“Failure To Stop For Emergency Vehicle”

Before my story I do realize the rules are your supposed to pull over and reduce speed to come to a stop right away when a cop puts on his sirens/lights.

3 unpaid Internships couldn't afford to spend $100 on a license sticker. 4 months later a cop is behind me so I drive extra perfect. 1 LANE main road in Guelph. Gordon Street. Heavy traffic both ways.

OCT 5/15

-Cop puts on siren, first 8 seconds nobody is pulling over and yes I'm the first car in front of him but nobody pulls over and I didn't think it was for me. Also bumper to bumper so didn't know what to do.

-You get told the rules once at 16 in drivers ed then actually get in the situation 8 years later, not fresh, but nobody else pulled over made me confused so I just followed the pack.

-Next 8 seconds I reduced speed to 5km/hour yes that is right 5KM PER HOUR SIGNALLING RIGHT showing him I would obviously turn off to the right as soon as I get a chance! I DID NOT FEEL IT WAS SAFE to pull over which would put both our cars halfway on the lane and put him in danger getting out of his car and walking over. I was trying to save his life by not making him do that afterall there was no danger or risk I was simply driving 5km hour.

-so total of 16 seconds and the last 8 seconds took 8 seconds as there was no immediate side street.

-pulled over to side street and 30 feet in came to a stop on a quiet residential street. Where he comes rushing over yelling give me the keys. I'm just a 24 year old University kid going to an exam.

-Fines for expired sticker, failure to show car insurance (I had last years in my wallet - new ones in my room), failure to show ownership papers (they were in my room) AND FAILURE TO STOP FOR EMERGENCY VEHICLE.

-I feel if he had a soul he could of told me all the rules and I would of never did this again and perhaps he could of suggested we drive over to my place 3 minutes away to fix the problem by getting my papers into my wallet from my room and giving me a few hours to come back to meet him at the station showing I went to get new sticker. NOPE nothing, no compassion, not trying to help the slightest bit!

-Went to court to save any money I could and didn't know what I was doing. Some guy calls me into the office before court and says we will drop the 3 minor fines (papers) if you please guilty for the failure to stop so me being a broke recent grad agreed because that was like saving 50% off the money. Asked for 2 months in court to pay off the fines, moved out of town shortly after so didn't get any mail. Came back a few months ago to check mail and saw the outstanding fines and license is suspended due to unpaid fines but called in to pay the fines right away but was okay with the suspended license because I cancelled my car insurance as I had no car anymore.

FEB 6/16

-1 at fault "accident", after leafs game packed gardiner expressway truck 50 feet ahead slams on breaks so I slam on mind but momentum carries me into the back of his truck and I lightly tap his. 0 whiplash, front end of my car gets a bit banged up. He has 2 small scratches on his truck bumper. He comes out shakes my hand very calm not worried says its nobodies fault it happens. Police report says driver decided not to press charges but went through insurance to claim the scratches and get that fixed. I loose my car and give it to tow truck driver and cancel insurance.

-Fast forward to now where I get offered a job that requires a car, almost bought the actual car but calling for car insurance quotes I won't get insured because of the major conviction of the failure to stop for emergency vehicle as of the highway traffic act even though I was right in the middle of town. So subjective. That sounds like I never stopped and or I was trying to escape or get away like it was some sort of serious 5 km per hour chase?! There was no danger or nothing bad happening I thought I was being safe and it was all because of a expired sticker.

-I'm 26 and now I will have to turn down that job offer that requires a car because it looks like I can't get car insurance and was recommended to call a high risk provider but I don't even want to as that sounds like 1000 a month I'm guessing. I don't feel I should even be in that category. I'm not going to be a looser who takes the bus and can't drive to work or pickup a date from ages of 26-29 for that nonesense. Totally unfair and in human and unethical.

wow

I cannot follow your logic.

as to car...just rent one.It actually works better as all cost are deductible from taxes.(if car needed for work)

at least now you know to pull over.

Cheers

Viper1

I didn't actually see a question there.

Insurance companies rate tickets in one of three categories: Minor, Major & Serious.

I have not looked into it myself, but it sounds like you are saying the Failure To Stop is a Major. Basically you pleaded guilty to it, so there is nothing you can do now. As you can see, sometimes it is better to have several minor offences than even one major.

Anyways, there is nothing you can do about it until it goes away in October 2018.

As to viper1 suggestion of renting a car, I never thought of that before, but renting by the month might be cheaper than buying a car and trying to insure it.

TylerCollins wrote:I feel if he had a soul he could of told me all the rules and I would of never did this again and perhaps he could of suggested we drive over to my place 3 minutes away to fix the problem by getting my papers into my wallet from my room and giving me a few hours to come back to meet him at the station showing I went to get new sticker. NOPE nothing, no compassion, not trying to help the slightest bit!

This will sound harsh but it is what it is. It is not the officer's job to tell you the rules; it is your job to know them. Nor should he let you drive to get your insurance slip; what if it turned out you didn't have insurance ? You are required to have valid registration; enforcement doesn't work that you don't pay the permit until you are caught.

You are in a pickle but are taking no responsibility for it. You didn't have 2 pieces of required documentation, you didn't know what to do when confronted by a police vehicle with activated emergency equipment and you drive into the back of another vehicle. All of those were your fault. It isn't a surprise that your insurance company considers you a risk.

argyll wrote:

TylerCollins wrote:I feel if he had a soul he could of told me all the rules and I would of never did this again and perhaps he could of suggested we drive over to my place 3 minutes away to fix the problem by getting my papers into my wallet from my room and giving me a few hours to come back to meet him at the station showing I went to get new sticker. NOPE nothing, no compassion, not trying to help the slightest bit!

This will sound harsh but it is what it is. It is not the officer's job to tell you the rules; it is your job to know them. Nor should he let you drive to get your insurance slip; what if it turned out you didn't have insurance ? You are required to have valid registration; enforcement doesn't work that you don't pay the permit until you are caught.

You are in a pickle but are taking no responsibility for it. You didn't have 2 pieces of required documentation, you didn't know what to do when confronted by a police vehicle with activated emergency equipment and you drive into the back of another vehicle. All of those were your fault. It isn't a surprise that your insurance company considers you a risk.

REPLY -

Ok but the thing is I'm the most normal good citizen there is. The point is I had the best intentions and thought I was being safe and knew the whole thing was super small being a sticker issue so I didn't think it was safe to pull over when there literally isb't really anywhere to pull over as it's a one lane street and didn't think I needed to hold up the main street in Guelph for a sticker and didn't want to the officer to almost get hit by a car walking over so I thought the right thing to do logically was to show him I'm getting off the road by signalling so we can handle his extremely small nothing (sticker problelm) so I had the best intentions it's not like I was trying to escape I was going 5km per hour, like the Cop has to be more human i this case this is almost next to being a nazi. LIke who are you to change my life like that because I couldn't afford a sticker and handled the pulliing over part 16 seconds to late at 5km per hour thinking I was doing the right thing.

None of this is even in the same universe as being fair justice for my "actions" how is this even happening this is just like nazis. ALSO I did have insurance papers but they were a few weeks old. They ended in September and his happened October 5th. As a new grad trying to find jobs and studying part time in university I'm sure when I got the slips in the mail sthe phone rang then I forgot about putting it into my wallet or whatever, the point is he called my insurance company to verify that I did so YES he could of followed me to mjy house 2 minutes west of this spot or gave me 12 hours to meet up with him with my papers.

The light tap on the busiest highway in Canada was totally seperate from this the main tickets. The failure to stop for emergency vehicle (16 seconds instead of instantly and those no up to date insurance papers) those are all from October. When the truck on the highway slammed on his brakes in front of me that was in February. Listen, I bet you 70% of the time a truck slams on his breaks fully on a major highway he will get rear ended. That is extreme to slam the breaks and go from 100 to 0 in 3 seconds. Yet it's my fault. And when I'm on the highway as a passenger I see people giving way less space than I did allll the time.

At the end of the day I'm not a criminal for god sake, I had the best intentions and the cop didn't have to go to the extreme. This is not too far off from the holocaust, I can believe something like this has happened in Canada. He's someones naighbor, son, father, like were all Canadian why would he want to mess someone up so much for basically nothing. I wasted 8 seconds of his time driving 5km in front of him but I wasn't drunk driving hitting pedestrians and trying to escape, I just was doing unpaid internships and couldn't afford stickers and when I realized I was getting pull over for a sticker it was such a minor problem that I thought why pull over and hold up the whole city of guelph since I don't think any cars would be able to pass by since it's one lane and heavy traffic, no room!

On the off chance you're not a troll comparing what happened to you with the Holocaust is shameful. Getting a traffic ticket and genocide is just a ridiculous thing to compare.

By your admission you didn't forget about your sticker, you actually knew you didn't have valid registration and just decided that everyone else should pay for the use of the roads apart from you.

By your admission, you ignored the emergency lights for the first 8 seconds. It is up to the officer to decide where to pull you over. Had they felt it was not safe they would have followed you until it was safe before initiating the traffic stop. You admit you didn't know what to do when you are required to do so.

You say your rear end collision was a minor tap, yet it was enough to get your vehicle towed. People slam brakes on for all sorts of reasons and it rarely causes a collision. If you are unable to react quickly enough then leave more room.

You then didn't bother to pay your fines so got suspended.

You aren't a criminal because none of your charges are criminal in nature. You are, however, someone who seems to think that the Highway Traffic Act doesn't apply to them. You rolled the dice and lost. You will now have to answer yes when you are asked if your licence has ever been suspended. Yes you're busy as a new grad looking for work, so is the single parent juggling job and kids and yet they too are expected to have their insurance face papers.

There are consequences for actions and you are finding that out. You can continue to think the world is against you or accept that you messed up.

Stop acting like the world s owes you something and man up for your actions.

Our great canadian system of un-justice does not care about your intentions and there is nothing you can do about it now.

Lesson for you to learn... If you are not guilty of something, then don't plead guilty to it.

argyll wrote:On the off chance you're not a troll comparing what happened to you with the Holocaust is shameful. Getting a traffic ticket and genocide is just a ridiculous thing to compare.

By your admission you didn't forget about your sticker, you actually knew you didn't have valid registration and just decided that everyone else should pay for the use of the roads apart from you.

By your admission, you ignored the emergency lights for the first 8 seconds. It is up to the officer to decide where to pull you over. Had they felt it was not safe they would have followed you until it was safe before initiating the traffic stop. You admit you didn't know what to do when you are required to do so.

You say your rear end collision was a minor tap, yet it was enough to get your vehicle towed. People slam brakes on for all sorts of reasons and it rarely causes a collision. If you are unable to react quickly enough then leave more room.

You then didn't bother to pay your fines so got suspended.

You aren't a criminal because none of your charges are criminal in nature. You are, however, someone who seems to think that the Highway Traffic Act doesn't apply to them. You rolled the dice and lost. You will now have to answer yes when you are asked if your licence has ever been suspended. Yes you're busy as a new grad looking for work, so is the single parent juggling job and kids and yet they too are expected to have their insurance face papers.

There are consequences for actions and you are finding that out. You can continue to think the world is against you or accept that you messed up.

Stop acting like the world s owes you something and man up for your actions.

REPLY

To be perfectly honest, the first 8 seconds I had only one thought, this is 100% not for me as I'm driving perfectly. After nobody else pulled over in front of me I realized what could it be THEN it clicked in that I had an expired sticker so right away thats when I got into the whole being smart and logical and safe came in to not put him in danger as there is no room to pull over so cars wouldn't of had room to drive around since oncoming traffic and would put him in a great amount of danger and possibly hold up the main street in guelph as nobody would likely have room to pass so 8 seconds of driving 5km waiting for the nearest side street while signalling right.

I had an 2001 Camry and I caused 2 scratches on a fully stopped Ford F-150 on the highway. Who do you think is going to get more banged up? Also a large truck completely stopped on the gardiner expressway from 100-0 in 3 seconds will get hit 100% of the time.

I'm just saying the consequences are completely completely completely too much for nothing. Cops obviously have all the rules in their head and look for them, everyone else learns them once at 16 and never has to use 80% of them then all of a sudden they have to instantly remember everything, mistakes happen. 16 second mistake with 0 bad intentions shouldn't cause this bs. Who is the cop to change someones life like that honestly. They are someones neighbor, father, uncle, like I'm just another good Canadian citizen who helps their neighbor and opens doors, etc why should their be a side, were all Canadian but this seems way too divided, 0 help all harshness. Is that really what cops are there to do, I thought they were supposed to make a better community not ruin lives especially when there was nothing dangerous in nature or had any bad intent. It was just me being poor and having a busy life and genuinely and honestly thinking I was doing the smart and safe thing. This just doesn't need to be like this. I honestly don't feel a cop should have that much power over a great guy who basically didn't do anything wrong, just poor and super busy with lots to do.

How are you not seeing this, this situation is so rediculous and the consequences just don't match up one bit. You think I'm not going to pull over right away next time If I ever get pulled over again? I guess part of the problem is the insurance companies just having a code for a generic code. Failure to stop for an emergency vehicle doesn't really describe what happened and is in the same category of things that are 100x worse. How is the happening, the system is broken.

So next time you'll pull over right away but not this time? So what if he wasn't pulling you over, you still don't get to proceed merrily on your way. Instead you pull over as far as you can and let him pass.

If you can't remember the rules of the road as you were only taught them aged 16 then either take driving school again or stop driving. Oh wait, the system has taken care of that for you. Seems like it's working to me.

I get your frustration but nowhere have you actually admitted that any of this is your fault. You got 4 tickets and they dropped 3 of them. What did you think should happen, that they should drop them all? Seriously? And bottom line is they could have gone to trial for all of them as you were, by your own admission, guilty of them all: you didn't have valid registration, you didn't produce your documents on demand and you didn't pull over right away. All of those are slam dunks for the Crown who treated you very nicely. But you don't seem to recognise that.

jsherk wrote:Our great canadian system of un-justice does not care about your intentions and there is nothing you can do about it now.

Lesson for you to learn... If you are not guilty of something, then don't plead guilty to it.

....... Except he was guilty of it. Drivers don't get to guess why the police have activated their emergency equipment. They just get out of the way and the copper will reach whichever vehicle he wants.... Or continue on to an incident in progress.

Only guilty because he pleaded guilty. Otherwise innocent until proven guilty. So always plead not guilty and make them prove it.

I think 8 seconds is not an unreasonable time to give somebody to pull over, and then pulling onto a side street to get out of busy traffic is also not an unreasonable thing to do. If all charges had gone to trial, this is most likely the one that they would not have been able to prove.

Absolutely not. He continued driving in his lane without signal, slowing or moving over for 8 seconds. That is a slam dunk conviction. The courts take the free passage of emergency vehicles very seriously. The officer's testimony alone would convict forcing the OP to take the stand where he would have had to purjure himself or tell the story in the original post where he didn't pull over because no one else did.

Crown must have been busy that day because that's one of the easiest convictions going.

Although I must say I would have paid to see the trial where he compares his 4 tickets to being a victim of the Holocaust. Maybe the judge would even have been Jewish for added effect.

I still think he's a troll because we haven't had someone on the site this deluded in a long while.

argyll wrote:Absolutely not. He continued driving in his lane without signal, slowing or moving over for 8 seconds. That is a slam dunk conviction. The courts take the free passage of emergency vehicles very seriously. The officer's testimony alone would convict forcing the OP to take the stand where he would have had to purjure himself or tell the story in the original post where he didn't pull over because no one else did.

Crown must have been busy that day because that's one of the easiest convictions going.

To be perfectly honest. I did know your supposed to pull over right away but the actual problem was I felt there was no pulling over to be physically be done as it was a 1 lane and maybe 5 feet max of going to the left before I hit the curb and bumper to bumper traffic. The whole principal was I thought it didn't make sense as there just is no room for cars to pass around as heavy oncoming traffic! That was only why I didn't immediately pull over.

Guys I'm just saying there was sooo much good intentions and logic here that I feel the consequences are out of this world rediculous like how is there 0 warnings for problems like this when it caused no harm to anybody just wasted 16 seconds total of his time to be safe and get off the road to not hold up traffic.

Sounds like I should of challenged this in court and he wasn't even there and this likely would of gone a different way as 3 cops I called yesterday told me I should of fought it and call the courts first thing tomorrow morning.

My best friend who is the same age as me and grew up 20 feet away as my neighbor, his dad was a cop and like my second father who took us hunting, fishing, gun club, etc. He died last year and I drove 10 hours to go back home to his funeral. My grandfather who i respect more than anybody in the world is a retired opp officer who attends annual conventions still and is a lions club member. I'm the most normal good guy there is I just don't think i should have these consequences, they are way too harsh by far.

Again I think it's clear nothing was major about what happened and I thought I was being logical and smart for the smallest issue in policing, an expired sticker.

Should of fought it, I will call court tomorrow morning and see what happens. Until now I have to wait until tomorrow morning to see if I can get car insurance from a high risk provider.

Cops should also be accountable for the impact of their decisions. What is this guys problem, he just didn't need to use excessive force. Before you screw someone over that bad tell me all the rules and perspective and that will solve the issue, it's over, let me speak about my side. Why does if have to be so divided and strict, especially for a non problem really, just didn't have papers in my car when I do own and have insurance. It's just too much.