugs. They see the development of these tools as a victory in the battle against impaired driving. But will a marijuana breathalyzer really help anything?

I say no.

When I first read the judgments in the Wilson and Goodwin cases this morning, I thought “Well… that was anticlimactic.”

The short version is that there is no change to the status quo. The legislation that was challenged in the Goodwin cases (the first version of the Immediate Roadside Prohibition scheme) was found to be unconstitutional for the reasons given by Justice Sigurdson. The Court commented specifically that the amendments to the legislation, i.e., the current version of IRP laws, demonstrate that there can be a more reasonable review process. This likely shuts down any further challenges to the current version of the law.

As far as Wilson is concerned, the Court concluded that the argument suffers from a fatal flaw: the legislation is not ambiguous. I knew going in that I had a tough, mostly impossible case. Getting leave to have my argument heard was a surprising feat. I am not disappointed with the work I did, and I fought to the end for my clients and a cause that I believe in. As a lawyer, that’s my job and I did it as well as I possibly could have. I have confidence that the Supreme Court of Canada is applying the law fairly and correctly and hearing all cases with an open mind.

Still, to be human means it’s hard to not get the result you want. Many people do not realize that being a lawyer is like riding a roller coaster every day. There are highs when you are victorious for your client, and lows when you are not.

So going forward I continue to do what I’ve been doing all along: representing my clients to the best of my ability and continuing to challenge the Immediate Roadside Prohibition law and any other law that impacts the rights and freedoms of drivers in this province.

Today we got word from the Supreme Court of Canada that they will be giving their decision in the Wilson v. British Columbia (Superintendent of Motor Vehicles) and Goodwin v. British Columbia (Superintendent of Motor Vehicles) cases on Friday morning. This news confirms my earlier predictions and suspicions that the decision would be rendered in October.

We will finally have an answer from Canada’s top court on the legality and proper process of British Columbia’s DUI law.

I had the interesting experience in the last few weeks, while arguing a judicial review of an Immediate Roadside Prohibition decision, to gain some insight into the Government’s position regarding whether police officers can be biased. In Immediate Roadside Prohibition cases, the police are required to send in calibration records for the machines that the officer used to test the subject. Those calibration records are prepared by police officers from the same detachment as the officer issuing the IRP. On some occasions, the calibration records are prepared by the officer who issued the IRP.

The arguments were largely extraneous to the issues in the court case, but it was interesting to hear what the Government’s position seems to be.

There is a great deal of misunderstanding out there about what is lawful and not lawful when it comes to cell phones and vehicles. And in traffic court I get the benefit of hearing some of the excuses that people come up with for why they were using a cell phone while driving. I also get to hear a lot of the… creative arguments that people tend to come up with to suggest they weren’t using a phone. Here are some of the most common ones that definitely do not work.

As we move into the fall and winter months and the weather becomes colder the issue of sleeping in a running vehicle after drinking also becomes more prevalent. A lot of clients have found themselves with an Immediate Roadside Prohibition or facing criminal charges after making the decision to sleep in their vehicle.

This is a complex area of the law. The purpose of this post is to add some clarity to the issue so that people can understand how sleeping in your vehicle can quickly turn into an impaired driving investigation.