Has this courtesy died? Drove past a radar set up the other day and luckily was doing the limit. For the next mile or two I flashed oncoming traffic to let them know. I returned back down the same road an hour later and must have passed 20 cars going the other way and not one of them flashed to say there was a trap ahead...and there was. Do you still flash em as a courtesy or do you feel that it's every man for himself?
I still flash when I see a speed trap and give a wave when I am flashed, notifying me that I am approaching a speed trap.
Very seldom do I get a wave back when I flash though, people just don't seem to notice me flashing.
With daytime running lights on at all times now (on the vast majority of cars), I'm guessing people just figure you hit a bump and that's what flashed them, not your high beams and simply don't pay it any attention.
I also doubt there are too many left who even know what it means to be honest.
These days, I don't even bother trying to move faster than the flow of traffic, just not interested in being raped by my insurance co. I also prefer to severally limit (with the intent of total elimination) any possibility of interaction with police.
I still flash my lights to warn people but like was posted befor I doubt people know what it means. Its harder now with the lights on all the time and I wonder if people think the flash is for high beams on. Oh well if it stops some other old dude from getting a ticket its worth a try. Ed
The last time I did that for on-coming cars; the first one was an O P P . He spun around and stopped me and asked why I was flashing my lights. I told him my dimmer switch stuck and had to tromp it a couple times to change. They searched the truck and then let me go with a warning, so from now on in the daylight only I make hand gestures indicating a camera a head.
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Reality; A test of Mind and Spirit And BODY. (`-`)
No doubt the cops will give you a hard time about this but I think this action has been proven in court to be legal. I still do it and wave if someone does it for me. Agree that a lot of people probably have no idea why you are flashing them.
The last time I did that for on-coming cars; the first one was an O P P . He spun around and stopped me and asked why I was flashing my lights. I told him my dimmer switch stuck and had to tromp it a couple times to change.
Surprised they didn't ticket you for an equipment violation due to your "malfunctioning" dimmer switch.
Here's an interesting link (with video) of a kid flashing his lights at a car that was allegedly driving with its high beams on. Turns out the car with the high beams on was a cop car .... end result? Unarmed teenager SHOT DEAD (in Michigan).
You only get them if they see you. At light speed we are just a blur.
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Fords Rule ! If it ain't designed and manufactured in North America it sucks ! I don't do rice, pasta, fish and chips, sauerkraut, Ikea or other third world motor vehicle !
It is illegal to flash your highbeams to another vehicle warning them of a speed trap
Not entirely sure that's true.
Do you happen to have a link to the law that pertains to this? If I remember right, there is something about "alternating" headlights, which could mean left-right (like emergency vehicles have) rather than high-low or on-off. Definitely arguable in court because, how is a cop going to be able to prove what HE believes your intent was? Are they suggesting a person IS allowed to change from high to low/ on-off (or vice-versa) only a set number of times before it becomes illegal?
My Highway Traffic Act book is packed since I moved. But it is an offence under the highway traffic act. I did not write the act. Nor do I agree with some of it. But it is an offence.
Alternating highbeams on other vehicles prohibited. (2) No person shall use highbeam headlamps that produce alternating flashes of white light on any vehicle other than a vehicle referred to in subsection (1). R.S.O. 1990, c. H.8, s. 169 (2). Ontario Highway Trafic Act.
This is the law I was referring to. No person shall use HIGHBEAM headlights that produce blah blah blah ..... so, that suggests that it ISN'T illegal to turn your lights on and off as long as the "on" is low beams. Also, they state "alternating" .... which means what exactly? On-off or like emergency vehicles, left/right/left/right. I still say it's definitely arguable in court. It not illegal to turn your headlights on or off so ..... how many on's and off's does it take to suddenly become illegal? Plus, as I stated earlier, how can a cop possibly prove the reason behind me turning my lights on and off? He can assume, but unless I admit, there's no way he can prove WHY I turned them on and off.
-- Edited by chips on Thursday 17th of December 2015 09:02:54 PM
Section 169 of the Highway Traffic Act, obtained from the Ontario Government's website:
Alternating Beams - Emergency vehicles
169. (1) Despite section 168 [which refers to the use of the passing or low beam], highbeam headlamps that produce alternating flashes of white light may be used by a public utility emergency vehicle while responding to an emergency and by an emergency vehicle as defined in subsection 144 (1).
Alternating highbeams on other vehicles prohibited
(2) No person shall use highbeam headlamps that produce alternating flashes of white light on any vehicle other than a vehicle referred to in subsection 169 (1).
`No evidence' that charge of flashing beams to warn of speed traps is illegal driving practice
Jim Kenzie
Jan 26, 2008
I'm a huge supporter of the police, but you wonder who counsels them on public relations.
They wonder why the driving public often does not co-operate with them, when they pull stunts like they did March 24 last year.
Brad Diamond, producer of TSN's Motoring 2008 (full disclosure: I appear on this show) lives near Broadview and Danforth Aves. Every Saturday morning he goes out for his usual four-buck coffee.
On this day he was driving westbound on the Prince Edward Viaduct, which connects Danforth Avenue and Bloor Street across the Don Valley. He spotted a radar trap nailing eastbound drivers, and passed it at approximately 49.999 km/h. It's there all the time so it was no surprise to him.
Of course, like most concerned citizens, he has often wondered: if radar is supposed to be a traffic safety measure, why would they run it on a bright sunny Saturday morning, on a three-lanes-each-way bridge, with excellent visibility in all directions, without a single intersection, store, home, school or in fact much human activity at all?
Surely, there are more dangerous places they could be trying to slow people down?
Let alone more important public safety initiatives the police could be doing?
Can you say "fishing hole," boys and girls?
Okay, so speeding is speeding, and speeding is against the law everywhere. But seriously.
As any concerned citizen would do if he knew someone was possibly going to break a law – especially if he knew the cops were lying in wait at the potential scene of the crime – Diamond flicked his headlights at oncoming traffic.
As you would. And as you would, most of the oncoming traffic did slow down.
Now, still assuming, perhaps naively, that slowing traffic down to make the roads safer is the objective of radar (it never works, but that's a story for another day), you'd think the cops would be happy that Diamond was assisting in their cause.
You'd think they'd want everybody flashing their headlights, all the time. Who'd take a chance at speeding then?
But no, stationed at the west end of the bridge were a couple more cruisers, pulling people like Diamond over for warning people about the radar trap.
$110 and no points.
I checked the Highway Traffic Act (HTA). I could find no reference to radar speed traps at all, let alone anything about it being illegal to warn other drivers about them. After all, traffic reporters and some websites even announce their locations.
The ticket said the offence was "flashing head beams" in contravention of the HTA, section 169.
Never mind that I have been in the car game for more than 30 years and have never heard the term "head beams."
I checked section 169 and nowhere does it mention radar traps in there.
Sgt. Cam Woolley of the Ontario Provincial Police told me that this law was put in place a few years ago to prevent "civilian" vehicles from impersonating emergency vehicles, notably tow trucks trying to bully their way through traffic to be first on the scene of a wreck.
Nothing at all about radar.
What's more, Diamond's Chevy Tahoe was not producing "alternating"' flashes of light. "Alternating" means one, then the other (just like police cars and other emergency vehicles can do), not both on/both off.
Not only was there no harm, there was no foul.
In our legal system, the legislature passes the laws, the police enforce them. It is not up to the police to make up their own laws – that's what they call a police state.
If the legislature decided in its collective wisdom to make warning of radar speed traps illegal, how hard would it be to pass an unambiguous law to that effect?
I can even help: "It is unlawful to warn other drivers about upcoming radar speed traps; never mind that they don't improve traffic safety."
Okay, the legislature might choose different wording.
The fact is, the legislature has not chosen to pass a law like this, or anything remotely like it.
If Diamond had been standing on the sidewalk holding a neon sign reading, WARNING! RADAR AHEAD!', there would have been nothing the cops could have done.
Needless to say, he decided to fight the ticket.
He contacted the prosecutor, saying the law in question had nothing at all to do with what he allegedly had done, but she said they were going to proceed with the court case.
Okay then, Jan. 10 it would be.
I had a 30-page script ready to go as Diamond's representative. (My dad, who was a lawyer, would have been proud of me. I hope.)
At traffic court, you first present yourself to the prosecutor, who asks how you're going to plead. You'd think anyone who didn't just pay the ticket in the first place and who had shown up at 9 a.m. to fight it would plead not guilty, but some didn't.
You also may have the option of pleading guilty to a lesser charge, which the first case of the morning did.
We were about fourth on the docket.
The prosecutor called Diamond to the bench, asked his name, read the charge, and asked how he pleaded.
"Not guilty, your worship,"' he responded.
Then the prosecutor said, "The police officer has no evidence in this case, your worship."'
"Case dismissed,"' said the justice of the peace.
WHAT? The police officer has "no evidence"? If he had no evidence, why the heck did he lay the charge in the first place?
The fact is, he had no law upon which to base the charge, because Diamond had not done anything illegal.
They assume that you will assume you had in fact done something illegal, fork over your cash, and they smile all the way to the bank.
Now, dad always said that in court, you take a win any way you can. But we were disappointed not to take it to trial so as to set a precedent against this little Buford T. Justice scam by the Toronto Police.
Someone more paranoid than me might suspect they did not want it to go to trial for that very reason, so as not to put their scurrilous behaviour on the trailer for all time.
Now, maybe the "no evidence"' gambit is traffic court shorthand for "the cop didn't show up." But usually with fishing holes, they expect a certain number of people to fight the tickets and schedule the cop for court duty.
I guess we'll never know.
I don't blame the individual cop here, although some of them are clearly overzealous in their pursuit of tickets, quotas, or whatever other pressures they face from their superiors.
But I think it is disgusting that police management sends cops out there to lie in wait to ticket unsuspecting law-abiding citizens when they have to know that what they're ticketing them for is not against the law.
And if they didn't know that before, they sure do now.
You're right , a lot of people would just pay the fine and be done with it .
It reminds me of a situation I heard about a number of years ago . I was driving to the Collingwood area from Orangeville to see a farmer client so I could do his taxes for him . He was laughing to himself when I arrived and when I glanced at him he felt he'd better tell me why he was laughing .
It seems his very elderly father was driving up the , what was called , Airport Road to Collingwood , the same road I had just driven . The old man was speeding a bit and a policeman who was well hidden out of view , waiting for traffic , came out of hiding and nailed the old man . The old man was so pissed off at getting fooled , he called the cop a " snake in the grass " and continued to berate the cop about pulling over retirees who had lived there for his whole life etc. etc . It was one thing to pull someone over , but to be sneaky about it was more than the old man could bear . The cop actually let him off with a warning and slithered quietly back to his cruiser . Like I said , the son was still laughing at the thought of it .
I've gone to court to fight a ticket, only to get told that its adjourned top a later date. I think they do this so they figure that you wouldn't take another day off to represent yourself, and just pay.
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If brains were wire, some couldn't short circuit a firefly.
Along the lines of paying for a ticket I was told that if you overpay the ticket by a couple of bucks they will send you a refund cheque which you keep and don't cash. The transaction on the computer can not be completed until the cheque is cashed so it does not show up on insurance records. Never had the chance to try it myself but sounds like it could work.
I try to warn the G Ms. I figure the Fords and Mopars will have taken so long to get fast enough that the ticket would be like a trophy . Be a shame to deny them of the pleasure.
-- Edited by 51 Styline on Saturday 19th of December 2015 08:22:39 PM
The only ticket i got was for indecent exposure, I was drying the wife's pontiac.
Oh I do have another ticket.... it says 9.30 et 1/4 mile with a Ford.
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Fords Rule ! If it ain't designed and manufactured in North America it sucks ! I don't do rice, pasta, fish and chips, sauerkraut, Ikea or other third world motor vehicle !
My Highway Traffic Act book is packed since I moved. But it is an offence under the highway traffic act. I did not write the act. Nor do I agree with some of it. But it is an offence.
I thought the idea of a speed trap was to slow cars down. Flashing lights do the same thing. I got caught doing it in my roadster years ago and got a ticket for no fenders but the cop never said a word about the warning.
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My wife wants me to see things from a woman's point of view, so now I spend a lot of time looking out the kitchen window
