Canadian police pulled over a convoy of Minis. Where any of you apart of this??

http://www.autoblog.com/2010/05/01/c...e-mini-convoy/

 

Shenanigans! Obviously, they were just trying to meet their quota for the month.

 

 

That's shameful.

 

Even though it is a ***** move, it is good PR for Mini. Rather than being thought of as a pansy car by a lot of the unenlightened public, Mini is being portrayed as hooligans, easy riders so to speak. I think it is good for the brand.

 

i dont know how many of you guys read autoblog but i just read this and it's totally f'd up. i wasn't sure where to post this so....sorry, but read on!!!

http://www.autoblog.com/2010/05/01/c...e-mini-convoy/

"Every year, the Southern Ontario Mini Club organizes two charity drives – one in the Spring and one in the Fall. Over time, the event has grown from a handful of participating cars to over 30, and as such, this year the organizers let local law enforcement know where the caravan would be and when it would be there as a courtesy. So far, so good, right? Not exactly.

During the first part of the drive, the convoy ran into a few members of the Ontario Provincial Police without incident. One officer even went so far as to tell the organizers that there was only one other patrol for the rest of the route. Turns out that wasn't quite true.

Instead of providing an escort for the convoy or thanking the organizers for a heads up, the OPP set up a speed trap along the route where the limit changes from 100 km/h to 90 km/h. When the parade of Minis came past, officers pulled over the whole lot, and cited three cars for going 121-123 kmh in a 90 kmh zone, or about 76 in a 55. One driver was also cited for having a radar detector and had his equipment confiscated.

Yes, setting up a speed trap on a charity drive is a ***** move, but it gets worse. The OPP evidently called the local television station beforehand so they could film the whole sting. Once the station had the film, they broadcast a story claiming that 11 of the Mini drivers had been arrested for doing 50 kmh over the speed limit and that they had their vehicles confiscated as a result. Even worse, the story claimed that some of the Mini drivers had their children with them and that the OPP had called the Canadian equivalent of child services on the parents.

Members of the Mini club complained to the station, and the video was taken down as a result, though no apology or retraction has been issued so far."

 

Two threads on same topic merged.

 

The Ontario Provincial Police obviously have no class, I hope all those that were cited will apppear in court, plead not guilty and force the police to testify over and over with the same testimony, and leaving the magistrate with a headache from listening to the same drivel for a whole day or longer. You can't win, but you can get even!

 

I don't know what's worse.. the fact the police did this, or the fact the f'in police station put out that video saying they were going 50 over the limit, had their minis confiscated, and had child services sent to their homes for driving with their kids in the cars.

Seriously, what station put that out there? Does Canada have a news channel funded by the National Enquirer?

 

Fox news has an affiliate in Ontario?

Dishonest and shameless police ftl. Guess that teaches event organizers to try and be nice. Just set themselves up for an ambush.

The news crew that worked the "sting"(it's sort of stupid to call it a sting) should have warned them.

 

What a real ***** move on the OPP and TV station!
Organizers should get emails (or phone) to OPP cheif and TV exec, maybe even city elected officials. It's slander.

 

And LEOs wonder why they no longer have the respect of the general public.

 

[quote=Agarwaen;3041482]Fox news has an affiliate in Ontario?

Sounds more like something that MSNBC would get involved with, to me.
One of their "reporters" would most likely get a tingle, up his leg.

 

cant they find other traffic violatort?

 

I have been on many charity rides on my motorcycle as well as in my Corvette. I never ever had to go 20/30 mph over the speed limit to stay with the group. I would say on most of the events held here in the states we always had a police escort. It was vary rare the event did not. I never remember having negitive news coverage and always seemed to have a great time and raise a lot of $$$$ for the charity involved.

I'm not saying I agree with the way the police handled this. They should have escorted the Mini group to the event. The Police would have done that in America. I'm just happy I don't live in Canada.

 

They were speeding, that's not in question. But i think what really angers me about is that they deliberately targeted a charity drive. That's just low.

 

And that they set them up - even egged them on with the comment that no more patrol cars were on the route.

 

I thought that too, but if that was just a random patrolman, he might have not known about the set up. So I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

 

Well if Xiek wasn't in the lead there wouldn't have been a problem. LOL!!

 

If to much is made of this it will be bad news for the rest of us, put yourself in the law enforcement side, they can pull over maybe 3 or 4 cars an hour to hand out tickets, if they pull an entire group of us over at once they can write 20 or 30 tickets, more if they get picky and decide to really go though everyones car and check the mods and see what is illegal. Go though a town that s really in need of cash and it can be alot easier to grab 20 or more of us instead of sitting on the highway and waiting for that 1 speeder. Then throw in if they were told in advance we were coming, they see $$$$. Bottom line, this has the possibility of affecting alot of us here.

 

I agree. I already see cops waiting on the side of freeways to collect additional taxes for their broke podunk city coffers.

 

I bet there are hundreds and thousands of charity events like this one over Canada and US.

Honestly, those runs do more good than bad, and the cops still want to issue tickets by setting up traps and calling tv station?

wrong. just stupid.

 

And now that the speeding ticket cushion is disappearing, this will only increase. Maybe that rumor about MINIs actually being going slower than what it shows on the speedometer will help us out here.

 

I'm so glad I live in Alberta and not Ontario. They have a "car crushing" rule as well. If any cop deems you were "street racing", and that means by "their" idea of street racing, they can confiscate and CRUSH your car. Also includes speeding excessively.

 

So, is there also a law saying " If a citizen deems that the goverment I'd abusing it's power, they have permission to firebomb city hall." ?

I know I'd firebomb the police station if the cops around here crushed my car.