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Behind-the-Wheel

Dealing with vehicles that should not be on the road

Defective vehicles

As a police officer, sometimes you run across a vehicle on your patrols that has such serious defects it should never have left the driveway.

A “Notice and Order No. 1” is the tool used by police to remove the vehicle from the highway and keep it removed until it has been repaired and passed inspection.

Examples of serious defects I ran across as an RCMP officer included:

• A pickup truck driven at night with only one light working—the high beam on the passenger side.

• A car whose frame was so rotten you could see the sag in the body when you looked at it from the side.

• A pickup truck with no brake fluid in half of the master cylinder.

In situations like those, Division 25.30 of the Motor Vehicle Act regulation gives an officer the authority to do three things:

• Order the vehicle removed from the road immediately, be taken to an inspection facility for examination and not driven on the road again until the vehicle passes inspection.

• Order the driver to surrender the vehicle licence document and licence plates to the officer.

• Notify the officer who issued the order that inspection has been passed before the vehicle is driven on the road again.

If it is necessary to use a tow truck to remove the vehicle, the cost of the tow is the responsibility of the vehicle's owner. The Notice and Order No. 1 is forwarded to ICBC and the licence record is marked to indicate when the order was issued. That mark remains until the vehicle has passed inspection and the inspection facility forwards a copy of the passed inspection report to ICBC.

In addition, ICBC will refuse to carry out any licence transactions for the vehicle until the pass is received.

If the driver continues to drive the vehicle before it passes inspection, and is stopped by police, the routine computer checks of the driver and his or her vehicle will reveal the outstanding Notice and Order No. 1. A tow truck will be called and a $598 violation ticket will be issued.

If the vehicle is not worth fixing, notify ICBC and cancel the insurance. The owner will not have to present it at a facility for inspection prior to disposal.

If he or she sells the vehicle to someone other than a scrap dealer, they must advise the new owner of the outstanding Notice and Order No. 1 because the order follows the vehicle. It would then be up to the new owner to deal with it.

The issuing officer does have the authority to cancel a Notice and Order No. 1. If a driver thinks it has been issued in error, her or she will have to convince them to withdraw it.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.



More Behind the Wheel articles

About the Author

Tim Schewe is a retired constable with many years of traffic law enforcement experience. He has been writing his column for most of the 20 years of his service in the RCMP.

The column was 'The Beat Goes On' in Fort St. John, 'Traffic Tips' in the South Okanagan and now 'Behind the Wheel' on Vancouver Island and here on Castanet.net.

Schewe retired from the force in January of 2006, but the column has become a habit, and continues.

To comment, please email

To learn more, visit DriveSmartBC



The views expressed are strictly those of the author and not necessarily those of Castanet. Castanet does not warrant the contents.

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