“71 In 50 - Questions”

Yesterday around midnight, I was travelling north on Yonge near Finch, when I was pulled over by a cop for speeding and failure to provide my car ownership document.

I had already noticed the cop car parked in a carpark on the opposite side of the road in which I was travelling before I passed his vehicle. I am pretty sure I wasn't speeding and as I passed him I looked at my speedometer which was showing less than 50km/h which was nowhere near the 71 he showed me on his radar.

Now my question is if I were to take this to court, could I argue that because the officer was parked in a car park on the opposite side of the road; the reading that he obtained was in fact from another car going in the opposite direction on the side of the road which was closer to his vehicle?

I'm a bit confused as to how the officer measured speed if his vehicle was parked perpendicular to Yonge. Can speed guns measure the speed of cars if they are facing 90 degrees to the target?

If the above was a plausible argument, could the officer claim there were no cars apart from mine on the road at the time? There were cars on the road at the time moving in both directions as this section of Yonge is never quiet.

The officer did inform me that I had been videotaped from his car and our conversation was being recorded. Again, if my above argument is plausible, could I request to see this video footage to prove that there was indeed other cars moving in both directions at the time of the incident and if he failed to provide the video evidence would this work in my favour?

Finally, regarding my second ticket for failure to produce my car ownership documents. My wife who was my passenger at the time could not find the car ownership. The officer asked me where I keep the ownership and I said it should be in the glovebox. He told me to continue to look for it and bring it to him if I found it, otherwise stay in my car. My wife and I continued to look, but could not find it before the cop issued the second ticket. When I got home where there was more available light, I looked again in the glovebox for the ownership. I did find it eventually, sandwiched in one of the manuals in the car folder.

I had every intention of providing my car ownership, its just I could not find it in time. Therefore is it worth fighting this ticket or do i not have a leg to stand on regarding this offence?

I'd appreciate any advice or help anyone can offer.

In regards to speeding, a few points to consider. Quite often police will obtain a speed reading before you see them, the reading wasn't necessarily obtained when you first observed the cruiser. As well, if he showed you the radar reading, I'm assuming it was a handheld unit. With a handheld unit, the officer would simply point it right at your car eliminating any angle of offset. Most handheld units also have directional modes, where they can be set to measure the speed of vehicles moving in a particular direction (towards or away) or at least display the direction of the vehicle for which the reading was obtained.. The only sure way to answer all of these questions is to request disclosure and see what the actual evidence against you is.

As for your other ticket, the charge is for simply failing to surrender the document. The fact that you wanted to surrender the document but couldn't find it isn't a valid defence in Court. Regardless, if you go to Court, the Crown will quite likely drop one charge in exchange for a guilty plea on the other.

Thanks for the reply. Must appreciated.

Sorry, I forgot to ask, how do I request the disclosure?

JT8 wrote:Sorry, I forgot to ask, how do I request the disclosure?

send a request to the court where this happened (address will be on back of ticket, where you mail it in). and don't go all nuts on redundant information that you request in the disclosure, be specific to the incident.

Thanks for the help.