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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.

In our law office, we deal with more roadside drinking and driving cases than any other law firm in the province. As a result, I probably speak with more people about drinking and driving in a month than many lawyers will in a year. I’ve come to realize that there are some very common and pervasive misconceptions about drinking and driving that exist in our province. This post will help to dispel a lot of those myths.

Proponents of the new changes to BC’s traffic ticket dispute process argue that the new system will decease the number of delays in bringing traffic ticket cases to court. There is no doubt that, particularly in the Lower Mainland, there is a significant problem with delay in the processing of traffic tickets, and the timelines to get your ticket to court. But, for the reasons discussed in this blog post, the delay in the system doesn’t lead to many tickets being dismissed and doesn’t often create significant prejudice to an applicant. Clearing up traffic court delay is a straw man argument designed to keep people from coming up with workable solutions to the problems in traffic court.

As a dedicated driving lawyer, I deal with a lot of people who have got themselves into hot water for what they’ve said to police. A lot of my clients ask me what they are supposed to say when they have been stopped at a roadblock. While I can’t really answer what you’re supposed to say, since there doesn’t seem to be a helpful answer, I can provide some information on what you have to say when you’re stopped by police or when you are asked about drinking.

I deal with a fair number of 24-Hour Prohibitions for Drugs in the course of my work. These types of prohibition are dangerous, in my opinion, because they can happen to anyone at any time or place on a roadway. They also involve greater consequences than what is told to the driver at the time the prohibition is issued. And disputing them is a complex and often expensive process, with results that do not really address the concerns a dispute process should. I’ve previously written about drug-impaired driving laws in Canada, and promised that I would follow up with more information about the 24-Hour for Drugs dispute process.

Earlier this week, a video surfaced of a Kelowna RCMP officer stopping a vehicle because the passenger had made a frustrated gesture at the officer after some poor driving on his part. It is clear in watching the video that the officer’s true purpose in stopping the vehicle was to berate the passenger for his gesture. When challenged on his decision to stop the vehicle, the officer told the driver that he had stopped her for a license and insurance check. It was obvious that the officer was retroactively trying to justify what was an arbitrary and unlawful traffic stop. The officer is now under investigation. 

This interaction got me thinking about lawful and unlawful police stops. As a driving and criminal lawyer, I receive many calls from clients who are concerned about the police and their traffic stops. Many people are concerned about the reason why the police pulled them over in the first place. This post will explain when the police are justified in stopping your vehicle.

As a driving lawyer, I receive many telephone calls from people who have questions about their traffic tickets. I have also had the benefit of listening to disputants in traffic court present their cases, without having consulted a lawyer. Some people even go so far as to advise others in the courthouse about how to dispute their cases. Helpful tip: don’t take your traffic ticket dispute advice from someone who is not an experience driving lawyer.

A lot of people have some common misconceptions about traffic tickets, and how to defend these traffic tickets. This post will help to dispel some of those misconceptions.