For those of you who do or occasionally street race in Ontario, you may want to have a look at this article............

This was taken from the Toronto Star's website today (June 19, 2007).......

Michael Bryant is the Attorney General for the Province of Ontario.......

'We will crush your car,' Bryant warns racers

Likening speed shops that make street racers to illegal drug labs and bomb factories, Attorney General Michael Bryant is warning the cars could be seized before they even hit the roads.

Bryant threw down the gauntlet at street racers today in the wake of Monday’s Highway 400 accident, allegedly caused by racing, in which truck driver David Virgoe was killed.

“Somebody who’s putting together a … car for street racing might as well be putting together an illegal narcotic or putting together an explosive,” the attorney general told reporters.

“What I would say to anybody who is engaging in the illegal act of street racing is, we don’t need to wait until that car hits the road fully loaded,” said Bryant.

The attorney general pointed out that Ottawa and Queen’s Park have worked together to tighten up laws designed to curb street racing.

“We can seize that car if we have information from police and, just on the balance of probabilities, if we can establish that that car is being used for the unlawful purpose of street racing, we will seize it and you will never see it again,” he said.

“We will crush your car. We will crush the parts. You will never see it again.”

While Bryant declined to discuss details of Virgoe’s death or the case of three men charged in connection with it, he noted that Ontario prosecutors are making use of new provisions in the Criminal Code for street-racing offences.


Thoughts....................

 

This just perpetuates the stereotype that canadians are idiots.





















j/k

I think that the logic is like saying "if you own a gun, you obviously purchased it to kill people, so we're going to take it away."

I think the logic is flawed, and I'm glad I dont live in ontario, where they intend to crush you car because "probability" says you are street racing. boo.

 

Wow. Guilty until proven innocent, I guess.

 

I read this online this morning and was like wow, that's so lame.
ITs like saying if you have a cigarrete pack, you were goign to smoke it in such n such place...

 

"Somebody who’s putting together a … car for street racing might as well be putting together an illegal narcotic or putting together an explosive,”


Yea, that totally makes sense. Anyone that puts aftermarket parts on their car is trying to kill people. Some government officials are so stupid it amazes me! Does this guy think that the same incident that set him off couldnt have been caused by an unmodified Geo Metro?!?!

I guess it really is the cars that kill people, not the drivers. glad they have their priorities straight...

 

It's like this.
Street racing = attemp to murder with a deadly weapon and suicidal act.
Result = destroy the deadly weapon which might result future murder act AND protect you from being killed.

It's just too easy to break this law and that's why they have to handle this
issue with extreme manner.

 

if you ask me, this whole article/reaction by the attorney general is nothing but a PR stunt in lieu of the recent street-racing accident involving that trucker that died.

in practice however, i can see so many problems legally with presuming guilt on "the balance of probabilities" and even worse, crushing a car w/o concrete evidence to the contrary.

if it were me and somehow i was in this situation (car about to be crushed because my "probability of street racing is high"), i would sue the **** out of the city and even go as far as claiming infringements to my charter rights with this blatant discriminatory and unlawful practice of basing guilt on probabilities.

 

I have the same thoughts exactly........If this is the case they might as well prohibit all sports car sales in Ontario, Guns, etc.... basically anything that can potentially kill .......... lawnmowers??????

 

If I lived there, I couldn't wait to build a show or track car and sue them when they crushed it.

Typical idiotic, Knee-jerk reaction BS!

 

aw jesus christ.

 

eat steaks with spoons from now on since forks&knifes have 'probabilities' to kill individuals.

 

but you can cut someone's heart out with a spoon! (old robinhood reference)

 

You don't have to have a built car to street race. Just look at all the POS cars that try to race our Zs. This is an extreme reaction. All cars are deadly weapons. Let's crush them all, and walk everywhere. Building up a car breaks no laws. I love it when freedoms are taken away, and people applaud the move in the interest of 'protecting people'.

 

that would never be legal in the states.

 

I agree that people should not be street racing, but not every tuned car out there does that. I do not participate in street racing, I live 30 minutes from the track and thats were I race......

 

Oh god... as soon as I seen the news about the 400 racing accident, I knew this would happen.... This is totally lame, if gov'nt is going to crush cars..its gonna cause riot..

 

http://www.autoblog.com/2007/06/20/p...street-racers/

 

There are way to many legal ramifications with regard to seizing vehicles on a whim.

“We can seize that car if we have information from police and, just on the balance of probabilities,."

^This statement seems to be aimed at repeat offenders.

" if we can establish that that car is being used for the unlawful purpose of street racing, we will seize it and you will never see it again,” he said

^^Also, this specifically states that they must "establish that the car is being used for unlawful purpose...."
Which obviously leads to legal proceedings before any action can be taken.

 

they cant crush the car, if you dont own it. If the vehicle has a lien against it - the bank owns a portion of your car and thus has a vested interest in it.

Back a year or two ago, the police crushed two cars involved in street racing out in markham or something, the bank was alerted of this obviously by the owner of the car and the police department was slapped with a HUGE lawsuit. They lost the battle, the bank was paid off and AND the two kids involved in the race were let off due to a technicality.

 

^I clearly remember that.