Speeding ticket in Surrey? Red light in Abbotsford?

A ticket may seem like a small mistake but there are big consequences far beyond the cost of the fine. If you’re an “N”driver, one ticket will trigger a review of your driving record by RoadSafetyBC (formerly the BC Superintendent of Motor Vehicles) and a Notice of Intent to Prohibit you from driving. If you’re a full class 5, you might get a ticket and think nothing of it. Make another mistake a few weeks later, however, and you may be facing a driving prohibition, increased insurance costs and greater scrutiny by the police.

We defend a lot of traffic tickets in Surrey and Abbotsford BC and in those municipalities we’ve noticed that this is a common pattern. A driver who gets a speeding ticket in Surrey may be surprised to know that other police officers in BC can access that information. Once the conviction is registered against your driving record, any traffic cop can access it with just a click or two on the computer in their cruiser. You get a ticket or two and the next officer scrutinizing your driving may decide that you’re a “bad guy.”

Got a ticket and now you’re a bad guy?

If you get a speeding ticket in Surrey and a few weeks later you’re driving through Abbotsford, the officer who suspects that you might have run a red light is less likely to cut you any slack. That Abbotsford cop can see the previous offences on their computer. Next thing you know you’ve got a ticket for allegedly running a red light in Abbotsford.

This is a fairly common pattern. It’s one of the reasons that it’s important to dispute traffic tickets.

We defend a lot of tickets issued by the RCMP in Surrey and the Abbotsford Police Department. We see a pattern. And it’s not just in these locations, but it seems more pronounced in these areas of British Columbia. What happens is the police issue a ticket to a driver. At the time of issuing the ticket, they update information on the BC police computer network. They may put in that they suspect an individual is a bad guy, without any grounds, based on a bare suspicion.

The next officer who sees the vehicle, which might be attached to an alert on their plate recognition system, will look for any opportunity to pull that driver over. The reason for the stop may be an alleged Motor Vehicle Act infraction, such as running a red light. But the real reason may be because they hope, while they have the driver stopped, they’ll see or collect the evidence to justify an arrest for a crime.

One ticket can start an avalanche:

One ticket on your record can make it more likely that you’ll get another. Although the police will never admit that they pulled you over because of the information on their computer, the reason for the computer system is to give the police information about people they pull over or deal with. They use their computers to make decisions about who they will pull over and how they’re going to deal with that individual.

It’s an upsetting situation. If you get a red light ticket in Abbotsford, it may be because you got a speeding ticket in Surrey. And if you got a ticket in Surrey or Abbotsford, or Richmond, the officer may have put in their computer system that you’re suspected of being a bad guy. If that’s the case, you can expect to get tickets in Vancouver, Delta, Langley, West Vancouver – and in fact everywhere in BC because they all have access to the same computer databases.

This is why it makes sense to have a lawyer defend your traffic ticket. Our lawyers defend traffic tickets in every corner of BC and in particular at the traffic courts in the Lower Mainland. If you got a speeding ticket in Surrey, give us a call and we can discuss over the phone how we defend your ticket.

We are the BC Driving Lawyers. Defending traffic tickets is what we do. Call 604-608-1200