Many roadside suspensions overturned; faulty testing devices
Posted March 14, 2013 12:05 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – If you are pulled over and blow past the legal limit, there is a good chance you will beat the rap.
The provincial government reviewed 240 suspensions in December, and a Globe and Mail analysis of that data found 20 per cent of the suspensions were tossed, in most cases, because of faulty roadside testing devices.
This comes at a time when questions are being raised about BC’s Immediate Roadside Prohibition Program.
News1130 Legal Analyst Michael Shapray says the government could simply give police better machines, or go back to the old legal framework that the rest of the country still uses. “…where the motorist who is suspected, based on a roadside test of drinking and driving, is given the opportunity to go back to the police station, blow into the breathalyzer machine, which is more technically superior to the roadside device, and has their ability to challenge that evidence in court if they choose to do so.”
Shapray feels Victoria should make a choice between speed and reliability.
“It’s the swiftness of the use of this device at the roadside versus the reliability of a device that’s not at the roadside.”
This review comes just as the entire Immediate Roadside Prohibition regime is being challenged at the BC Court of Appeal, starting on Monday.
