Speeding ticket quashed after driver argues he only sped to pass someone

A driver who was ticketed for speeding down a forested parkway in Delta, B.C., has successfully fought his conviction after arguing he had to break the speed limit so he could get away from someone else driving erratically.

Police stopped Tejveer Parmar after clocking his speed at 81 km/h on Kittson Parkway just after 1 p.m. on May 9, 2018. The speed limit on the wide road is 50 km/h, though court documents said drivers "routinely" speed down the stretch.

Parmar was later convicted in traffic court, but fought the case in the higher B.C. Supreme Court claiming the Judicial Justice of the Peace (JJP) who convicted him didn't listen to his explanation of why he did what he did.

During a hearing in Vancouver nearly a year after he was first ticketed, Parmar said he'd sped up to merge ahead of another car who'd been "causing him trouble" ahead of the merge point where two lanes join into one.

He said the other driver had been swerving between lanes and braking in front of him.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine Murray accepted Parmar's defence of necessity.

"He believed that to slow down to let the other car merge in front of him was not a safe option as the other car was being driven so erratically," Murray wrote in her reasons for judgment on May 16.

The justice also found the original JJP "interrupted Mr. Parmar continually throughout his evidence" during the traffic court hearing.

"The JJP failed to consider the defence proffered by Mr. Parmar, namely that he had sped up in order to drive safely," Murray said.

For that reason, Murray quashed the conviction and Parmar was acquitted.