OHTA.ca

I was doing a 71km/h in a 50km/h zone, as ridiculous as that one is already, when the officer asked me to surrender my insurance and ownership card I only had a bunch of old slips in my car, but my insurance IS up to date, just that the insurance papers were at home.

I got 3 tickets (written exactly as it says):

1) speeding 71km/h in a 50km/h zone

2) fail to have insurance card

3) drive motor vehicle no currently validated permit

my question is, for the fail to have insurance card part....am I being fined for not having it physically in my car? or they assume I do not have insurance? may I go to court to at least have this fine reduced?

also i do not understand the third one.....he said it was not currently validated(is this because the sticker is not stuck on the back of the sheet), basically when he asked me to show him this stuff, i just gave him a pile of documents and he picked the few to take back to his car. one of the sheets that he saw and gave back to me was the sheet with the stickers on it. did he give me a ticket for having the sticker and not sticking it on the back of the ownership paper?

1) Yes, you're being charged for not having proof of insurance with you. If the officer believed you had no insurance, you would have received a summons to Court and be facing a $5000 fine.

2) When you renew the validation for your plate, you receive a sticker. The sticker has a smaller strip on the bottom that you're supposed to place on the back of the ownership to show it matches the one on the vehicle.

I think if you go to Court you'll have a very good chance of getting the fines reduced. Typically if you're willing to plead guilty, the Crown will offer a reduced fine and/or drop one or more of the charges.

what if i don't plea guilty

Then you'd have to go to trial and the Crown would need to prove their case against you.

That being said, by your own admission you didn't have proof of insurance, nor was your ownership properly validated at the time of the stop. Neither offence is very difficult to prove (unlike the speeding charge which is somewhat more complicated in terms of evidence) and I'm not sure how you plan on fighting them.

Edit: I should add I'm not 100% certain that you legally need to have validation affixed to the back of the ownership. You're supposed to, but I'm not sure if it's law. Hopefully someone else can clarify.

Stanton wrote:Edit: I should add I'm not 100% certain that you legally need to have validation affixed to the back of the ownership. You're supposed to, but I'm not sure if it's law. Hopefully someone else can clarify.

Yes, the permit must be "validated" on the back, which is exactly as you mentioned.

When you renew your validation there is 2 validation stickers, one to validate the plate, the other to validate the permit.