To Flash or Not to Flash?

TORONTO — Are motorists allowed to flash their high beams at oncoming cars to warn other drivers of speed traps ahead? The act is an unwritten code, but there’s been some debate lately in Canada whether it’s legal.

According to Canadian Press, a Toronto man was slapped with a $110 ticket for alerting drivers of a speed trap by flashing his lights.

The police officer told Brad Diamond — a producer for TSN’s car show Motoring — that he’d violated a section of Ontario’s Highway Traffic Act, which states “no person shall use high-beam headlamps that produce alternating flashes of white light on any vehicle.”

Diamond didn’t think he did anything wrong. He went home and examined the Traffic Act and decided to fight the ticket. CP reports that a couple weeks ago the charges were dropped for lack of evidence.

Toronto police has since admitted that alerting drivers to speed traps is probably not a crime and Diamond should not have been fined.

B.C. and all four Atlantic provinces have no law on the books that could be interpreted to outlaw high-beam flashing.

Similar tickets have been fought all the way to the Supreme Court in Alberta and Pennsylvania. In the latter case in 1988, a driver was cleared for flashing his high-beams more than 10 times at other motorists.

— from Canadian Press