OHTA.ca

I was pulled over for speeding, but my record is clean so I didn't get a ticket. However, I did get a ticket for having the my old address on my plates. The officer told me to go to court for it, and he would drop the charges. What do I say when I am in court if he doesn't remember saying that or doesn't appear?

First thing you should do is immediately go to MTO and get the address corrected, and keep your copy of the receipt.

Second would be to plead not guilty and ask for trial with officer present. Once you get your notice of trial, you can contact prosecutors office and ask for a meeting. If they won't give you a meeting, then you can just show up on your trial date and meet with prosecutor before the trial. At either of these meetings you would just say you are sorry and that you had forgotten to change it and show them that you have fixed the problem and that you are hoping they will drop the charge. Hopefully the prosecutor is in a good mood when you meet with them and they will drop it.

The police officer has no say what so ever about whether the charge gets dropped or not. Only the prosecutor can make that decision.

Thanks! I immediately went and got the address changed. It really was an honest mistake. So I just plead guilty? Does the ticket get dropped if the officer doesn't show?

No I said plead NOT GUILTY and request a Trial with the officer present.

Once you get your trial date (notice of trial), then try to set up meeting with prosecutor.

Update.

Went to court. The prosecutor asked what the problem was with my ownership. Told her it was the address. Showed her the updated ownership. Officer did show up. He spoke to the prosecutor. I'm sure I heard them mention my case. When I am called up, prosecutor withdraws charge as I have showed proof of immediate update. I'm certain that the officer recommended to withdraw the charge to the prosecutor. In this case they both agreed. Lucky me! Hope this helps someone.

It does seem like a waste of everyone's time. What we used to do was issue the ticket and told the driver that if they brought the permit with updated address to the station within 48 hours then the ticket wouldn't be filed. Seemed to work well.

I prefer your suggested method. The desired result is then obtained with the least amount of resource time. Wonder why this isn't still done.

I will say that it was good experience for me to hear everyone else's trial, and how things are handled.

E-tickets make it more problematic to give people a grace period. E-tickets get automatically filed with the Courts so the officer can't hold onto them for a few days waiting on the driver to fix the problem.

Ah right, I was writing them out by hand.