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Speeding senior escapes street racing penalties

Speeding senior escapes street racing penalties

Hmm, wonder if I can use this arguments if I get pulled over going more than 50km/h over the speed limit:

“I’m not a stunt driver and never was,” Harding said. “At my age, it’s not something I’m going to start to do.”

Start to do? You already are a “stunt driver” if you got clocked doing 50km/h over in an 80km/h zone. If you’re capable of doing it once, you’ve probably done it before and you’ll probably do it again.

Now, apparently all you have to do to get your speed reduce to 49km/h over the limit is say that you’re on my way to a doctors appointment and that you shouldn’t have to follow the same highway traffic laws as everyone else because you’re old.

Something tells me that this sort of argument from a 30-something wouldn’t fly. Heck, I’ll bet a 60-something would have a hard time getting away with something like this. The “street racing” law doesn’t have an age limit and contrary to what Mr. Harding’s friend Douglas Biggs states, the law is not designed to reduce street racing fatalities among young drivers. It’s designed to get dangerous drivers off of the roads and thus try to reduce fatalities among all of the rest of us on the roads.

It’s not just about young drivers.

3 thoughts on “Speeding senior escapes street racing penalties”

  1. I completely agree with the last post (getting dangerous drivers off the road) and I think the way that this law was ‘marketed’ as solely a means to get street racers off the road is misleading. If you are a street racer going 130km/h in an 80 km/h zone you are posing just as much of a danger as a 76 yr. old person going that fast.

    Is there a senior citizens clause in the law books somewhere? I would really like to know so that when I turn 55 I can get a discount on my legal obligations as well.

  2. Sorry if this “street racing” or “stunt driving” stuff is old news, but here is something that’s been overlooked by the general public: These roadside kangaroo courts conducted by the police are absolutely unconstitutional in our democratic society. This is not Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, Communist China or some banana republic in South America or Africa. What happened to due process? Thousands of lives are being wrecked and careers destroyed by these police actions. The economic lhardships from loss of employment and increased insurance premiums resulting from these uncontestable seizures and convictions can never be recouped. Unfortunately, those who can least afford to fight these convictions are the ones most likely to be ruined by them. The day will come when someone with enough money will fight back and bring a class action suit against Fantino and his goon squad.

    And no, I most certainly don’t condone extreme speeding or dangerous exhibitions of unsafe driving. However, there already exist adequate laws to take care of these infractions using our justice system. Cops who act as judge, jury and executioner at the side of the road with no recourse to the justice system must be stopped.

  3. @John: The cops are just enforcing the law in Ontario. The “street racing” law is pretty explicit in how it should be enforced. If you are clocked going >50km/h over the limit, you will be charged with “street racing”. You still get your day in court and, as the original post demonstrates, you can even get away without being fined.

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