'Every single ticket was dismissed': Serial speeder discovers legal loophole, saves thousands of dollars in speeding tickets

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jan 4, 2024 3:00 PM EST

This dude discovered the ultimate driving loophole and has never looked back. He's like the definition of a person who's too smart for their own good. 

U/treize_k had a great story to share about their father's excellent malicious compliance. Dad found a way to speed without a care in the world. We've all pushed the speed limit at some point. There are places to be, and there's no one on the road, so you decide to drive a bit faster. And on highways, people routinely go 20 or 30 miles above the speed limit without getting ticketed. It's not the safest activity, and even if a police officer doesn't catch you zipping down the road, a traffic camera might snap your photo. Then one day you'll wake up to a ticket in the mail costing you hundreds of dollars, and that ten minutes you saved by speeding won't feel worth it at all. 

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  • Check out this guy's excellent story. The OP also added a few edits to explain more of the details of the story. It's a shame you couldn't get away with this trick anymore, but maybe this story will inspire people to dig deep into local laws the next time they get a ticket. Then, these workers had one job… and they still messed it up. 

  • 01
    'My father got out of so many speeding tickets they had to change the law'
    via Mauro Sbicego on Unsplash
  • 02
    How my father got out of so many speeding tickets they had to change the law M OC My father has been a lawyer here in BC, Canada for more than 30 years. When he was starting out in his 30's he was hustling hard to support a stay at home wife and me, his young son.
    via u/treize_k
  • 03
    As he was very much a type "a" personality with not much patience he sped on the highways, often. And he got speeding tickets, often. However, he took every single one to court and had every single one overturned. The reason was quite simple. At the time Canada was in the process of switching over from Imperial MPH to Metric KPH and all of the road signs had to be replaced.
    via u/treize_k
  • 04
    Now the BC legal code specified that a "road sign" was legally comprised of two signs on a pole. SEE BELOW FOR A BETTER EXPLANATION OF THE WAY THE SIGNS LOOKED
    via u/treize_k
  • 05
    Apparently at some point someone in charge of replacing all the signs with the new metric ones decided that they could save a considerable amount of money by printing all the information on ONE sign. But this no longer complied with the specifics of the legal code. So he would go back to the exact sign that he was ticketed because of and take a picture of it, and then bring the picture to court along with a copy of the laws in question.
    via u/treize_k
  • 06
    His defense was very simple. He would allow the arresting officer to take the stand and give his testimony regarding the issue of the ticket, and then show the officer the picture he took and ask them to identify whether that was the sign that he had sped past. They always agreed saying that it was in fact the very same sign. He thanked them and then dismissed them with no further questions.
    via u/treize_k
  • 07
    He would then bring the picture to the judge along with the bookmarked page of the BC Highway Act and present the judge with the exact wording of the law, followed by his factual argument that since there was only a single sign posted, it did not constitute a legal "road sign" as defined in the Highway Act. As I said before, every single ticket was dismissed and all my dad lost was a half an hour of his time.
    via u/treize_k
  • 08
    This worked for almost a decade, with him overturning literally thousands of dollars of speeding tickets until the law was changed. He still speeds btw.
    via u/treize_k
  • 09
    TL;DR - bureaucrat cuts costs on road signs but they no longer fit the legal definition so my dad sped like a madman for years with 0 consequences.
    via u/treize_k
  • 10
    EDIT: an explanation from a friendly Redditor as my telling of this story was from a recollection of several years ago: I'm old enough to remember when Ontario put the new signs up. At that time, they were a white sign with black lettering that said "MAXIMUM" up top, the speed in (obviously) giant font below that, and then, on a separate piece of metal below that, same width as the above sign but 1/4 the height, with
    via u/treize_k
  • 11
    black background and white text, "km/h". Maybe that's where the "two signs" part comes from. Over the years, the two signs were merged to become one piece of metal, and appeared to be two because the sign shop drew outlines around both parts of it as it had been when it was two. - from u/Jay911
    via u/treize_k
  • 12
    UEMcGill I got a friend who works as a traffic investigator for a county. That's literally the subject of his job. "Is the sign lawful?" Things like is it the proper distance from the last sign? If it's a speed change does it give proper warning? If it's a stop light is it visible for a certain distance approaching
    via u/UEMcGill
  • 13
    the intersection. He said if I ever got a ticket to ask as part of a discovery motion to have the road investigated. He said there's almost always something wrong with the signs versus what's required.
    via u/UEMcGill
  • 14
    subtleglow87 My dad got out of speeding tickets for years in the same area all because tree branches were somewhat blocking the sign. The sign was still absolutely readable but there was a law stating that the sign had to be 100% unobstructed. When the city decided they were over his
    via u/subtleglow87
  • 15
    shenanigans and cut back the tree, he did what any reasonable person would do. Took a latter out there and took a picture of the sign from above so it looked like it was still obstructed. The judge asked him how he could possibly not be aware of the speed limit after being stopped there so many times. My dad's reply was that was hardly
    via u/subtleglow87
  • 16
    the point, the law was very clear. Got out of that ticket too.
    via u/subtleglow87
  • 17
    Veritas3333 There was an issue like this in the US with construction zones a decade or so ago. They made a ton of orange speed limit signs for use in construction zones. Then someone pointed out in court that the MUTCD specifically says that speed limit signs must be black numbers on a white
    via u/Veritas3333
  • 18
    background. A bunch of tickets for speeding in construction zones got thrown out. Now the speed limit signs are big orange signs, with white rectangle in the middle with the speed limit. So it's both an orange construction sign, and a speed limit sign that's black on white.
    via u/Veritas3333

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Canada dads malicious compliance highway signs court malicious-compliance-reddit legal driving speeding speeding ticket dad malicious compliance reddit Father
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