“Ticketed Despite Wearing A Seat Belt”

Hello all,

I've just joined this forum which I think is a great idea for people to get help regarding traffic offence related issues. My situation is as described below.

I and my Mom were travelling in our car (Toyota 2007 Corolla) on a major road. My mom was driving the car and I was in the passenger seat and we both had our seat belts on. After we entered a plaza off the road, we heard a siren and saw a police car behind us, indicating that we were to pull over. At this point I made a couple of mistakes. First I took off my seat belt to reach into my wallet containing my driver's licence while opening the door. Then the cop came over and asked for both our licences and vehicle ownership. He then went over and checked them, came back and mentioned that he had been following the car for some time the reason he asked us to pull over is that I was not wearing my seat belt. Here I made the second mistake by trying to explain to him that I had been wearing my belt all along and that I had just taken it off. He thought that I was lying and gave me a $240 ticket. I went to court with this to sort it out with the prosecutor, but she did'nt accept my plea of not guilty.

I then decided to go to court with this. As defence I plan to mention that my Toyota Corolla uses a safety feature whereby the seat belt alarm goes off if either the driver or passenger dont have their belt on. On that particular day the alarm did not go off. Do you think this is enough to make a good defence? Do I have a chance since its my word against the officer's word. Is there anything else I can do in defence?

Thanks, all suggestions greatly appreciated.

Ronak

What you are saying happened is not a "defence", it's your version of the facts. You can present that the the Justice of the Peace at a trail and the officer can present theirs. It is then up to the JP to decide whether your story raises reasonable doubt. If they disbelieve you then a conviction will likely follow.

ronak_kc wrote:Here I made the second mistake by trying to explain to him that I had been wearing my belt all along and that I had just taken it off. He thought that I was lying and gave me a $240 ticket. I went to court with this to sort it out with the prosecutor, but she did'nt accept my plea of not guilty.

Ronak

Did you show the officer your driver's license?