A Woman in Canada Took a Photo of a Police Drone, Then Got a Ticket for Distracted Driving
A woman in Canada received a distracted driving ticket after taking photos of a police drone that was flying over her car, presumably taking pictures of her. But wait, that’s just the beginning of the story. When she took the pictures of the drone, she was stopped at a red light.
Laurie Esseltine, who works for the province’s Transportation Ministry (the story just keeps getting better), said she was idling at a red light in Kingston, Ontario. While stopped she noticed the drone hovering above her vehicle.
“My first thought was to take a picture of this and report it,” Esseltine told CBC News. “It was frightening … and then it was like, ‘What are they doing? You can’t do that.’ That was my second reaction.”
With that in mind, she decided to snap a couple of photos of the drone. She then put her phone down and waited for the traffic light to turn green.
When the light changed, she had no sooner traveled through the intersection when a police car pulled up behind her. Police ticketed her along with 19 other drivers that day for using their phones while behind the wheel.
“What better way to catch a distracted driver [than] by providing the distraction?” Esseltine said.
Under the Highway Traffic Act, she now faced a $615 fine, three demerit points and the possibility of a three-day license suspension. However, when she went to court, the prosecutor withdrew the charge against Esseltine. CBC News reports that authorities dropped at least one other drone-related ticket issued that day without explanation.
When asked about the tickets, municipal prosecutor Rikki Voskamp declined to comment. She also did not respond to follow-up questions about why her office withdrew Esseltine’s charge.
Police say they are no longer using the drones to catch distracted drivers
Two days after Esseltine got her ticket, the Kingston Police Department issued a press release trumpeting the use of these drones to address distracted driving. A spokesperson for the Kingston Police told the CBC that they have “not used drones for this reason since.”
Perhaps that has to do with the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) had planned to represent one of the other motorists who was ticketed that day. The organization called using drones to zoom in on drivers a “violation of the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures under Section Eight of the Charter.” Prosecutors also withdrew that woman’s ticket.
“They must have decided that it wasn’t in the public interest to pursue, and we think that it’s quite likely that’s because they understood that this was a Charter violation,” said CCF’s litigation director Josh Dehaas.
“We really need to ask ourselves whether we want to live in a society where police can be using drones to zoom in on what we’re doing inside our cars,” he added.
