[Niyeaux]

So uh...other than commiserating in a forum thread, is anyone doing any actual organizing around putting a campaign together to make this bullshit stop happening?

I've been a labour and political organizer for a awhile now and would be happy to help out with this if there was an appetite for that sort of thing. At the very least, we should be documenting (with proof!) all of the VIs that are getting handed out, particularly VIs given to cars that are completely stock or modified in a completely legal way.

It's clearly a massive injustice that any asshole cop can compel you to spend hundreds of dollars on getting your car inspected, based on absolutely nothing other than them not liking how your car looks or sounds. There's no probable cause requirement, no dispute process, and no consequences for cops who give out VIs to cars that are very obviously completely street legal. It's essentially a system whereby the cops can give you a $100+ fine even if you haven't done anything remotely illegal. How is that a just system?

At an absolute minimum, we should be demanding:

1. A dispute process whereby you can get the VI cleared by ICBC if there's really nothing illegal about your vehicle, AT NO COST to the driver. ICBC already employs an army of vehicle inspectors for insurance claims, it's not at all unreasonable to demand that those inspectors be made available to inspect cars that have received VIs. If the ICBC inspector discovers defects, then sure, charge the driver for the inspection, but you shouldn't have to pay to prove your street legal car is actually street legal.

2. A requirement that the cop who issues the VI states SPECIFICALLY what about the car he/she believes to be an illegal modification. This makes it easier for drivers with actual defects to address the issue, makes it quicker (and cheaper!) for shops to do the inspection because they know what they're looking for, and makes the officer at least somewhat accountable for having something resembling a legitimate reason for issuing the VI.

3. Some form of tracking and oversight, by ICBC or another provincial agency, so that if there's a pattern of particular officers issuing VIs to drivers who end up being able to prove their vehicles were completely street legal at the time the VI was issued, there can be some form of accountability in place to prevent that behaviour.

That's just like a bare minimum of what begins to resemble a system that isn't patently unjust - I'm sure people here could come up with further demands that would be entirely reasonable. It seems absurd to me that everyone's just been taking this lying down for almost a year now.