First of all...

YES! Best post so far in this thread goes to Clive.

Second, Stan, my Brother in Law is an RCMP Officer and shares your view of the OPP as he was ticketed by them while visiting us and they are not real brothers according to other law enforcement...

Third,

Remove speed limits, traffic laws, etc... the stupid people will kill themselves... (is that such a bad thing?) And no more insurance.

 

Wow- I would have thought, as automotive enthusiasts, we would be more "hands on the wheel" people. I get scolded by both my 10 and 12 years old's for taking my hands off the wheel to change the radio station.
Imagine if there was internet when seat belt law came into effect jan 1st 1976? How heated that debate would have been. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_b...tion_in_Canada

This story is sadly ironic.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...icle-1.1769965

I wear a hockey helmet?
I wear a snowmobile helmet?
I (though late to the game) wear a ski helmet?
Seat belt. Have 7 airbags in my car. I'm vaccinated. So are my kids.

There are always going to be new laws. There will always be people that don't believe, that fight the system.

http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/saf...-driving.shtml
Legal limit for operating a vehicle under the influence (blood alcohol concentration), has dropped in Ontario from 0.08 to 0.05 BAC for a warning.
For me, that would be one drink with food.
Snowmobile or bike. Never. Though the bars are full every afternoon and night. My 83 year old step father still consumes more than he should. Should he be allowed to operate a vehicle as he did in 1940? Rules change. Speed limits change. Distracted driving? You all know the law. I'm not going to suggest what you should do. I do my best for me, and my family.

A family friend and his father were killed by a large SUV earlier this summer. Their 13 year old daughter survived in the back seat. The SUV driver, an 18 years old, also survived. I hope he was not distracted. I can't imagine how haunted he must be.

Cops are out. Yes, some consider them to be collector$. Distracted driving, speeding, running red lights, aggressive driving, impaired driving. Like it or not, our crappy roads are safer for it.

Be safe.

 

Yup , that's why i always tell people coming out our way " watch out for the tax collectors"

 

Distracted driving is distracted driving no matter what the cause, but things do get considerably worse when you take your eyes off the road. Sure, you could be distracted by changing radio stations or adjusting your cabin temperature - none of which is explicitly deemed illegal by the HTA - and they both require that you take your eyes off the road for a second. At highway speeds it takes less than a second for you to rear-end the car in front of you if you don't notice that he slammed on the brakes because your attention is elsewhere. If you're looking at a cell phone, you're not looking at the road for considerably longer periods, so you are in fact endangering everyone around you.

As for texting or drinking coffee, there is an easy fix - it's called a manual transmission. Just try doing either one when you need both hands and feet to operate the vehicle.

 

I'm going to defend the OPP. They're given a mandate and have to follow it.
There was a Rennlister a few years ago who is an OPP officer. We used to hang out at Mosport as we had similar cars.
He would tell me some stuff regarding his job.
One thing that I remember was a story when he had to arrest someone. He worked alone in rural Ontario. This guy put up a fight and they went toe to toe including rolling in a ditch until he got the upper hand. He told me he was fighting for his life.

One other thing. If you think the OPP aren't victims. His father was an OPP officer as well. One night he was killed at the side of the road on the QEW. He now has a bridge named after him.

I've received many a ticket over the years including being caught with a radar detector.

I'm off my soapbox now carry on.

 

I'm the first one to argue that most moving violations are tax collections and little more. But this is different, I think. And I say that for two reasons:

1. If stats I've read are to be believed, distracted driving now causes more traffic deaths than impaired driving. That's ridiculous and needs to change, fast.

2. Raising the ticket price to $490 tips the economic scales of basic profit maximization. (sales vs. profit). I really do think at that price they're going to be writing less tickets and making less money than they would have if they'd raised it to, say, $250.

That said, I've noticed in the last couple days I'm terrified to take my hands off the wheel just to change radio stations or take a sip of water.

 

If this was even remotely true I could stand behind it. But it's not. The officers make zero difference in safety. Only education will do that. But we refuse to solve the problem, instead just treat the symptoms (which happen to be very lucrative)

I can drive a stick on a highway with no hands, no problem. And be safe enough.

You know the law was a significant cause of problem, right? before you still had peripheral vision on the road. Now you literally take 100% of your vision away from the road.

And if you think the increased fines will reduce the number of tickets, you are mistaken. This law was completely unnecessary as there were dangerous driving and undo care and control laws on the books to deal with just this type of issue.

They reduced the amount of proof to zero and prevented you from being able to fight your ticket in court. Dumbing down the police force. At your freedom's expense.

 

The whole cell phone fine is because it's easy. They see you and your phone in the same field of their vision and you go down.
There are a ton of other ways to be distracted, but the rules are not so black and white as the phone rules.
Rear end a car and tell the cop you were playing with the stereo and see what fine you get.

 

if you hit someone from behind tell them you sneezed. ..

you think i'm kiding right ?

 

I wouldn't even say that

I dunno what happened occifer, I think maybe he hit me!

 

i dunno implies you werent paying attention ... you could have hit him ...

you sneezed is an involuntary human action beyond your control, that you can not be held responsible for believe it or not ..

 

On Tuesday (first day of school) at around 4pm I saw a school bus driver reading a sheet of paper while cruising down highway 62. It was probably a list of the students and their stops which she had to learn but it still freaked me out.

 

the OPP are circling the wagons this morning!

Be carefull. Seen 3 cruisers pulling over drivers over a short stretch.
This time, standing adjacent to there vehicles, they were on the left side of the highway with radar/laser detectors.
They are making their presence visible and they're coming after you if your a bad boy.

 

Can anything else happen that is considered involuntary?

 

My wife once had to poop so bad that she thought about crashing her car on the DVP so she could make the excuse that she literally scared the poop out of herself....

She made it home...

...that's what she claims!