From handing out some of the harshest punishments that traffic laws allow to now helping those on the receiving end, Grant Gottgetreu has moved on.
Known by former police colleagues as “Darth Radar,” Gottgetreu hung up his speed gun in April after impounding more than 2,000 vehicles for excessive speeding (40 or more kilometres an hour above the posted limit).
The 48-year-old, who was a traffic officer and team supervisor for 28 years in New Westminster, West Vancouver and with the Integrated Road Safety Unit, is now a consultant for legal defences.
“From speeding tickets to over-.08 cases, I can be the ticket to your success in court,” he says.
“I’m not suddenly a three-headed monster,” Gottgetreu said from the side of the road near Mount Rushmore, where he is on a motorcycle trip. “I’m not switching sides. I’m not against the police now. It’s no different than when I was a police officer, I wasn’t against drivers.
“I’ve always been about due process and proper procedure.”
Among the 2,000-plus vehicles Gottgetreu impounded from 2010 to 2017 were family campers to couriers to $300,000 grand tourers.
Rental car returns, a Canada Post van, vacationing families from out of province, people racing to catch a ferry or a plane, taxies, a dump truck, a Kenworth, it didn’t matter.
Nor did it matter who was driving.
Gottgetreu’s victims, such as it were, included (in their private vehicles) fellow cops, firefighters, a priest, teens, people in their 80s.
“The thing with me, and you can ask anyone whose car I’ve impounded,” he said at the time, “is I’m fair. I’m consistent across the board.”
And that’s what he is doing now, he said.
Read the full story in the Vancouver Sun here.