Ontario is about to make it harder for speeding drivers to plead down a stunt driving charge to 49 km over the limit. By finally recognizing that going 90 km/h in a 40 school zone is not the same as doing 150 km/h on a 400 series highway, law enforcement can finally get more tools to clamp down on the idiots who treat our residential roadways like their personal racetracks.
The bill is called the Moving Ontarians More Safely Act, and will include previously promised improvements to the towing industry to combat criminal activity and fraud, as well as things like cameras to lay charges when people pass streetcars on the left or when the doors are open. It also promises to do more to protect highway workers.
Currently, a stunt driving charge will cost you a minimum of $2,000, but could go as high as $10,000. You could also face six months in jail. You could receive a two-year license suspension; it will be interesting to see if the proposed changes – vaguely called ‘escalating’ at this point – will enforce that more readily, or at least more often, as well as increase the duration.
There are actually many components to a stunt driving charge, but speeding 50 km/h over the posted limit is the most common. Basically, driving like an idiot – burnouts, jumping a light to make a left-hand turn against oncoming traffic, cutting other drivers off, passing too close to other road users, blocking, drifting, or putting people in your trunk all constitute stunt driving.
drivingdotca Why is it so impossible for these offenders and others to lose their license? Are we depending on the insurance industry to price these people out of driving?
drivingdotca
drivingdotca 90 in a 40 zone, i get. but dropping speed limits by 10km on streets across the board around the entire city was stupid af.
drivingdotca That's an appropriate title for the biggest nanny state in North America.
drivingdotca Personal Freedoms under attack once again.