The most common form of Stunt Driving in Ontario under Section 172(1) of the Highway Traffic Act is “excessive speeding”. This form of Stunt Driving involves an officer capturing the speed of your car. This involves driving over 40km in a posted speed limit of under 80km or driving more than 50km in a posted speed limit of over 80km. Let’s take a closer look at the first type of device.
Laser / Lidar devices and Stunt Driving / Excessive Speeding charges
Imagine you’re playing with a flashlight that shines a special kind of light, one that can bounce back to you super fast. Now, imagine you’re a police officer using a very advanced version of this flashlight to check how fast cars are going on the road.
Here’s how it works in simple terms:
The Special Flashlight (Laser Device): The police have this gadget that shoots out a laser beam—a kind of light that you can’t see with your eyes but is very precise.
Playing Catch with Light: The beam from this special flashlight is pointed at a car, and it hits the car and bounces back. It’s like throwing a ball at a wall and catching it again, but with light.
Speedy Light: This light is super speedy—it travels as fast as light does (which is about as fast as anything can go!). By checking how long it takes for the light to go to the car and come back, the gadget figures out how far away the car is.
Doing the Math: The gadget does some quick math. Since it knows how far the car is, and it can see how this distance changes very quickly (like how you can tell how fast a friend is running towards you), it calculates the car’s speed.
Not Like Old School Radar: This isn’t like the older speed guns that used radio waves, which are kind of like the waves you see when you throw a stone in a pond. Those older guns checked how these waves changed as they bounced back. The laser one is much more like a high-speed camera taking lots of pictures to tell how fast the car is moving.
Aiming with a Red Dot: The police officer looks through a small telescope on the laser gadget and sees the car. They aim by putting a little red dot (like a laser pointer) on the car, usually at the front because it’s easy to see.
Quick Snapshot: When the officer is ready, they pull a trigger, and the laser gadget quickly takes not just one but many measurements of the car’s speed—in just one second. It’s like snapping a bunch of photos really fast to catch the car’s speed accurately.
So, in the end, the officer has a very precise speed reading of the car from this fancy laser gadget, and if the car is going too fast, the officer can give out a Stunt Driving ticket.
What is Stunt Driving in Ontario?
Stunt Driving in Ontario involves excessive speeding, defined as driving over 40km above the limit in areas under 80km, or more than 50km in zones over 80km.
How do laser devices measure speed?
Laser devices send a beam of light to a car, which reflects back to the device. The time taken for this process helps calculate the car's speed with high precision.
