OHTA.ca

Court Date = Wed Aug 25th

Incident - Was travelling Eastbound on 401, pulled into 3rd lane to pass a car. Before I know it, I notice the cop car behind me who is after me, at this point I do not know why. He comes to the window, says I have you doing 140 and issues me a ticket for 140. Go to the Early Resolution where they tell me that they can not offer me a reduced fine as the officer has already marked the ticket as reduced. Get the Disclosure notes that show that the ticket was originally for 142 km/h.

Additionally, the disclosure notes include 2 points of issue I question (will copy out the Diclosure Note in the next post in it's entirity):

1) First it reads "Moving E/B on hwy 401" and then in the sentence it reads "Observed vehicle traveling W/B on hwy 401". Doe the fact that the ticket does not have my correct direction of travel allow me to build a defence on the correctness of the disclosure?

2) Radar type of G2S - Radar Tested at 0615 and Radar Re-Test at 1207 hour...the dte at the top of when the officer recorded the Evidence states 1207 - is it possible that he was testing it when he got my speed?

3) For the reduction of 2 km/h...I view this as the officer forcing a trial by removing the Prosecutors ability to offer me a lower fine. It does not save me demit points. Is there a defense that can be built on this?

I appreciate all feedback and love the assistance offered in this site. Thanks for the support!

Another question - This ticket was issued from the Durham Regional Police Service...do they have jurisdiction to be issuing tickets on the 401? It was my understanding that the OPP were the only ones who could issue a ticket there.

Diclosure in full:

DURHAM REGIONAL POLICE SERVICE

Narrative Text Hardcopy

TK# 0-PO

Narrative: Invest Action MCMS 2

Evidence

Author: #### Officer Name

Related Date: Date of Issue at: 12:07

----------------------------------------------

Evidence of PC officer & ####

Date (day listed as 123 otherwise correct) Roads: Dry (it was raining)

Weather: Cloudy Visibility: Good

Other Traffic none

Detail #### Vehicle ####

Moving E/B on highway 401

Observed vehicle traveling

W/B on highway 401 in center lane moved to left lane and passed a vehicle at a hight rate of speed

Plate# #### (correct)

Traveling at a higher rate of speed contrary to the posted limit of 100 km.h

Speed of 142 km/h locked in by radar

Radar Type: G2S Serial # #####

Ultralyte Laser Sin# (nothing here)

Radar tested at 0615 hours

Radar re-test at 1207 hours

1 Self test. 2. Display test

All tests passed

I am a trained and qualified laser/radar operator and instructor

Laser is a device used to accurately measure the speed of a motor vehicle.

I did not lose sight of the motor vehicle

Driver identified by

Valid DL

Permit Y

Insurance Y

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I removed anything that would identify myself or the officer but otherwise this is exactly as the notes read.[/i]

The Durham Regional police DO have jurisdiction on the 401.

The same as an OPP officer has jurisdiction to pull you over in city limits.

I believe you can still be offered a reduction but not until JUST before trial on the scheduled date.

The crown will meet with all of the charged people for the day and make offers to plea guilty to lesser charges, if you don't feel confident in trial take the plea to a lesser charge.

Going to trial is definitely a good idea though because you have very little to lose if the ticket is amended back to 142 by the crown.

GL

Keep us updated.

I've heard also that Officers are now rewarded to be present for court dates...are any of my rights infringed upon by the 2 km/h reduction that has forced me to take this to the court date?

Seems like a pretty shady thing to do, lower it by 2 km to force a court date so that the officer can receive a reward if I fight it! Not something I would think the courts would was to promote.

I do not believe what the officer did was wrong. =/

Most officers WILL round down the speed because there is always that +/- range of potential error in the speed measuring device. Usually not anything more than +/-3km/hr error.

So the officer rounded down to 140 even though his radar probably did read 142. There really isn't anything wrong with this action.

And as far as I had always known it has always been this way that you will get offered your lesser fine USUALLY just before trial is about to proceed.

So the officer I wouldn't say FORCED you into going to trial but it is definitely a good idea for you to do so, since, like I said in my last post, you have very little to lose in terms of an amendment back to 142.

I guess I can understand that...still feels forced but it explains how it could be unintentional...more a bad set-up in the process vs. officers attempt.

Thank you for the feedback.

Any other ideas on an actual defense? Starting to feel like I am going to court hoping the officer doesn't show up. Or hoping that they offer a good reduction...though that will not help out the insurance side of things!

I don't have any experience in the court but I have read a lot of threads on here pertaining to fighting speeding in court and it can be done successfully.

In your disclosure request did you ask for the manual of the radar/lidar?

It sounds like he tested the device properly in his notes.

You have a point that you can try and make saying that he said you were going the wrong direction on the highway and it was raining when he said it was dry.

If you can create enough doubt about the accuracy of his notes then you can say that anything he reads from his notes may be wrong or have errors in them and if the officer can't use his notes then guaranteed the officer won't recall the evidence from memory and you could win based on lack of evidence to charge you.

Were there other cars around you? It sounds from the notes that he kept a good eye on you as well. Hard to raise doubt.

If you aren't confident you can win and really you don't have a super strong argument or enough different ones then when you go to first attendance with the prosecutor raise the point that you will fight the ticket based on these reasons and bring up his notes having errors and things and that will likely encourage him/her to accept a plea to an even lesser charge because they don't want to risk you fighting and having the charge dismissed.

I have only ever had 1 ticket in 5 years of driving.

clocked 68 in a 40 - community safety zone in Bresleau... was going to the airport and should have taken fountain and didn't realize it was a safety zone that was only 40.

The officer was nice enough to drop it to 10 over but the fine was doubled.. to 66 dollars or something.

The problem is insurance doesn't care whether its 10 or 40 over.. your premium will go up..

It was my first moving violation of speeding (first violation of any kind) and my insurance went up 5% for 3 years = 240 + 66 = 306 dollars COST for the ticket.

The whole point of all that is to tell you that unless you get tonnes of tickets with points on them on a regular basis, the points themselves don't matter, its the number of any kind of moving violation, even 10km over, that's why fighting it and having it dropped is the best option to save you the most money over time.

Wish I could say this was my first offense...got a previous ticket the day after my birthday for 27 over in an unmarked area (still say there was no way I was going that fast but then there is a theme starting), no sticker on plate or license (sticker was at home on my counter). Early resolution dropped the sticker tickets and lowered the speeding to 15 over...I thanked them very kindly and got out of dodge!

The is the only other offense on the record...all other tickets were >3 years old.

So yeah, unfortunately my concern is the insurance. I have no issue with the fine itself if proven guilty...but unfortunately to hire representation with the possiblity of only getting a lower fine in addition to thier charges for thier time does become a bit strapping. So I am planning to represent myself knowing that I have a fool for a client!