Charged Of Careless While Passing (no Accident)
I am helping a friend of mine with a charge of Careless Driving, offence notice is complete on its face, awaiting disclosure.
Offence: Passing another car on 80km roadway with correct suggested yellow line markings indicating it is safe to pass.
Issue: Line markings are only painted for about 150 meters, (will messure exactly)
Roadway was just repaved and repainted, I believe may have had incorrect line markings painted or incorrect length of markings
Direction of travel leads to incline in roadway where distant oncoming traffic is not visible
Officer was traviling in oncoming direction at higher rate of speed than posted limit and crested the incline (officer's decline)
Passing motorist had to quickly complete the pass
Officer pulls over, loses sight of accused car, makes U-Turn passes me, (I'm also a witness) passes the car the accused was passing and then pulls over the accused. The Officer claims that she was scared from the accused driving head on with little distance to complete the pass and issues Careless Driving Offence.
I did not pull over at the scene, but witnessed another SUV Police cruiser driving at a high rate of speed towards me about 1 min later. I learned later the next day that the incident was a co-worker and had at least 1 witness in the car that did see everything.
If anyone has any cases to quote or any suggestions please post.
I will also provide details of disclosure and officers notes once available. I intend to help my frined in the early stages, but may refer him to a traffic agent for trial unless there is a clean cut solution/defence available from someone reading this post.
Thank you for any help