Slow down, you’re driving too fast

VERNON – Drivers in the North Okanagan have a need for speed.

Over the last few days the RCMP have handed out all kinds of speeding tickets, including two for excessive speed.

A Vernon woman lost her brand new car for seven days and has to pay a $368 ticket after taking her vehicle out for a Sunday drive.

According to the RCMP, she told the officer who pulled her over she wanted to test out her three-day-old car on Highway 97 between Vernon and Lake Country. Unfortunately she drove through a speed trap doing 150 km/h in a 90 km/h zone. Her car was impounded and she was handed an expensive ticket.

On Saturday, a 35-year-old Lumby man was caught doing 144 km/h in the 100 km/h zone on Highway 97-A at the Otter Lake Cross in Spallumcheen.

Turns out, he wasn't sporting an ‘N’ as a novice driver. He couldn’t produce a driver’s license and the other two men in the car didn’t have valid driver’s licenses either. By the end of the police stop, the man was ticketed for speeding, failing to display his ‘N’ sign and driving without someone in the vehicle with a valid license.

Meanwhile, the North Okanagan Traffic Unit was busy writing 69 speeding tickets on Friday.

The seven officers conducted an enforcement operation which focused on the region’s highways in all directions, north, south, east and west. They also caught a driver not wearing a seatbelt, spotted five defective vehicles and handed out nine written warnings.

To contact the reporter for this story, email Howard Alexander at halexander@infotelnews.ca or call 250-491-0331. To contact the editor, email mjones@infotelnews.ca or call 250-718-2724.