It’s time to announce our gift for anyone who was served a 24-hour driving prohibition for drugs at a police detachment. This is something we’ve been working on for a long time, so pay attention.
24-hour driving prohibitions for drugs are issued pursuant to section 215(3) of the Motor Vehicle Act. The section reads as follows:
(3) A peace officer may, at any time or place on a highway or industrial road if the peace officer has reasonable and probable grounds to believe that a driver’s ability to drive a motor vehicle is affected by a drug, other than alcohol,
(a) request the driver to drive the motor vehicle, under the direction of the peace officer, to the nearest place off the travelled portion of the highway or industrial road,
(b) serve the driver with a notice of driving prohibition, and
(c) if the driver is in possession of a driver’s licence, request the driver to surrender that licence.
Now, there are important things to keep in mind when it comes to 24-hour prohibitions for drugs. First, and perhaps most important is that there is no review provision for these prohibitions in the Motor Vehicle Act. In other words, if you receive a 24-hour driving prohibition for drugs your only recourse is a full-on judicial review in BC Supreme Court. The second thing to know is that 24-hour driving prohibitions for drugs go on your driving record, they keep that record forever and it shows “24-hour driving prohibition (drugs)” which is hugely stigmatizing and damaging both to future career prospects and your ability to travel easily to the US.
So 24-hour driving prohibitions for drugs don’t really end after 24 hours. The implications of getting this type of prohibition follows you in the future and can be ruinous.
The problem with 24-hour prohibitions served later
Many 24-hour driving prohibitions are served on individuals either at a police station or the hospital or at some point long after driving. Of course, when the person isn’t driving anymore, this made no sense because the purpose of a 24-hour driving prohibition was never to be punishment but to stop drivers from tooling down the road when they appeared not to be in a condition to drive. But for years the police in BC have handed out 24-hour prohibitions to people when there was no likelihood of the driver continuing to drive. The Superintendent of Motor Vehicles also uses 24-hour prohibitions to punish people.
You will note that the previously mentioned section of the Motor Vehicle Act states “at any time or place on a highway or industrial road.” Kyla Lee noticed that too and it always irked her that police would often serve these prohibitions long after the driving. She disputes 24-hour prohibitions for drugs and also for alcohol. She made the argument many times in alcohol cases that the prohibition was unlawful. For a while she succeeded in every case, and then suddenly the Superintendent rejected that argument. That was a step too far. So she filed an appeal.
For strategic reasons she picked a drug case. The main reason being drug cases are required to go straight to BC Supreme Court.
Our 4/20 gift
Kyla picked a test case and filed an appeal in BC Supreme Court. She argued it last week and the BC Supreme Court gave its ruling this morning. And yes, she was successful. 24-Hour driving prohibitions not served at the roadside are now illegal. All of the 24-Hour prohibitions wrongly served over the decades were illegal. All of them.
This is our glorious 4/20 gift to the people of BC. Why is it glorious? Because there is no fixed limitation period for 24-hour driving prohibitions for drugs. If you received one 3 years ago, we may challenge it and if the facts fit, the prohibition must be removed from your driving record.
24-Hour driving prohibition?
If you’ve received a 24-hour driving prohibition, call us. We defend driving prohibitions for people from every corner of BC. We challenge prohibitions at every level of court and tribunal in this province.
We’re not messing around.
A gift to 4/20 ? A bit overhyped IMO. Good luck generating any new revenue from lawyer fees with this announcement. Very few 24hr Prohibitions are issued these days, and most are issued roadside. For those that aren’t, all they have to do is hire a lawyer and go to Court, I wonder how much that’ll cost? And no, just a 24hr driving Prohibition on your driving record will not cause you grief at the US Border. US Border agents only access your Criminal Record, not your driving record.
Well, it had a massive change for the police in BC. Some admitted to us that they screwed this up all of the time. Others felt vindicated for doing it right all along despite the instructions from the bosses. 24-hour prohibitions are still issued in BC for alleged drug affected driving, for those who blow below Warn but above 50mg% and in 99.9% of impaired driving cases where the subject is arrested.
For us the important thing is in the last year and in particular the last few months we’ve succeeded in more 24-hour prohibitions than ever before.
As for the border, unless you’re an American border official I assume you’re relying on something someone told you. We’ve had clients tell us that the 24-hour prohibition with the word “drugs” beside it was known to the US border official in their case and it caused a world of difficulties.
You have your sources. We have ours.
Wow, Kyla:
Amazing work. It’s shocking that the police have to follow the law. I hope they can get some Employee Assistance counselling…
Kyla nailed this one out of the park.
In most of these high-profile BC Supreme Court decisions, Kyla is really just forcing the government to actually abide by the law as written.
Just to clarify, I recieved a 24 hour suspension last July. The officer performed the roadside sobriety test, several times, on the roadside. Afterwards, the officer proclaimed that she felt I was under the influence of drugs, impounding the truck, and taking me down to the station. It was only after completing several more tasks at the station and subitting a urine sample, that the officer issued me a 24 hour prohibition notice that I then signed, and was allowed to walk home (my choice) from the cop shop.