OHTA.ca

Today I was travelling on an Oshawa road. I was clocked at 82 in a 50 zone rounding a right turn. I was the first in a group of vehicles.

I was ticketed for 65 in a 50 after explaining I was late for a Chiropractic appointment.

I am a truck driver by trade. Currently, I have a driving record that includes a 91 in a 40 ticket (stunt racing) from January 2007 and a 70 in a 60 ticket from March 2010.

The stunt driving ticket I received was well deserved. Before anyone judges me, I learned from that experiance and have paid through the teeth for it, deservedly.

My more recent ticket for 70 in a 60 was a mistake on my part. I was on a 2 lane road with soft gravel shoulders and fields on either side. For years I had assumed the road was an 80 zone. I was clocked at 70 on this occasion. I paid up.

While I awknowledge that the ticket I received today was again well deserved, some situations in my life are making me question if I should fight it.

I've learned that my ex-girlfriend is pregnant, and because of this my father whom I currently live with has given me a month to move out (a week of which is gone now).

My employer, who hired me under the condition I receive no infractions on duty or off duty, has already turned a blind eye to my 10 over ticket. They told me the next ticket would result in my termination.

I have a twisted disc (T4) in my back that makes lifting extremly painful, and my job as a delivery driver means I am lifting 50-80 lb boxes of frozen and fresh meat all day. I had missed several appointments in the last week and had to wait over the holdiay weekend for another one. Hence my rush to cure the pain.

So with the consequence of becoming an unemployed father, I ask for advice in my situation. I am not trying to avoid all consequence. I am willing to pay any fine they see fit, even exceeding hundreds of dollars if it means that I do not get this ticket on my record. Will they go for that? Thoughts?

Thank you. Anything and everything you can contribute is appreciated.

Unfortunately for you, there is no way to accept responsibility for the ticket without having it on your record. People who accept responsibility for their actions with an early guilty plea often receive a reduced fine or the opportunity to plea the offence down, but it doesn't sound like those options work for your situation.

What you could do in your situation is hire a paralegal to fight the ticket for you. That is the most expensive option, but it probably represents your best chance of beating the ticket. However, if you do this, you have to reconcile pleading not guilty to an offence which you acknowledge you are guilty of.

You could, of course, represent yourself as well, but those are basically your options.

There are some rare occasions where a Crown Prosecutor may accept a very expensive municipal by-law infraction plea-bargain in exchange for dropping speeding. However, I do not want to get your hopes up and suggest that this is a guaranteed way of fixing this problem. It depends, entirely, on the Prosecutor. On some very rare cases, I've heard of people plea-bargaining to a $250+ parking ticket in exchange for dropping an HTA offence... but again, that's VERY rare.

Paralegal might be your best bet, if they're willing to take your case on.

I hired a Paralegal for my 51km/h over the limit (stunt racing) charge.

Since the Crown was not willing to lower the offence to speeding, I specifically told the paralegal that I was willing to pay a fine, however if possible that I did not want a suspension and least of all points, and I specifically told him to go to trial if he could not drop the points.

2 weeks after my court date and I haven't heard from him, so I call him up.

Him: "Good news! I got your fine dropped to $600!"

Me: "What about suspension and points?"

Him: "No suspension either! But you got all 6 points."

Me: "But... did you even go to court?"

Him: "Nope, we settled it all with the prosecuter."

Me: "Wow. Guess that is why you dropped out of law school."

After that experiance where exactly the opposite of what I wished to happen happened, I feel I could BETTER represent myself than half of the paralegals out there. I mean no disrespect to any paralegals here, there are morons in every profession.

That said, it is not problem of money. I have more than enough money to cover lawyers and fines, but I don't have the means to get another job or train for another career. It's hard enough to find a job in trucking, especially living in the east end of Toronto where unemployment is at the highest its been in decades.

I'd be willing to take ANY fine as long as it is not a moving violation, as that is where my insurance is affected.

Thanks for the responses! Again, I appreciate your time!