[Traum]

Here is the (extremely) long blurb that I had been working on for the last little while. I am going to break the entire thing into 3 parts (for reasons that will become obvious once you read it), and I ask for your help in acting as my additional pairs of eyes -- to help me proof-read this, correct anything you notice that is incorrect, poorly written, or otherwise undesirable. I welcome any constructive recommendations that can help me make this better. Once an acceptable draft has been put together, I plan on sending it off to:

- the BC Minister of Transportation - Claire Trevena
- the Deputy Minister of Transportation - Grant Main
- my MLA
- Attorney General - David Eby
- the VPD complaints department
- the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner

I have little expectations on what could be achieved from a mere letter to the parties involved, but I cannot sit idly by and watch my passion and enthusiasm for cars and the local automotive culture get decimated by the authorities when they are not acting in the interests of the law and the principles behind them -- not when I have dedicated at least the past 10 years of my life to be part of it and contributed to it.

* * *

My name is XXXX XXXXX, and I am a long time automotive enthusiast. I am writing to express my concerns regarding the lack of clarity as well as the apparent absurdity in a certain section of the MVA. Additionally, as a result of this dubiously written section of the MVA, a large amount of anecdotal evidence is suggesting that members of the VPD are enforcing this poorly written piece of legislation rather arbitrarily, thereby turning it into a tool to unfairly penalize motorists with situations where there is little to no recourse on the losses suffered by the said motorists.

Specifically, there are 2 sections in the MVA that I find particularly troubling and worthy of concern, the first of which is "Division 7 - Other Equipment" under "Schedule – Standards for the Approval of a Motor Vehicle" in Section 18 regarding wheel alignment. In the second clause of Section 18, the MVA says:

The caster, camber or toe-in of a vehicle shall not be out of adjustment to the extent that it is apparent visually.

Whichever lawmakers who drafted this clause clearly have zero automotive knowledge, nor have they consulted anyone from the automotive industry prior to writing this up. Wheel camber -- and in particular, a small amount of negative camber -- is not only helpful, but often times essential in contributing to good vehicle dynamics and stability. Automotive manufacturers know this, so they almost always design their vehicles to allow for a small amount of negative camber from the factory. Take my personal BC-registered vehicle, a 2014 Mazda2 hatchback, as example. It is a FWD vehicle that features front MacPherson struts and solid rear beam axle as its suspension design. According to factory specifications, the acceptable range of camber settings are +0.55° to -1.45° in the front, and -0.31° to -2.31° in the rear. In particular, because of the rear suspension design, rear camber is, for all practical purposes, non-adjustable.

Out on the streets of Metro Vancouver, members of the VPD have been known to issue N&O (Notice and Order) at Level 1 and 2 to vehicle owners while citing "visible camber" as the matter of non-compliance. This is highly problematic because the clause in Section 18 of the MVA is poorly written, and it does not take real world situations into account. As illustrated by the (real world) example using my own vehicle, camber measurements can easily go up to more than -2° and still fall entirely within manufacturer specifications. As a long time automotive enthusiast, I can tell you with certainty that a (wheel) camber angle of -2° is "visually apparent", and yet it is still entirely within the manufacturer's tolerance. (For what it is worth, I'd even say that -1.5° of negative camber is "visually apparent".) But in the eye of the BC MVA and some VPD members, this is unacceptable and provide sufficient grounds for a peace officer to issue an N&O. Even more insulting is the fact that as illustrated by the example mentioned above, certain vehicles have non-adjustable camber settings where the amount of camber you get straight from the factory falls squarely into the "illegal" range.

Personally, I find it utterly ridiculous that the province and the VPD are deeming this amount of negative camber to be unacceptable (and therefore illegal) when the subject matter experts -- the automotive manufacturers themselves, in this case -- have indicated that that level of alignment configuration is entirely within manufacturer specifications and totally acceptable. In addition to the manufacturers, any knowledgeable automotive enthusiast can tell you that a small and appropriate amount of negative camber can be very helpful to vehicle handling, dynamics, and stability. Indirectly, these characteristics translate into better automotive safety.