Editor:
Recently my son and I drove from our home on West Fraser Road to Williams Lake.
He has his L learner’s license and needs to gain driving experience.
When we parked at Rona my son told me the police were behind us, with their lights flashing, so we waited.
The officer walked up along side and told my son he was giving him a warning for a crack in the windshield.
I replied it was no wonder the window was cracked with the gravel on the roads this time of the year, especially on the West Fraser Road.
The officer ignored my comment.
After the officer explained the warning for the windshield his harassment started.
He demanded we show our drivers’ licenses and car registration.
This is when the officer walked around the car and realized 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 replied that the road we came in on is very rough and it is not unusual for the learner’s sign to fall off (as we had learned previously with my older sons).
The officer returned to his car, ignoring my son’s explanation, and returned with two tickets — one warning him for a cracked windshield and the other a $105 ticket for “Failing to display an L sign.”
I have heard from several parents that the police are cracking down, with no mercy.
The fines are not about safety. Only about money.
The officer provided us with a replacement L sign we placed on our car before leaving Williams Lake.
On the way home we saw my son’s previous L sign laying on the side of the road.
We stopped, my son checked to see if the one the officer had provided him with was still in place, but it had fallen off so he placed the old L sign on the back of the car. When we got home, it too was gone.
The police know those signs do not hold well, however, they don’t hesitate to blame our children for it and make them pay for it.
It was my son’s 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.
Valentin Wallner
Williams Lake