OHTA.ca

Some Durham Police have the ability to print tickets via their on board computer and swiping your drivers license.

I however have one question regarding these tickets. The officer's name is printed by the computer in the signature area of the ticket. The officer HAS NOT SIGNED at all.

My understanding of the law suggests that it is imparative that the officer signs to validate the information on the ticket as a computer is not a peace officer and has no authority under the HTA. Otherwise can I sign my Drivers License or Passport using computer text, Times New Roman?

Can anyone confirm my understanding of the law and if this is a Fatal Error

Interesting, I have never heard of that!

We have 2 different electronic methods, that prints the offence notice out, but we still have to area to sign as it's left blank.

It should be a fatal error. When you get a ticket there are two parts. First you broke some law (e.g. speeding is against the Highway Traffic Act). Second, the process of charging you (i.e. the officer handing you a ticket) is covered under the Provincial Offences Act (POA).

A signature is required under section 3(2) of the POA.

Most people think any error is a fatal flaw. But POA section 34 allows the court to correct defects in the ticket. The flaws that are truly fatal are:

• no offence date;
• no defendants name (if your name is misspelled, the ticket still counts);
• no location;
• missing officers signature;
• unknown offence (e.g. speeding 70kh/hr in a 64km/hr zone);
• the filing date is beyond seven days (for Part 1 offences).

Thank you for the quick replies.

This information should aid in fighting my friends ticket.

Does anyone have any case related information that could be quoted before the plea of not guilty. Links to a relevant case or perhaps you can send me a message with any helpful info.

I have attempted to fight a ticket at the Durham courts and they are not really fair and are pretty tough. I however have won an appeal but the appeal was at the criminal court and in front of a real judge and not a JP.

Thanks again all.

This is a database for Canadian law. Choose Ontario and try different word combinations. A thesaurus may come in handy.

radarscam wrote:Does anyone have any case related information that could be quoted before the plea of not guilty...

How about the Provincial Offences Act itself

PART I

(2) A provincial offences officer who believes that one or more persons have committed an offence may issue, by completing and signing, a certificate of offence certifying that an offence has been committed

ticketcombat wrote:It should be a fatal error. When you get a ticket there are two parts. First you broke some law (e.g. speeding is against the Highway Traffic Act). Second, the process of charging you (i.e. the officer handing you a ticket) is covered under the Provincial Offences Act (POA).

A signature is required under section 3(2) of the POA.

Most people think any error is a fatal flaw. But POA section 34 allows the court to correct defects in the ticket. The flaws that are truly fatal are:

• no offence date;
• no defendants name (if your name is misspelled, the ticket still counts);
• no location;
• missing officers signature;
• unknown offence (e.g. speeding 70kh/hr in a 64km/hr zone);
• the filing date is beyond seven days (for Part 1 offences).

Thanks for the list TC. Just this morning, a co-worker approached me about a speeding ticket that had his address noted as "Cres." instead of "Drive". This was his first ever ticket (in 20 years) and he was anxious for me to tell him it's a fatal error. I had to give him the bad news.

For his introduction to challenging a ticket, I'll be sure to direct him to your website which I am thoroughly enjoying I initially had difficulty navigating it, but now know to just use the "Steps" tabs.

I'm glad you're here and look forward to reading more of your posts.

Thanks for your kind comments bookm. I'm glad you're enjoying my website. As you can tell, I'm still putting it together. I didn't want to wait until it was complete before launching it because there is lots of information there already that I hope people will find helpful. Probably by the end of the summer all of the offence strategies will be in place so people can just look up their charge and find out how to defend themselves.

On another note, radarscam (and probably a lot of you on this site), Bill 14 created a licensing requirement for paralegals. Prosecutors crack down pretty hard on anyone who isn't licensed and tries to defend someone else.

As long as defending someone is not your main business or main employment AND you are not receiving any benefit (money or otherwise) you can still defend them. The exemption to the licensing requirement is under the Law Society Act, By-law #4, Part 5, Section 30, sub 5 (pg 24). Print this and have it in your back pocket in case you get challenged in court about defending your friend.

ticketcombat wrote:

As long as defending someone is not your main business or main employment AND you are not receiving any benefit (money or otherwise) you can still defend them. The exemption to the licensing requirement is under the Law Society Act, By-law #4, Part 5, Section 30, sub 5 (pg 24). Print this and have it in your back pocket in case you get challenged in court about defending your friend.

Wow, even more useful information to aid me in defending my friend.

I will keep everyone posted as to the reslults of this challange. I have thought about becoming a traffic court agent and helping friends out with such information is just the begining. I think I'll have to consider taking a course. I wonder if there is one for just traffic agent or do I have to take a full paralegal course, that I belive is 2yrs, 4 semesters.

Thanks ticketcombat and hwybear

Bookm wrote:

ticketcombat wrote:It should be a fatal error. When you get a ticket there are two parts. First you broke some law (e.g. speeding is against the Highway Traffic Act). Second, the process of charging you (i.e. the officer handing you a ticket) is covered under the Provincial Offences Act (POA).

A signature is required under section 3(2) of the POA.

Most people think any error is a fatal flaw. But POA section 34 allows the court to correct defects in the ticket. The flaws that are truly fatal are:

• no offence date;
• no defendants name (if your name is misspelled, the ticket still counts);
• no location;
• missing officers signature;
• unknown offence (e.g. speeding 70kh/hr in a 64km/hr zone);
• the filing date is beyond seven days (for Part 1 offences).

Thanks for the list TC. Just this morning, a co-worker approached me about a speeding ticket that had his address noted as "Cres." instead of "Drive". This was his first ever ticket (in 20 years) and he was anxious for me to tell him it's a fatal error. I had to give him the bad news.

For his introduction to challenging a ticket, I'll be sure to direct him to your website which I am thoroughly enjoying I initially had difficulty navigating it, but now know to just use the "Steps" tabs.

I'm glad you're here and look forward to reading more of your posts.

Could someone tell me the name of the site??????

It's still under construction...

I think i like the site too. Now the question is do you have some legal training or education. If not how do you know so much about court preceedings????

Reflections wrote:I think i like the site too. Now the question is do you have some legal training or education. If not how do you know so much about court preceedings????

Reflections...have to remember that song many years ago... "Things that make you go hmm?

All topics described on the site match very well against the text written in a book I have called "The Law of Traffic Offences", by Scott C. Hutchison. This book is not a "How to beat your Ticket" type of deal. It's a legal manual illustrating important portions of the HTA and POA and how both prosecutors and defendants have been successful in both lower and higher courts. Now either the site was created while reading the book, or the procedures and strategies just confirm (independently) what the book teaches. Also, the site matches well with my own experiences in traffic court.

The book obviously goes into much greater detail about various offences, but TC's site has some very useful information that ISN'T in the book.

Thumbs up!

Thanks everyone for the positive comments. I just got back from vacation: three weeks in Europe where I enjoyed a far more "rational" driving experience.

Bookm, I've never read "The Law of Traffic Offences", by Scott C. Hutchison but it sounds like most of the literature on the topic. I have read Allan E. Scott's "Fight that Ticket in Ontario", John P. Allen's "Defending Provincial Offence Cases in Ontario", and of course, "The Annotated Ontario Highway Traffic Act" by Murray D. Segal.

But none of the books I found provided straightforward "how to fight your ticket" information. That's why I created the site, to give step by step instructions that would take away the intimidation and show people how to do it.