Editor:
My son and I drove to William’s Lake. We live on West Fraser Road, half way between Quesnel and William’s Lake.
My son ended up driving because he has his L license and needs to get some experience, his first time driving in a town. Our first stop was Rona. We parked there. I wanted to get out and said, ‘shut off the car.’
This is when my son told me that the police were behind us and had his lights on, so we waited. The officer walked up along side and told my son that he was going to give him a warning for a crack in the windshield. I said that it is no wonder that the window is cracked with the gravel on the roads this time of the year, especially on the West Fraser road. Of course, the officer ignored my comment.
After the officer had explained that he was to write my son a warning for the windshield you may think that he just walked to his car and wrote it up, gave it to us and was on his way, however that was not the case. After he had explained that, the harassment started and I refer to this as harassment because if a driver, or any person, commits no violation the police should leave him alone. The officer demanded that we show him my son’s and my driver’s license and the car’s registration. This is when the officer walked around the car and realized that the car did not have an “L” sign on it. He confronted my son about it asking why there was no “L” sign on the car. My son said that the road we came in on is very rough and that it is not unusual for it to fall off (as we learned previously with my older sons.) The officer returned to his car, ignoring my son’s explanation, returning with 2 tickets, one warning for a cracked windshield and one $105 ticket for “failing to display an L sign.”
I have heard from several parents that the police are cracking down on their children, with no mercy. However, I feel that it is not about safety, it is only about money.
The officer had provided us with a replacement L sign that we placed on the back of our car before leaving William’s Lake, on the way home we saw my son’s previous L sign laying on the side of the road.
We stopped and my son checked to see if the one the officer had provided him with was still in place, It had fallen off as well. So he placed the old L sign on the back of the car and when we got home, it too was gone again. The police know well enough that those signs do not hold well.
The worst part in this incident is that it was only his first time driving and after driving only a few hundred metres in town, there were the police, bearing down on him like a hawk, for doing nothing wrong.
P.S: I have had my driver’s license for 42 years, with no accidents, only two speeding tickets. Every time I received one I was treated like some sort of criminal. I am only a simple farmer, maybe I am not smart enough to get the point.
Valentin Wallner
Quesnel