OHTA.ca

Thank you for your letter "A lot of offensive comments!" about my post regarding the street racing legislation Section 172 that is itself an illegal act put in place by illegal means.

To answer your first point: "no cars are crushed."

Yes they were. On June 15, 2006, two cars were crushed. The threat of cars being crushed and/or sold at auction has never been rescinded. The illegal threat still exists. Here is the link:

The cars were seized under the Civil Remedies Act and the police did not comply with the terms or intent of the act when they did it. The conditions did not meet the standard of probability even if the subsequent amendments made by the province in 2007 were applied in retrospect (which isnt legal either) so those cops allegedly committed multiple felonies and since they "should have known" they are if I am correct liable to personal criminal prosecution on that basis for car theft and extortion. Im not going to cite the legislation here as it is covered in my book.

To answer your second point: "Police actions are NOT illegal."

Yes they are. Just because you are required to enforce what the Ontario government has publicly stated is the law does not in fact make it law if the process to enact the law was flawed or arrived at by a criminal act. In this case both conditions were met.

My research and study indicates the government committed Criminal Code offences to amend Section 172. As such it is the duty of Ontarios police forces to do the same research I did in an impartial manner. Should my findings be found accurate, then the police should apprehend the perpetrators and charge them under the appropriate sections of the Criminal Code. Being Civil Servants in this case does not protect them from criminal prosecution since the law states that they are required to know the difference between legal and illegal. It does protect them when they are doing their jobs according to their job definitions. But this is superseded by the fact that they "should have known" they were breaking the law. There is no legal excuse for what the Ontario government has done to Ontario citizens and the unprecedented damage the amendment to section 172 of the Highway Traffic Act has done to democracy in this province.

In addition the street racing legislation appears to entrench in law a process whereby certain individuals can be unfairly targeted by police and illegally persecuted. Those people would include young people who have done nothing wrong but are targeted as potential street racing offenders, persons driving cars that look like or are built to race but are not engaged in an illegal activity and members of an ethnic minority. The street racing legislation is a perfect environment for racial discrimination to flourish with no possibility of the offending officer(s) being apprehended.

These offenses by police are already happening.

This law is also a crime committed against the police community. As a police officer, you represent the government and thus the law. In nearly all cases, the public genuinely appreciates the selfless service and heroism police exhibit every day in order to ensure public safety and stability. However, when a law is enacted that clearly and unjustly targets the public by deceptive means or outright fraudulent application it puts the police at personal, physical risk. Its the police who bear over ninety percent of the anger. Unjust or targeting members of the community creates a needless and avoidable wedge between the police and communities that lasts generations and causes untold grief on both sides.

Putting the police at personal risk unnecessarily is a big deal for the police who have to administer the law and face the pushback from the public. The long term repercussions – the escalation of animosity between the public and the police is a growing problem all over the world. The Jane/Finch corridor is a classic example of that escalation. It was a perfectly law-abiding community that has been engineered by governmental infrastructural and legal bungling into a crime infested neighbourhood that is nationally famous as such. That same bungled blueprint is being applied to the future growth of the entire GTA right now. The official policy is known as Smart Growth. As a life long student and "expert" in this field I can tell you the future GTA will be a policing nightmare without question. So you have to understand that relations between the police and the public need to be handled with extreme care to minimize risk. All of our futures hang in the balance.

Your third point: "Who forces these people to step on the accelerator…" is an excellent one. But the real point is that stepping on a gas pedal and the resulting speed is in fact speeding, not racing regardless of legislative literary license and flights of fantasy. It may also be aggressive driving or even belligerent driving but a bad attitude does not make misrepresenting the activity racing.

For the government to change the meaning of the commonly understood word "racing" to mean something entirely different was a form of entrapment that is also illegal if it was intended to serve a purpose other than the stated purpose. The stated purpose was to catch street racers not the general public who may be guilty of a moving violation already covered under the Highway Traffic Act. A years worth of the law in action has shown that the law has failed to catch the people it was designed to catch. It has caught by fraudulent means thousands of people it was not officially intended to catch.

What makes this such a big deal is that a guaranteed right was denied on the basis of catching street racers. It was not set aside to catch speeders.

In addition, thanks to a couple of high profile accidents, the incidence of street racing related accidents has been grossly exaggerated using cherry picked numbers that don't reference known fact. The media is partly to blame for this because even a cursory examination of street racing statistics reveals that street racing accidents are an exceedingly rare phenomenon that don't even warrant a category in the historic charts compiled by the Ministry of Transport. In fact those charts reveal just how deceitful the police have been when advising the public about what causes most accidents and it ain't speeding.

A high standard has to be met in order to deny a guaranteed right and there is a process in place to do it. The legislators ignored both the standard and the process.

The current Ontario government has done more to discredit and harm Canadian democracy with the street racing legislation than any other single thing since Canadas legislative birth.

The use of the word stunt in the legislation was laughable and is a literary demonstration of how linguistically challenged our legislators really are as well as having little or no practical knowledge about the subject they were trying to legislate. As a result we now have legal clauses in the act that are so vague and so purposeless in terms of public safety that they (the stunting clauses) are a public nuisance and a diversion that takes away from the intent of the street racing legislation. This is legislation by incompetent buffoons.

All of this is covered under Section 22 of the Criminal Code:

22.2 In respect of an offence that requires the prosecution to prove fault — other than negligence — an organization is a party to the offence if, with the intent at least in part to benefit the organization, one of its senior officers

(a) acting within the scope of their authority, is a party to the offence;

Benefit to the organization is demonstrated by the layering of parts of the street racing legislation which was already dealt with by other sections within the Highway Traffic Act that were not set aside and by federal street racing legislation within the Criminal Code of Canada. As such the best part of the new amendment to Section 172 of the HTA is perceived by the public and actually is nothing more than a naked cash grab that discriminates against low income earners. The manner of the discrimination is embodied in the fact that once a police action is started, even if the person is found innocent, no restitution is made by the government. That is theft; plain and simple. This is the law. The government itself is not above the law:

322. (1) Every one commits theft who fraudulently and without colour of right takes, or fraudulently and without colour of right converts to his use or to the use of another person, anything, whether animate or inanimate, with intent

(a) to deprive, temporarily or absolutely, the owner of it, or a person who has a special property or interest in it, of the thing or of his property or interest in it;

Another part of your third point: "These driving actions are way Way WAY out of the norm from the average person going to the grocery store or to work" I hate to tell you this Hwybear, but most of the people caught so far were these people you are referring to as normal. They werent street racers and they are normal. Certainly extreme wackos were caught. But most were not wackos. Ontario is not home to over 11,000 street racers. If it were, then there would be a category for them in ORSAR. There is no category because street racing has never been a big enough deal for there ever to have been one.

The big deal is driver distraction. Police rarely talk about that. Legislators arent talking about it either. Yet the Insurance Bureau of Canada is talking about it and trying to get police and legislators to wake up and pay attention to the real cause of accidents. Speed is not the real cause of accidents despite the internationally famous policing religious addiction to the concept. This is another way the police lose credibility – applying a law to serve a purpose whose purpose is not served by that law. Its another form of fraud that most of the public and the insurance people see through.

Your last point: "put the blame game on the correct people who put the law into place".

I believe Ive put the blame where the blame belongs throughout text of this post. Yes indeed, the legislators are at fault and have in fact committed criminal code crimes for which they should be punished. While you may think my reasoning is a bit of a stretch, so far there is no lawyer or paralegal Ive discussed this legislation with who differs from my assessment.

Of course what youve read here in no way equates to reading my book. To get the full, rounded and delicious flavour of just how badly conceived and written this law is you need to read ABUSE OF POWER.

To make matters more complicated, since the law is indeed illegal, the Ontario government should have to pay back all of the money with interest to the people charged under this fraudulent law regardless of whether they were convicted or not.

TWO OR MORE WRONGS DONT MAKE A RIGHT...

my eye hurt from reading that................

I have been coming to this site for more than 2 days. I'm sure a vast majority can attest to my neutral and open comments and further understanding that motorists have. I further was invited to this site, due to my neutral comments and understanding by none other than Bookm himself and I appreciate same.

I had made a post, but with consideration, rethinking and tact I changed it accordingly, so much that not even an "edit" is shown on my post. This in itself should say a lot for my demeanor and thoughts. However, for some reason or another I am now being attacked for comments that are not even part of my current post to the thread in question.

If you have experience problems on another site, that is not my fault, problem and don't take it out on me.

It is just as easy for me to bash on people, but I'm not here for that, I'm not here to nag people. I'm here for educational purposes and sharing of thoughts and good discussions. I can quite easily just not return to the site if that is the goal.

That was me that invited you.........Bookm did think it was a good idea though.....just for clarity in case I'm ever down your way.

This forum is the only one I know where both sides of the coin can express their opinions in a mature fashion. Over the past couple years, I have had the unexpected pleasure of butting heads with two devoted traffic cops. One I visit a couple times a year and spend quality time with the wives. He lambastes me in a lighthearted way, and I bellyache about his "speed-trap" techniques. At the end of the day, we shake hands and look forward to our next visit.

The other one is just a Sig on the internet, so maybe he's not even a real cop! LOL. Juuust kiddin'. I think Bear and I put up with each others *EDIT* <chuckle> because we both know that we can learn something from each other. I appreciate the input I get from Bear. I may not agree with his "letter of the law" mentality sometimes, but I do get a glimpse in to the psychology of police in general. Not many officers are willing to take the time to reply calmly and professionally to the variety of topics that pop up in traffic forums, so I consider Bear's presence here to be of great value (even when he's oh so wrong!)

I am simply blown away by Gully's knowledge and ability to articulate opinions that I have held for decades. If I had HALF his mental ability, I'd be quite the success story I'm sure. In fact, this forum has a wealth of well-rounded members and I believe this site has the potential to attract many more opinionated, intelligent folks who can learn (and teach) from each other.

Lets keep the debates rollin'. We need mature members from both sides of the coin if we're going to benefit from information provided by all.

So as O.J. once said, "NOBODY LEAVES THIS ROOM!". And O.J. is always right, right?

I came here because the civility of the members on the board and it will remain that way!

Blueline has some High Strung Heros and GTAM has so many cop haters it's disgusting!

The threads and comments on this board will remain civil and informative and respectful of other members, regardless of what side of the fence your on!

And for the record no one is going anywhere!!!!!

Hwybear, I'm sorry if you thought my post was an attack on you. It wasn't intended that way. I was merely rebutting the statements made in your e-mail.

As noted in my rebut, I understand the police are in a nasty position. But not all police personnel are taking the same mild stance you are and more than likely they have their own reasons for what they do.

But the fact is there are appear to be plenty of police officers who are taking advantage of the situation. Since I began selling the book I've heard plenty of horror stories that I haven't printed. Mostly because I can't factually verify them or because the people telling them could be re-victimized.

So far only one has been willing to step forward and he is a friend of mine who I've known as a safe driver for nearly thirty years. He is being interviewed for the One Year Later piece by Global that will air on October 1st. Still don't know what time but I'm hoping for more details today.

His case while nowhere near as brutal some I've heard is bad enough and is a model for some of the things I've said. I helped him work on his case since he couldn't afford a lawyer. The facts of his case are pretty scary from a civilian point of view and as such it's easy to understand how they could get worse.

It's entirely possible that some of the stories I've heard are total fabrications. After people have time to think and rationalize, many become amazing actors. The police know that, the JP's know that but the civilian victims never seem to see it. But those people are generally easy to trip up in the details. The thing about the cases I've heard is that despite the infraction, there are details that can't be faked and situations that are unlikely to be invented due to the unfamiliarity most have with how their situation would or should have been handled.

One person, a school teacher, was caught in a fishing hole after just purchasing a car the day before. The fishing hole was at the bottom of a steep hill on HWY 10 south of Orangeville. That hill is so steep that you have to keep your foot on the brake all the way down or you will be speeding when you arrive at the bottom. If you have to travel that location every day, the idea of keeping your foot on the brake soon wears thin because if you did that every time you travelled that hill, you'd be keeping a mechanic busy changing brake pads. It just isn't reasonable for that location. Consequently virtually no one rolls down that hill at anything like the speed limit. It's a great fishing hole.

Anyway, this person is now living in Australia and fighting the ticket from there. Was he speeding? Yes. Was he street racing? No. He was on his way to work and he was not late. Having lived in the area his entire life, he's seen thousands of people do what he did safely. He's never seen anyone doing what he was doing unsafely. A speeding ticket was a fair assessment but seizing the car and impounding it was over the top for me and him too no doubt.

Anyway you can't reasonably consider yourself under attack just because someone has a different point of view than you do.

The really weird part of this whole thing is the attitude of most of my own generation.

As a former street racer myself from the muscle car era, I find it amazing how many have completely forgotten they were street racers. When they see my book, they think the book is in support of the modern style of street racing which to my mind is better identified as rally style road racing in most cases because that is the type of street racing that is causing all the fear, concern and occasional accidents.

When I go to cruise nights, these guys often get totally bent out of shape and practically foam at the mouth completely misunderstanding the intent of the book and not caring one whit how many guaranteed rights are violated as long as the new style street racers are put behind bars.

At the end of the evening, these same irate brain-dead old farts get in their five hundred+ horsepower muscle cars and do hairy burnouts as they leave - much to the entertainment of all present and endangering absolutely no one. None of them stop to think about the fact that each and every one of them is in some way liable under the street racing law and could easily lose their cars for suspicion if nothing else.

As far as attacking anyone on this or any other subject, I've learned long ago that personal attacks are pointless and serve no one in the long run.

I did participate for a short time on the blue line forums. My intent there was to get honest replies from the police that would never be forthcoming in a face to face situation. Of course not everyone on that forum is a police officer or if they are, on active duty.

As noted by the one of the alleged world's worse drivers, the attitude of the officers on that site was fairly abominable. I did provoke them mostly by the username I used. Other than that my comments were straight forward and deserving of rational sober replies.

Most of the replies were anything but rational or sober and provided me with exactly what I was looking for - evidence of the fact that a significant number of police officers are not mentally equipped to be trusted as judge and jury at roadside.

One of my comments to a site moderator was that I felt the scariest thing was that his superiors felt that he was mentally stable enough to carry a gun. I was banned shortly after that but the person's comments were also scrubbed. That isn't to say this person was in fact a police officer. But there are plenty on that site who saw nothing wrong with what this person was saying. That was the telling evidence I was looking for.

They also were not happy that I tricked them.

I guess it hurt to have the shoe on the other foot. A fishing hole is a trick that has nothing to do with public safety. I have never heard of a police officer apologizing for operating a fishing hole.

So if I tricked them, it looks good on them.

gullyfourmyle .... I expect to have others with varying opinions, that is the value of this site.

The post that I think you mention as an email....was not intended written, rather a few minutes later I shortened it by 700 words, to make it how it still is today...anyway water has gone under the bridge...

Having said that...guess we will ...Agree to Disagree on some items, but somewhere we will come to a consensus.

Cheers

Bear

Reflections wrote:That was me that invited you.........Bookm did think it was a good idea though.....just for clarity in case I'm ever down your way.

Sorry Reflections....thought it was the other way around..

I now owe you one

and Bookm...still gets a freebie too

Well I invited myself to this forum and I'm extremely appreciative of the opportunity to learn and debate these topics with some very knowledgeable people. We discuss the arguments, not the typist. And we are all the better for it. I should know, Bear baked me a humble pie.

And a quick post script: for all those who think some cops are bad, well some bads aren't cops:

While we're agreeing to disagree, I sent one of the posts to the Attorney General's office. There is no point belly-aching unless you are prepared to put your money where your mouth is and I am.

I'm also meeting with my MPP tomorrow and one of the things I'm hoping to find out is what convinced him to vote for the street racing legislation in the near total absence of factual evidence outside of the media circus surrounding three glamorized accidents - one of which had important extenuating circumstances that the police chose not to reveal until after the vote.

A lame excuse was given for that but since I've known Commissioner Fantino since before he was a cop and have tracked his career, I'm not buying it or other unsubstantiated things coming from the OPP.

He is a very smart operator and knows how to take advantage of circumstances like a good chess player. I have no doubt his motives are the best but that doesn't mean I have to agree with them.

What has to be taken into consideration is that the best sort of community is one where there are no police and no need for them.

The worst sort of community is one where there are lots of armed police and everyone thinks they are necessary.

We used to have a society that was sort of in the middle. Now we are approaching the second condition and thus an Orwellian state where Big Brother is watching your every move.

And I'm here for the donuts................Where are they anyway??

I think they're out by the crop circle.

ok...who said the magic word

I don't really think it matters that the person was a school teacher, priest, mortician, doctor, lawyer, sanitary technician etc...all would have been treated the same.

Reference the car crushing....there has been no crushed cars since the revamped Bill 203 that came in effect 30 September 2007. So bringing the car crushing from prior dates should not be included as evidence.

It also states the offence relates to Dangerous Driving a Criminal Offence. The article does not state whether this was a judges order? Was this part of the proceeds of crime legislation? Where property is turned over to the Crown.

I do not know other areas, but our area is not issing "racing charges" as there was not an "actual race". We are using "Stunt Driving"