West Vancouver police are calling on drivers to back off the gas after they seized four cars in a single day for excessive speeding.
Officers pulled over a pair of 19-year-old drivers at 1 p.m. Monday when they were spotted apparently street racing on the Upper Levels Highway near Taylor Way. Investigators say they clocked the men, one of them a new driver, doing 55 kilometres per hour over the 90 km/h speed limit. The police seized a 2011 Mercedes B200 and a 2000 Honda Civic at the scene. The vehicles will stay impounded for seven days.
Just five hours later, a 65-year-old North Vancouver man lost his 2008 BMW for a week when he rocketed past an unmarked West Vancouver police cruiser on Hwy. 99 near Ansell Place. The driver was reportedly going 130 km/h in an 80 km/h zone.
At 9:30 p.m. that evening, another 19-year-old from Squamish as it turns out a friend of the teens targeted earlier in the day was stopped near the Westmount on-ramp after being clocked travelling fully 70 km over the limit. Police seized his car, a 2004 Acura, fined him $368 and charged him with excessive speeding.
The force said it was targeting high-risk drivers in high-crash zones as part of a two-year- strategic plan.
What we . . . are concerned with is the continual disregard of safe driving on our roads, said Cpl. Grant Gottgetreu, a representative for the WVPD traffic section, in a release. We take all such incidents seriously and will continue to pursue high-risk drivers throughout the District of West Vancouver.
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