On a rare night out to go and see a girlfriend who lives in Yaletown, I am driving cautiously looking for a parking spot. I had circled the block once but did not see anything so I decided to do a u-turn and head back in the other direction along Pacific Blvd. There was not another car in site or so I thought.
I continued to drive two blocks and spotted a place to park so I pulled in and parked the Raspberry Mobile. Remember, I drive a logo’d minivan. I guess the police had been staked out just waiting for someone to do something grossly illegal!
I get out of my car and am getting ready to cross the street to my gf’s apartment when a cop says “Hey Lady, we need to talk to you.” I asked him what for and he said … wait for it … “You did a u-turn in an intersection.”
He asked me for my DL and started to quiz me … your name, address, dob, is this your car mam? I suppose this is his procedure but honestly, do I really look like a car jacker? If I was, I certainly would not heist a Honda Odyssey mini van strewn with cheerios, klean kanteens and that had giant raspberries painted on the side of it.
Then he asked for my registration. It took me about 15 minutes to find it because I was not aware that when we recently had our car in at Honda, they must have moved the papers.
He goes to the cop car to check out my priors (of which I have NONE!) and when he comes back I advise him that I have an impeccable driving record to which he agrees. He is still giving me a ticket nonetheless and goes into the schpiel about how he could give me demerits on my license and affect my insurance but instead he is only going to give me a bylaw fine. Gee thanks.
Considering there were probably several cars or homes being broken into, shoplifting going on or worse, it does make a lot of sense to be ticketing someone with a history of no traffic violations or speeding tickets in the province of BC (I did get a speeding ticket in Portugal … ironic since I was driving much slower than the rest of the crazy Portugese drivers on the road).
My point is that I am hardly a criminal. The officer went on to say that I could dispute the ticket and that 9 out of 10 times the tickets were thrown out of court. As a law abiding (apart from the illegal u-turn I did) tax paying citizen this angers me no end. If the ticket gets thrown out 9 out of 10 times, why are you issuing it to me in the first place. Now I have to go down and waste some Judge’s time (not to mention my own).
He also said if I paid the ticket early, there is a reduced penalty.
As he was leaving he said “Hope you have a better night” and went on his merry way. After reviewing the ticket it was impossible to decipher what the fine even was, unless I happened to know what section 38 meant. I called the bylaw office the next day and it turns out it is $100 and there is no incentive to pay it early so the officer was incorrect in that piece of info he gave me.
He also wrote in my incorrect birthdate (was he even listening when he interrogated me as to the details on my DL?) and the ticket stated the infraction happened at an intersection about 5 blocks from where I made the u-turn. Considering all this and his suggestion that 9 out of 10 tickets gets thrown out, I will dispute this ticket and wait for my day in court which incidentally will be about 12 months from now. I can honestly say I did not do a u-turn at the location indicated on the ticket.
When I had the van wrapped with my company logo etc., getting pulled over for doing a u-turn and having people drive by slowly to check out what the police cruiser’s flashing lights were all about was not exactly my intention.
Criminally yours (until my date in court that is),
Sue
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