Charged With Failure To Stop During A U-turn Please Help
I have been charged with Failure to stop or Proceed before green. Basically what happened was pretty simple, I'm at a big intersection with 3 lanes and I was just making a simple U-Turn and I arrived at the Left turn lane during green light (First car at the left turn lane) my cars position is just above pedestrian crossing rear tires would probably be at the pedestrian crossing not in the middle of the road (My reason for this position is so that I don't make a wide U-turn because I've seen some accidents happen this way) , the street was very busy mind you it happened at one of the busiest streets in Mississauga during rush hour around 4 to 5pm. So I waited patiently until I could do it, some cars ran the yellow light so when I initiated my U-turn I believe its almost red and as soon as I did after about 3-4 seconds later I saw flashing lights and pulled over to the side of the road as quickly as I could. This is my first time getting pulled over and so my mind just went blank I didn't know what happened and I think I was having a mental breakdown and I didn't manage to explain to the officer what happened, I remember the officer saying to me that my "U-turn is legal but what happened there?" and I just said "I don't know officer, I just made a U-turn" and then he went back to his car and then came back and handed me a ticket saying I failed to stop/ proceed before green and that was it. Sorry I know its a long read I really appreciate this if you could give me some tips on how to handle this, I have the trial coming up on the 23rd of January. A little more info, I requested for disclosure and they sent it to me the officer is claiming that he saw my rear tires behind the white line and front tires is at the pedestrian crossing and hes claiming that he watched the traffic light turn green yellow then red then he saw me make a U-turn, if thats the case then I think he would have been at the left turn lane but not at least 3-4 cars behind because I checked my side mirrors a couple of times and I didn't see any police cars. I know it's his word against mine so this make it really hard for me but i'm 100% sure that I was past the white line and my rear tires is at at least the pedestrian crossing and front tires passed it. Would it be better if I upload the disclosure and what do you guys think if my case, do I have any chance or should I just ask to lower the sentence? I really don't want this to be in my driving record and my insurance going up. I could upload sort of the diagram showing my cars position in the street if that would help. Anyway I hope you guys can help on this and again I know its a long read but THANKS.