OHTA.ca

Hello everyone - I was hoping someone could shine some light on my situation.

I received a speeding ticket about 2 months ago in the Owen Sound area. I was driving my friends vehicle, when his speedometer reading dropped to zero (stopped working though the car kept driving). I realize the law would probably say pull over and call a tow, but i was about 5 km away from my destination where i hoped to fix the issue. I pushed on, and to my luck was clocked going 81 in a 60 (i tried my best to drive the limit, but as the only car on the road it was hard to gauge speed accurately). I told the officer my situation, he gave me a speeding ticket anyways, and told me to fix the car... Since then, I seemed to have misplaced the ticket and was patiently awaiting a followup letter to come in the mail - nothing has arrived (its been over 2 months).

I have 2 questions:

1. If nothing comes in the mail, does that mean I got lucky and they "lost" the case, or the cop never filed the ticket? Should I call their local courthouse and ask - in which case if they forgot about it would it restart the process? If i don't receive anything in the mail and never pay/follow up on the ticket what would happen, seeing as i got no notification or followup?

2. If the ticket has been filed, can I fight the speeding charge since my time to appeal for court has probably run out? and would I fair a decent chance with the defense of my speedometer not working (the cop was told this at the scene)?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thank you,

George.

1) You should probably contact the court. If everything was filed correctly you may even be a suspended driver by now. All correspondence would have been sent to the address that the MTO has on file for you. If nothing was filed you may have just been lucky, however the officer can still relay the charge by way of a Part III Summons up to 6 months after the offence date.

2) You can apply to have the case re-opened but there is no guarantee that it will be. The defense of a non functioning speedometer won't help and may even hinder you.

Gman wrote:If nothing comes in the mail, does that mean I got lucky and they "lost" the case, or the cop never filed the ticket? Should I call their local courthouse and ask - in which case if they forgot about it would it restart the process? If i don't receive anything in the mail and never pay/follow up on the ticket what would happen, seeing as i got no notification or followup?

As already stated, you should be more worried that you aren't already driving on a suspended license. People claim not receiving notices all the time. It isn't going to stop the MTO from putting a suspension on you.

Ignoring your ticket is a bad decision to make. It's not going to go away. There's plenty of people who come here asking for advice on being charged with a suspended license because they decided to ignore their ticket and didn't realize they had been suspended.

I'd suggest you try to find a solution sometime soon before you get in a really big hole.

Gman wrote:2. If the ticket has been filed, can I fight the speeding charge since my time to appeal for court has probably run out? and would I fair a decent chance with the defense of my speedometer not working (the cop was told this at the scene)?

That is not a defense.

Speeding is what's known as an absolute liability offence. In essence, the Court isn't interested in why you were speeding, just if you were speeding. Thats why a broken speedometer isn't a valid defence.