“Fail To Obey Lane Sign”

Hi,

I just recently notcied on my Ticket I received on 2008/11/26, the street signs have been mis-spelled.

At: "E/B Steels Ave East At Kenney road"

Both street names have been mis-spelled. I heard rumors that this makes the ticket void.

Do I still need to file a Trial Option, that states I intent to appear in court? Please advise.

Yes, select the trial option. I think you can fairly easily prove that the streets named do not exist, but that probably won't be enough to quash the ticket. Which sign were you ticketed for disobeying? Was it a "right lane exits" sign?

If you select trial and go to the trial the court can fix all errors on the ticket.

Do not respond to the ticket. The court cannot fix the errors if you do not respond to the ticket.

You goal is to beat the ticket. Therefore, if you want to win, don't respond to the ticket at all. The court will convict you and can appeal at which time you will cite the French Languages Service Act.

The appeal court cannot fix the errors on the ticket. The appeal court's sole task is to ensure the trial court made the correct decison, based upon the evidence before it. Since the ticket isn't in both languages clearly they will not have made the correct decision, since the ticket is not in both languages and it must be.

Yes, it was the "Right Lane only" sign.

So is it best to ignore and appeal? Will this quash the ticket?

If you ignore the ticket, you get convicted. I'm assuming that you want the easiest way of beating this charge. The appeals process is a long and lengthy one with no guarantee of success.

The clock is ticking on the charge, if you haven't decided to fight it yet. The "right lane exits" SIGN, if it was in Toronto, has to be bilingual. If the SIGN is not bilingual, you can cite the FLSA and the case R. v Myers indicating that the sign is invalid. York Region, however, is NOT a designated bilingual area per the French Language Services Act and the sign can be in English only and still be valid. I mention this because, as you know, Steeles is the boundary between Toronto and York Region. Take a photo of the sign with a date-time stamp, if it is English only AND in Toronto.

Also, French Language Services Act designates that Government of Ontario ministries and some agencies must have French language services available. If you want to bet the farm that the officer not writing French on the ticket is sufficient to quash it, that's your call, but here's a link to the agency responsible for enforcing FLSA:

http://www.ofa.gov.on.ca/english/FLSA.html.

They'd be able to tell you who's obligated to use French and who isn't. From experience, the courts in Ottawa, which is extremely bilingual, get about one case a month where a Francophone got a ticket with only English written on it by the officer. My friend with the Ottawa Police was in court on more than one occasion where the argument that "French wasn't written on the ticket by the cop" was tried as a reason to quash it. It failed every time. Not saying it can't work but you should be aware of that.