“Drive Under Suspension”

while pulling out of a local tim hortons this past friday i was follwed and subsequently pulled over by durham region police. the officer informed me that he was sitting in tim hortons randomly running plates and it came up that my licence was under suspension. when i questioned the officer he said " ya it is under suspension for unpaid child support and an unpaid fine" i had absolutely no idea that my licence had been suspended. i had never recieved any notice at all !! the officer gave me two supeonas for driving under suspension !!

i guess my question is two fold. 1. how can i be supeoned when i didnt even know i was under suspension and 2. how can the officer just " randomly run plates" last time i checked we lived in a domocracy and had a charter of rights and freedoms !!! is the police allowed to just " randomly run plates" ?

i am a law abiding citizen with no crimial history and honestly didnt know i was under suspension should the officer not have just advised me of the suspension and made me park the vehicle??

In Ontario the HTA is clear. All suspensions are deemed served after 7 days. As for family responsibility suspensions I highly doubt that you were not aware. It takes a lot of correspondence to get to that point and you knew you were not paying the child support.

Yes police can randomly run plates and yes we do not need any reason to stop a vehicle other than to check DL, registration, and insurance.

The thing that the officer did wrong is you can only be charged for driving under suspension once (unless they saw you drive, park get out and then drive away) even though there are multiple suspensions on the system. That is no biggie though as one of the summons will just be cancelled.

OPS

OPS Copper,

thank you for the info. I actually DID NOT know that the FRO suspended me. yes i fell behind a minimal amount in my child support ( $600.00) they had contacted me regarding the arrears. we came to an agreement to pay a little extra every month, which i was doing. after being pulled over and learning of the suspension i contacted the FRO to inquire about the suspension and was informed " well you didnt send it in in writting so we suspended you " so... although i was making the payments i failed to submit a form that i was never advised i needed to submit !!! and subsequently suspended.

Also regarding the traffic ticket. i really dont know why i didnt recieve notice of that. i live in a split house with a number of mail boxes and my best guess is it either ended up in somelses box or......... well i just dont know !! i dont know if you've ever dealt with these ppl but they are completely unreasonable. I also paid the FRO and the outstanding ticket 4 hours after being pulled over !

i quess my main concern now is what punishment am i potentially looking at if convicted? my friend tells me that the court will take my licence for a year and a $1000.00 fine. i have a great job and am ok with the fine but i NEED my DL to keep my job

Thanks again for your reply

Bulldozer

The maximum penalty you could face would be a $5000 fine and 6 months in jail, although I doubt they will be that hard on you considering this is a first offence and you have already taken steps to resolve the issues that lead to your suspension. Your licence will also be suspended for an additional 6 months. When you do get your licence back you can also expect a pretty big jump in your insurance costs. If you can afford it, I think it might be wise to consider hiring a paralegal to represent you given the serious nature of the charge. They might be able to mount a defense to the charge or at least plea-bargain it down to something less serious.