G
gullyfourmyle
Guest
Allow me to introduce myself - the guy who wrote the book about how illegal the street racing law is. I hope this is the best location for this thread. If not moderator, please move it accordingly.
While I don't currently own a bike, I do enjoy bikes. I don't own one for the simple reason that I'm a compulsive Evel Knievel sort when on two wheels. So I opted for four wheels early on in order to prolong my life.
At the beginning of the summer I published a test run of my new book THE REBEL MACHINE IDENTITY - the evolution of a car nut. I'd changed the title of the book from STREET RACER due to how politically incorrect that title had become. I didn't want to become a social pariah over publishing one book.
But the street racing issue kept escalating in the public forum so I thought I'd better add a chapter to the book before I approached Indigo/Chapters/Coles with it.
As I did the research for the chapter, what I was reading in the newspapers and seeing on TV weren't adding up. The numbers being quoted seemed to pop out of nowhere and never seemed to relate to anything.
This made me suspicious.
Most people have hobbies. My hobby or one of them is reading legislation.
That doesn't mean I read legislation like it's the Great Canadian Novel. I read it like a school teacher would a student exam - with a red pen to indicate errors, loopholes and other problems.
As a result of reading the legislation, I've been involved in several issues of varying types.
It should come as no surprise that what I found was a growing record on the part of the Ontario government - it has developed a taste for committing Criminal Code offences against the public and it uses the police to unwittingly obstruct justice to achieve its goals.
To date I've examined in depth five completely different issues and found what I believe to be criminal offences committed by the government each time. All levels of government commit Criminal Code offences I believe but those that commit the offences don’t think they can be prosecuted by police. They are wrong.
I have to say "what I believe" so that I don't get sued as none of the offences or my investigations have resulted in criminal charges. But I believe that there should have been criminal charges laid in each case. That is multiple criminal charges in each case.
I am no lawyer. Let's be clear on that. I'm a regular guy just like you. So it may be that my interpretation of the laws may not be right on the money. It may be that there are ways for the government to sidestep my allegations.
However, if after five years of research into how our legislation works and with a much better command of the legal language than the average person, if my interpretation does not stand up to the test, then there is something very wrong with the way our legislation is applied.
You have to consider that our legislation is by the people and for the people. That is the basis for all of our laws and that is the intent. So if our legislation doesn't cut it for me, it doesn't cut it for anyone.
Remember, "ignorance of the law is no excuse" is how the law is applied. It's a take no prisoners approach that has burned thousands in the past. If the law cannot be readily understood and lived accordingly by the common person then our legislative process is at fault, not the public who is expected to abide by these laws most people never read or know where to find them.
Since that is the case, I decided that what I was finding was worth a deeper look than just rationalizing my street racing adventures in THE REBEL MACHINE IDENTITY.
It took almost a hundred pages to set the issue out in a rational manner and it was a very confusing process at first.
The book is not complete. There will be more to come at some point. That’s because not all of the numbers the street racing legislation was based on are available to the public or The Ministry of Transport.
They have not yet been compiled yet for 2006 or 2007.
My book has the numbers for 2005. Even Jim Kenzie, Toronto Star Automotive Journalist couldn't get those.
So what numbers, you should be asking yourself, was the street racing legislation based on?
I wrote the book and I'm still asking myself that question.
In my book you will find charts that make clearer the accident statistics that MTO assembles. Those statistics are not put together by MTO in a way that would enable anyone unfamiliar with how their charts work to make any sense out of them.
They didn't get around to explaining how the charts actually worked until I'd published my book, so there are discrepancies. But not like the discrepancies published by the Attorney General's office that lead me to do the investigation in the first place.
My investigation is continuing and more information will be supplied to people who buy my book directly from me via e-mail as I acquire it.
I absolutely did not write the book because I'd been charged under the legislation or had a bone to pick with the police. My position at the outset was completely neutral but I was alarmed at the way the new generation of street racers were giving muscle car enthusiasts like me a bad name.
From a biker's perspective my position was less clear since I'd long proven to my own satisfaction that I couldn't spend more than two or three minutes on a bike without doing something most people would find unacceptable, irresponsible or totally insane. But it was so much fun. I don't know if I've ever done anything legal on a bike.
So I have a degree of sympathy for the bikers I see slicing through traffic. I wish it was me. From the bike, you have a much clearer and wider vision of the road than anyone else and consequently, there is more room and time to do things that to others look insane. The trouble occurs when someone else does the something at the same time in a manner that can't be predicted. Or some road condition crops up that can't be anticipated or allowed for in time. But speed is still not always a contributing factor. In fact most bike accidents can be attributed to a car or truck driver's inattention. There are all sorts of mitigating circumstances that being dead and innocent doesn’t help. Regardless, that doesn’t make the legislation legal.
It may go through the courts and I may be proved wrong. But if so, it will undoubtedly be due to some sort of political intervention despite laws to the contrary.
What’s at stake besides the destabilization of all of Ontario’s legislation and credibility is the Ontario government having to pay back to those charged all of the money extorted and all of the cars illegally crushed – with interest and damages of course. That will amount to millions of dollars and should certainly be cause enough to prompt McGuinty's and Fantino's resignations.
That can't happen without a lot more people understanding what has happened to democracy under McGuinty's terms. That’s why this book has to go big time.
My view is that Premier McGuinty is possibly the worst thing to have ever happened to democracy in Ontario and he can only get worse in my view.
The real importance of reading my book is that if the public fails to comprehend how profoundly the street racing legislation has destabilized democracy in this province, then there is nothing stopping another government stepping in and continuing the culture of lies inspired by McGuinty's famous promise not to impose the Health Tax.
Imposing the tax may have been warranted. But the way it was done was the issue. It’s manner of execution was neither honest nor honourable and did nothing to improve the relationship between the public and civil servants.
Right now, street racers are considered outright criminals by the public. But the public fails to understand that it's the general public who are being painted with the street racing brush. Correcting this image and the wording of the law is going to take a lot of publicity and effort.
The book itself is titled THE REBEL MACHINE IDENTITY - ABUSE OF POWER.
That's because it started off to be a chapter in the bigger book. By titling it this way I legally and honestly avoided paying another copy write fee along with the delay in acquiring that and a second ISBN number. Every day that goes by is another pile of wrongful charges and convictions. The delay would have served no one, not even the legal system.
The price started out at $20.00 but when Coles at Scarborough Town Centre decided to let me do the book signing there I had to increase the price to at least partially cover their fees. I can't lower it again because if I do and the book stores decide to carry it, I'll be in a sort of jackpot in terms of keeping everything straight between two books and four different prices.
So I'm sorry for the unexpected price increase but I don't dare do it any differently. If this takes off, I’ll have lots of other things to worry about.
Anyway, thank you for your interest. My hope is that this will enable me to put the spot light on this and other areas that are not so well known but are still crime hotspots the government hopes will never come to light.
John Newell
While I don't currently own a bike, I do enjoy bikes. I don't own one for the simple reason that I'm a compulsive Evel Knievel sort when on two wheels. So I opted for four wheels early on in order to prolong my life.
At the beginning of the summer I published a test run of my new book THE REBEL MACHINE IDENTITY - the evolution of a car nut. I'd changed the title of the book from STREET RACER due to how politically incorrect that title had become. I didn't want to become a social pariah over publishing one book.
But the street racing issue kept escalating in the public forum so I thought I'd better add a chapter to the book before I approached Indigo/Chapters/Coles with it.
As I did the research for the chapter, what I was reading in the newspapers and seeing on TV weren't adding up. The numbers being quoted seemed to pop out of nowhere and never seemed to relate to anything.
This made me suspicious.
Most people have hobbies. My hobby or one of them is reading legislation.
That doesn't mean I read legislation like it's the Great Canadian Novel. I read it like a school teacher would a student exam - with a red pen to indicate errors, loopholes and other problems.
As a result of reading the legislation, I've been involved in several issues of varying types.
It should come as no surprise that what I found was a growing record on the part of the Ontario government - it has developed a taste for committing Criminal Code offences against the public and it uses the police to unwittingly obstruct justice to achieve its goals.
To date I've examined in depth five completely different issues and found what I believe to be criminal offences committed by the government each time. All levels of government commit Criminal Code offences I believe but those that commit the offences don’t think they can be prosecuted by police. They are wrong.
I have to say "what I believe" so that I don't get sued as none of the offences or my investigations have resulted in criminal charges. But I believe that there should have been criminal charges laid in each case. That is multiple criminal charges in each case.
I am no lawyer. Let's be clear on that. I'm a regular guy just like you. So it may be that my interpretation of the laws may not be right on the money. It may be that there are ways for the government to sidestep my allegations.
However, if after five years of research into how our legislation works and with a much better command of the legal language than the average person, if my interpretation does not stand up to the test, then there is something very wrong with the way our legislation is applied.
You have to consider that our legislation is by the people and for the people. That is the basis for all of our laws and that is the intent. So if our legislation doesn't cut it for me, it doesn't cut it for anyone.
Remember, "ignorance of the law is no excuse" is how the law is applied. It's a take no prisoners approach that has burned thousands in the past. If the law cannot be readily understood and lived accordingly by the common person then our legislative process is at fault, not the public who is expected to abide by these laws most people never read or know where to find them.
Since that is the case, I decided that what I was finding was worth a deeper look than just rationalizing my street racing adventures in THE REBEL MACHINE IDENTITY.
It took almost a hundred pages to set the issue out in a rational manner and it was a very confusing process at first.
The book is not complete. There will be more to come at some point. That’s because not all of the numbers the street racing legislation was based on are available to the public or The Ministry of Transport.
They have not yet been compiled yet for 2006 or 2007.
My book has the numbers for 2005. Even Jim Kenzie, Toronto Star Automotive Journalist couldn't get those.
So what numbers, you should be asking yourself, was the street racing legislation based on?
I wrote the book and I'm still asking myself that question.
In my book you will find charts that make clearer the accident statistics that MTO assembles. Those statistics are not put together by MTO in a way that would enable anyone unfamiliar with how their charts work to make any sense out of them.
They didn't get around to explaining how the charts actually worked until I'd published my book, so there are discrepancies. But not like the discrepancies published by the Attorney General's office that lead me to do the investigation in the first place.
My investigation is continuing and more information will be supplied to people who buy my book directly from me via e-mail as I acquire it.
I absolutely did not write the book because I'd been charged under the legislation or had a bone to pick with the police. My position at the outset was completely neutral but I was alarmed at the way the new generation of street racers were giving muscle car enthusiasts like me a bad name.
From a biker's perspective my position was less clear since I'd long proven to my own satisfaction that I couldn't spend more than two or three minutes on a bike without doing something most people would find unacceptable, irresponsible or totally insane. But it was so much fun. I don't know if I've ever done anything legal on a bike.
So I have a degree of sympathy for the bikers I see slicing through traffic. I wish it was me. From the bike, you have a much clearer and wider vision of the road than anyone else and consequently, there is more room and time to do things that to others look insane. The trouble occurs when someone else does the something at the same time in a manner that can't be predicted. Or some road condition crops up that can't be anticipated or allowed for in time. But speed is still not always a contributing factor. In fact most bike accidents can be attributed to a car or truck driver's inattention. There are all sorts of mitigating circumstances that being dead and innocent doesn’t help. Regardless, that doesn’t make the legislation legal.
It may go through the courts and I may be proved wrong. But if so, it will undoubtedly be due to some sort of political intervention despite laws to the contrary.
What’s at stake besides the destabilization of all of Ontario’s legislation and credibility is the Ontario government having to pay back to those charged all of the money extorted and all of the cars illegally crushed – with interest and damages of course. That will amount to millions of dollars and should certainly be cause enough to prompt McGuinty's and Fantino's resignations.
That can't happen without a lot more people understanding what has happened to democracy under McGuinty's terms. That’s why this book has to go big time.
My view is that Premier McGuinty is possibly the worst thing to have ever happened to democracy in Ontario and he can only get worse in my view.
The real importance of reading my book is that if the public fails to comprehend how profoundly the street racing legislation has destabilized democracy in this province, then there is nothing stopping another government stepping in and continuing the culture of lies inspired by McGuinty's famous promise not to impose the Health Tax.
Imposing the tax may have been warranted. But the way it was done was the issue. It’s manner of execution was neither honest nor honourable and did nothing to improve the relationship between the public and civil servants.
Right now, street racers are considered outright criminals by the public. But the public fails to understand that it's the general public who are being painted with the street racing brush. Correcting this image and the wording of the law is going to take a lot of publicity and effort.
The book itself is titled THE REBEL MACHINE IDENTITY - ABUSE OF POWER.
That's because it started off to be a chapter in the bigger book. By titling it this way I legally and honestly avoided paying another copy write fee along with the delay in acquiring that and a second ISBN number. Every day that goes by is another pile of wrongful charges and convictions. The delay would have served no one, not even the legal system.
The price started out at $20.00 but when Coles at Scarborough Town Centre decided to let me do the book signing there I had to increase the price to at least partially cover their fees. I can't lower it again because if I do and the book stores decide to carry it, I'll be in a sort of jackpot in terms of keeping everything straight between two books and four different prices.
So I'm sorry for the unexpected price increase but I don't dare do it any differently. If this takes off, I’ll have lots of other things to worry about.
Anyway, thank you for your interest. My hope is that this will enable me to put the spot light on this and other areas that are not so well known but are still crime hotspots the government hopes will never come to light.
John Newell