OHTA.ca

Hi Everyone,

I was caught speeding @54 km in a 40km zone. I have checked with my insurance company, and my premiums will go up even if the offence does not carry any demerit points. My question is, when I go to trial would I be able to bargain with the prosecutor(crown attorney to reduce this offence for say a parking violation to be paid inmediately? or an HTA offence which will not show up in my drivers abstract and will not affect my insurance premiums? Please let me know what would be the best option, so that this offence does not go into my drivers record..

Thanks in advance for your help..

Plea bargaining to a municipal by-law infraction sometimes works. Sometimes they'll go for a municipal disobey sign, etc., just make sure that you have a huge stack of paperwork to make it look like you're ready to fight tooth-and-nail. With a 14-over ticket, if it looks like you're all eager to get into a pitched battle in court, they'll be a little more willing to bargain, particularly if you go to them and say you want to save everyone's time, you just want to negotiate a municipal infraction, and so on... that is, if the 14-over is really the speed you were going at and the officer didn't knock it down at the roadside. Pretty much any and all HTA offences will show up on your abstract so it's in your interest to try to get a municipal infraction. FYI - some municipal infractions carry demerit points, but the reporting of the infraction to MTO tends to be a lot less reliable than for HTA offences.

Good luck with it.

Thank you Radar Identified,

Your information is greatly appreciated. Now would you know what kind of municipal offence does not carry demerit points and does not go on my abstract? Would it be failing to obey sign? What kind of sign, would that be?

Sorry about all the questions, is just that I want to be ready for my day in court...

Thanks again for all your help... Cheers!

The regulation that sets out which offences do and don't carry Ontario demerit points is:

Click on it for a LENGTHY list of things that carry points. Basically you need to know that:

- Municipal by-laws for speeding can still carry demerit points

- Municipal by-laws for "disobey sign" do NOT carry demerit points

So yeah, basically anything that sounds like "fail to obey sign," or "disobey official sign" under a municipal by-law would be okay. As far as the type of sign, usually it's just a catch-all, just make sure they don't try to get you with one that talks about prohibiting turns.

The funny thing is that, even though the "municipal speeding" infraction can have demerit points, it doesn't go on your driver abstract. Insurance companies can access your HTA/Criminal Code driving conviction record, but I'm not sure that it includes the demerit point total. Again, though, 14 over does not carry demerit points with an HTA conviction so I'm fairly sure that 14 over with a municipal speeding infraction wouldn't have it, either. Regardless, talk to the Crown Prosecutors and see what they say. Some municipalities have speeding by-laws, others just rely on the HTA, but there should be a by-law infraction you can plead to. In the mean time, you might want to put together a disclosure request just to be prepared if the Crown is reluctant to bargain.

Its very unlikely that any prosecutor in Ontario is going to drop a speeding ticket to a bylaw offense and there are no bylaw offenses for speeding tickets.

The best way to win the case is to set a date for trial. If you defend yourself depending upon the jurisdiction you have a 10 to 25% chance of going away, if you hire someone who knows how to run and trial and how to read the disclosure then the chance of winning goes up dramatically to about 80 to 90%.

I see many people here yelling "get the disclosure, get the disclosure" but unless you know whats suppose to be on the disclosure its not going to help you.

For speeding ticket trials there are very specific things that have to be in the officers notes.