OHTA.ca

So yesterday late afternoon i was going south on Prince Phillips road and made a left on the intersection on Dixon Road, merge on the leftest lane and switch to the right drive and 460meters after the cop pulled me over, i must have gone around 65km/h. He said i was traveling at 69km/h and he dropped to 15kmh over with no points anyway, this is my 2nd speeding ticket and the first one was for 5km/h over on a 40km zone. I know thst dixon is a 60km/h zone but i wasnt aware that after royal york it drops down to 50kmh. So i figure it was the same speed. Today i did the same route and confirmed that at night and when youre turning left you cant see directly tht 50km sign, since youre on the look out for traffic and others cars and pedestrians when turning on an intersection. I called my broker and they said if my insurance sees these 2tickets im getting a 15% increase. So legally what can i do to dismiss this ticket? We are all humans and stuff happens. Also my record is clean besides that 5kmh over ticket. I really want to avoid a $400 annual increase for a $50 ticket.

I would plead NOT GUILTY and ask for Trial with officer present.

Once you get Notice of Trial, then you request dislcosure (officers notes, radar manual).

Once you get disclosure, then you can post it here and we can advise further.

This is a dime a dozen ticket. There are a lot of strategies but if the case is solid and there are no technicalities you may not be any better off. It never hurts to try if you have time so requesting a trial and reviewing disclosure is a good first step. If you want to see outcomes try searching the forum.

Thanks guys I will do that. Actually on my research last night a lot of the same advices were given to people with the same situation so im going with that thank you. Also how and when should i ask for disclosure? Thank you again!

Once you get your Notice of Trial, then that is when you send request for disclosure by sending letter to prosecutors office.

Search forum for "disclosure request" and you should find some examples

Heres the disclosure. It appears that the officer doesnt have memo book notes with evidence. Theres a narative text, anyways here it is:

It says that theres no evidence of the infraction(memo book). And im 100% sure i wasnt going at 69km. No way to prove it i guess. But it was a downhill, and from where he was standing i dont know if it was an accurate measurement, i really dont want this to go into my record at all.

So the notes look pretty good (as in good for the officer, not good for you).

Now if you take it trial to fight, they will raise it up to 19 over at the trial which means 3 demerits and a slightly larger fine. But remember demerits really don't mean much unless you already have 6 or more accumulated. And a 15 over ticket with 0 demerits will still affect your insurance exactly the same as a 19 over ticket. Insurance just sees SPEEDING CONVICTION and does not care if it is 1 over or 49 over. But since you already have a conviction, if you just plead guilty then you are for sure going to see an insurance increase, so it might be beneficial to try and fight it.

In order to win, you will need to try and bring reasonable doubt to the officers testimony and/or the speed measuring device. So given that the officer has good notes, you have limited defenses available to you. There is no one defense that works all the time, so you need to come up with as many as you can and use them all.

If you do not have any experience in court and you want to represent yourself, then you should plan on losing as most self represented people lose, especially their first time in court. So hiring a good paralegal might be an option you should consider. If you decide to hire one, make sure you interview several and find one that is actually willing to raise a defense and is not just going to try and get you a plea deal. NOTE: The problem with a plea deal on a speeding ticket, is that they MIGHT offer to lower the speed and reduce the fine, but it will still be a speeding conviction that will appear on your driving record and affect your insurance.

Some suggestions for defenses

- you were compelled to give drivers license as ID, so ID should be thrown out (common law confessions rule).

- reasonable doubt to officers independent recollection (see this thread http://www.ontariohighwaytrafficact.com/topic7284.html and read thru attached defense for example questions).

- reasonable doubt to officer following proper testing procedures as listed in the manual (need manual and need to question every step of process like how was distance measured for testing purposes?)

- the laser device measures distance so therefore should fall under the Canada Weights and Measures act but is not certified by them and therefore the speed evidence should be thrown out (Weights and Measures Act http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts ... lText.html and read definitions for "device" and "static measure").

Anyways, definitely all hard defenses to use, so again if you are not up to it a good paralegal that sees these as possible defenses would be the paralegal that you want to use.

I see that Im pretty much screwed then. Its so ridiculous, something so small will affect your insurance by 15%. So if i pay for example this ticket right after my insurance renewal which is in May, will the court appearance to be dropped? Because my insurance company only keeps for 1 year your first mistake on the record, or it probably didn't even went to my record with my insurance company. So if i pay this after the renewal my record will be clean and this will be my 1st infraction again and i wont have an increase on my insurance. Or maybe if i plea compassion maybe? Im in a pickle now.

Robfer, I feel for you. A 5 over ticket is just nonsense in my opinion but it is what it is. Yes, you are better off with your strategy of delaying it so that the first ticket drops off. The notes are rock solid and the chances of the officer not turning up in court are greatly diminished these days (but you might get lucky, who knows).

I'm afraid jsherk just can't help himself and has suggested at least two 'defences' that would go to the Supreme Court so unless you have a spare $100,000 sitting around they aren't going to work for you.

Jsherk, people come here for straight forward advice. When you say nonsense like 'ID should be thrown out' it can be construed as 'it can be expected to be thrown out' as opposed to that simply being your completely off-the-wall opinion. Your oft-repeated advice to elect a trial and look at the disclosure is sound and I think you can provide good advice once you see the disclosure but then you go off on your personal legal crusades and they are not helpful to people who are visiting for the first time. If you want to debate them that's fine but do it in another thread (oh wait, we did that already) and don't confuse the issue for people looking for simple advice on a simple ticket. You do them a disservice.

If you stretch it out as long as possible it might be a good way to handle this so one ticket drops off your record before the conviction for the 2nd one is registered. I would make sure you fully understand what your insurers policy is as it is unusual if they only hold a conviction against you for a year.

The notes look good, too good. I thought notes were to be written shortly after the ticket was issued. The test times in the notes are typed side by side exactly at the 1430 and 2200 hrs. After this appear the driver and offence information on the same page.

Question for others: Is it possible that the officer wrote the test time in his notes before he actually did? If you can get the officer to admit he wrote that he tested the device at the end of his shift before he actually did it, it could potentially give you reasonable doubt as to if the device was tested at all.

ynotp wrote:If you stretch it out as long as possible it might be a good way to handle this so one ticket drops off your record before the conviction for the 2nd one is registered. I would make sure you fully understand what your insurers policy is as it is unusual if they only hold a conviction against you for a year.

The notes look good, too good. I thought notes were to be written shortly after the ticket was issued. The test times in the notes are typed side by side exactly at the 1430 and 2200 hrs. After this appear the driver and offence information on the same page.

Question for others: Is it possible that the officer wrote the test time in his notes before he actually did? If you can get the officer to admit he wrote that he tested the device at the end of his shift before he actually did it, it could potentially give you reasonable doubt as to if the device was tested at all.

When i called my broker, thats what they told as it was my first ticket and they have this forgiveness thing for the 1st ticket and he told me to drag it after renewal.

ynotp wrote:If you stretch it out as long as possible it might be a good way to handle this so one ticket drops off your record before the conviction for the 2nd one is registered. I would make sure you fully understand what your insurers policy is as it is unusual if they only hold a conviction against you for a year.

Robfer wrote:

When i called my broker, thats what they told as it was my first ticket and they have this forgiveness thing for the 1st ticket and he told me to drag it after renewal.

I can't remember what it's called, but I have the same thing on my policy. My insurance forgives 1 ticket per year, so if I get more than one in a year, thats when my premiums increase.

UnluckyDuck wrote:

ynotp wrote:If you stretch it out as long as possible it might be a good way to handle this so one ticket drops off your record before the conviction for the 2nd one is registered. I would make sure you fully understand what your insurers policy is as it is unusual if they only hold a conviction against you for a year.

Robfer wrote:

When i called my broker, thats what they told as it was my first ticket and they have this forgiveness thing for the 1st ticket and he told me to drag it after renewal.

I can't remember what it's called, but I have the same thing on my policy. My insurance forgives 1 ticket per year, so if I get more than one in a year, thats when my premiums increase.

Yea thats what they told me. Now my question is, if i pay this ticket after my renewal and before the trial, will the trial be dismissed?

I might go to and try to get compassion from the judge, i dont know.

You can pay it anytime before the trial and the trial will be cancelled.

You can go to trial and plead guilty and ask for a reduced fine by telling the JP your sob story about how financially hard up you are. Note that the demerits (if any) will not be reduced and it will still affect your insurance.

Argyll: You Rock!!

"the laser device measures distance so therefore should fall under the Canada Weights and Measures act but is not certified by them and therefore the speed evidence should be thrown out" ... Lidar does not measure distance, it measures time. Yes it does display distance, but that is a calculated number. Lidar only measures time of flight. By knowing how long the light wave has been gone, distance can be calculated...So I would strike that little crumb of not legal advice off your list of possible defences...and would I not consider the whole ID thing as well, it's not a common law confession, you are just providing identification...Don't you think that if these "defences" actually worked, they would be used day in and day out in every court in the land? Maybe they work in Jsherkville, but not anywhere else...