“Failure To Obey Officer Directing Traffic Sitting In Car”

I was travelling southbound on highway 11 just north of Huntsville. I was in the right hand lane when I passed a cruiser sitting on the shoulder with its lights on . There was no other car around and the officer was sitting in his car. Within seconds of passing, he came after me and pulled me over. He said I disobeyed the "pull over law". However, the ticket I was given was for "failure to obey an officer directing traffic". It's $110.00 and 3 points. I believe it's considered a major and would definetly affect insurance.

I hired a paralegal who had it reduced to "disobey a lane light". The Crown felt that they had a good case and could win it. This is is a minor with no points. Another court date has been set so I can accept the reduced fine or continue to fight it. Both the paralegal and associates recommend taking it further.

I would really like to fight it but if I lose then my insurance would most likely go up. I'm not concerned about the points.

Any suggestions would be appretiated.

Even a 0 demerit point conviction will affect your insurance. Demerit points and insurance companies are two deffirent things. Inusrance companies do not look at and do not care about demerit points. For example, if you get a speeding ticket, all your insurance company only sees a SPEEDING CONVICTION and how much over is irrelevent. They do not care if it was 1 over (0 demerits) or 49 over (4 demerits)... it is a MINOR SPEEDING CONVICTION and therefore your rates may go up .

Insurance companies only rate tickets as Minor or Major or Serious and it is not based on demerit points. So you should call and verify directly with your insurance company how they rate each of the charges you mentioned above. Insurance companies may not raise your rates for Minor but most likely they will raise rates for a Major or Serious.

Now on to the charge of "failure to obey an officer directing traffic" ... if the officer was simply in his vehicle on the side of the road with his lights on, then I would think the Crown does NOT have a good case at all as the officer laid the wrong charge. What is the exact section number of this charge (134 maybe)? And can you post a copy of the disclosure/officers notes?

Yes, the section number is 134.

What do officers notes say?

Charge should have been Sec 159. I don't believe the elements of Sec 134 are made out as you describe it.

frost wrote:

I would really like to fight it but if I lose then my insurance would most likely go up. I'm not concerned about the points.

Any suggestions would be appretiated.

How did this play out in the end for you?