OHTA.ca

I'm not certain if this is the best place to post this but I couldn't find a better spot.

This morning I got pulled over about a block from my house and received a ticket under section 74(1) - No Clear View to the Front, and I'm wondering what my odds of beating it are.

My Story:

I left the house this morning, turned on the car and scrapped the frost off the outside. Since the car had been sitting for four days there was also a build up on the inside of the car. I spent a few minutes scrapping the inside, but the brush only takes off a bit per scrape, so I ended up with more of a checkerboard pattern. The key area's of my windshield where probably 75% clear and I felt I had a good unobstructed view of the road.

I pulled on to the street, turned the corner and noticed an unmarked cop car sitting on the side of the road ahead of me. Since I hadn't got my seatbelt on yet (bad habit but I usually put it on as I drive to the main road), I pulled the it on and stopped at the 4 way stop.

At which point I stalled the car (only been driving standard for a month), I got the car going turned the corner, and then got pulled over.

The cop approached and I was expecting to get a seatbelt warning, however he stepped forward and glanced at my windshield then proceed to give me heck for driving though a "small hole in the windshield".

I believe that my windshield was sufficiently clear to provide an unobstructed view, so I do intend to fight this ticket.

As of right now I intend to argue.

1) The Cop (OPP) glanced at the windowshield from above and beside it, and thus is under able to provide evidence of the driver's view.

2) Strict Liablity - That I took reasonable care to create a clear view and believed that I did.

I was wondering people's thought of my success, and/or other approaches.

Thanks for you input.

First off, send in your ticket with the 3-rd option checked off as well as a request for disclosure. Mail them using registered post (it'll be a little bit more, around $5, but you have the proof that you have sent the request for disclosure, and it makes sure that the court will receive your ticket). See the officer's notes as to what he wrote what had happened, that will give you a much better clue as to what to expect in court in terms of his testimony, and it will give you a better idea on how to counter the charge.

This charge is hard to be enforced, as you are not supposed to idle for more than one minute (also a law). Therefore, to use the car's heater to melt the frost and wait idling 3-4 minutes, which is illegal, so you're damned one way and doomed the other. Just my thoughts.

racer wrote:This charge is hard to be enforced, as you are not supposed to idle for more than one minute (also a law). Therefore, to use the car's heater to melt the frost and wait idling 3-4 minutes, which is illegal

That's a great piece of information, what provincial law act is this? I looked up local anti-idling bylaw and it's 5 minutes, so it may not be relevent. How would I go about getting the bylaw admitted as evidence in any case.

As well, from the ticket it appears that I need to show up in person to plead "Not Guilty", is this just a word game? Can I just drop the ticket in the mail?

Not a law, rather a by-law. There are many municipalities that enacted it. I thought it was province-wide, but after doing some research it's a fairly common by-law. It is enacted in Toronto, Guelph, Burlington, and a few other municipalities, yet a few more municipalitioes have a no-idling by-law as a part of their "noise" by-laws.

The question is, did the officer ever look through the windsheild from the drivers point of view....no.....not guilty.

Reflections wrote:The question is, did the officer ever look through the windsheild from the drivers point of view....no.....not guilty.

I hope it's going to be that easy, but I suspect it will not be. I'm going to file to my Option 3 today.

Unless I get another response I'll check back when I get my court date and need to file for disclosure.

yet another section of the hta that needs rewriting!

Hello again,

Ive received notice of a court date for September so Im no preparing my disclosure request and have a few questions.

Im using the form from ticketcombats site, but under requested items Im thinking of adding the line:

"An explanation and clarification of the charge". Would this add value to my request? What I would like to know if what type of liability this type of ticket is considered, and what the substantial elements of the charge are that the crown must prove.

In addition what sort of burden do the police have to meet in order to pull somebody over? i.e. can they stop any driver to check for a DL, or is there some minimum standard? What Im expecting is that I was pulled over based on "movements" which the officer attributed to suspicious actions, rather then similar benign actions.

Frozenover wrote:In addition what sort of burden do the police have to meet in order to pull somebody over? i.e. can they stop any driver to check for a DL, or is there some minimum standard? What Im expecting is that I was pulled over based on "movements" which the officer attributed to suspicious actions, rather then similar benign actions.

Officers have the right to check and see if you have all the required documentation, DL, Insurance, Ownership....... so, they really don't need a whole lot, but it all adds to the paperwork at the end of the night.

As for

"An explanation and clarification of the charge". Would this add value to my request? What I would like to know if what type of liability this type of ticket is considered, and what the substantial elements of the charge are that the crown must prove.

The crown will have to prove that your visibility was restricted. If you have the chance take a picture of your windshield with the same lighting conditions as the morning of the ticket. If the officer looked from the outside in then his "view" is completely different from yours. Various factors can influence the reflectivity of glass, colours in front or behind, glare from the sun etc.

This is actually a good ticket to learn the process on, not exactly a lot on the line. Good luck.

I used the forum from DK as basis to request disclosure, and I have just received my disclosure package.

It contained:

1) a copy of my disclosure request

2) a print out of the "ticket offense hardcopy" which is the typed information which was on the orginal ticket.

3) Typed officers notes.

What's missing is

1) Any hand written notes - Is it possible that there where no hand written notes and they where typed directly into the system when the ticket was issued (This is London).

2) A copy of both sides of the officer's copy of the ticket.

3) An explaination and clarification of the charge.

So the question is how to proceed from here?

- Should I send in a second request for the missing information?

What I really want is an explaination and clarification of the charge since what I really want to know is if this is considered a strict or absolute liablity charge.

As to the rest of the information my gut tells me that this information is all that they provide around here and the local JP will probably support that.

- If get to trial and the officer attempts to use a notebook to "refresh his memory" can I get it tossed since it wasn't disclosed.

- Can I attempt to file for a stay at this point based on the limited disclosure.

Thanks again.

Frozenover wrote:

What's missing is

1) Any hand written notes - Is it possible that there where no hand written notes and they where typed directly into the system when the ticket was issued (This is London).

2) A copy of both sides of the officer's copy of the ticket.

- yes can be typed and not hand written at all, more and more cruisers with printers.

- you already received the "front" of the ticket. Do not know why you would require to see the same copy again? If the back of the copy is blank, why would that be needed? Possibly is that the "printed" notes you already have?

hwybear wrote:you already received the "front" of the ticket. Do not know why you would require to see the same copy again? If the back of the copy is blank, why would that be needed? Possibly is that the "printed" notes you already have?

I've requested the information based on the TC site recommendations, from what I've read on this boards (and I've lurked for a long time now), I was expecting hand written notes, which if they been typed directly into the system it doesn't appear I will need.

A copy of ticket however would be usefull since I was required to return my orginial when I responded to it. I did take a copy of it, however my copy of the back of the ticket is rather faint. But option 2 appears to read :"Plead guilty with an Explaination", and not "plea of guilty - submissions as to penalty" as outlined in this thread:

However I would really like to see a good copy of the ticket before I raise the issue.

I was just expecting to receive so much more in the disclosure. The officers witness statement seems rather sparse, so I'm assuming there must be more notes elsewhere, or else this guy will not be able to answer many of the questions I already have for him.

So I spent most of today, sitting around court to have this dealt with. It seems the charge was unusual enough that the crown wanted to deal with it last And then we ran out of time. So I now have another court date to set up another trial. It seems the earliest dates that are available are in the new year, which is putting me close to 11b territory

Watching the court today I did come up with a few questions.

1) The officers where all using there own note pad to testify with, I didn't receive a copy of these note so I now I believe that I didn't receive the full disclosure I had requested. Should I issue a 2nd disclosure request for these notes?

2) The crown seperated his cases out of his file as everybody spoke with him. The cases remaining in his file he dealt with as "no shows" prior to dealing with the trials. Next time would it be possible to jump to the front of the trial line by making him think i'm a "no show".

3) Final comment is that after watching a few cases most defendants are like lambs to the slaughter.

Frozenover wrote:1) The officers where all using there own note pad to testify with, I didn't receive a copy of these note so I now I believe that I didn't receive the full disclosure I had requested. Should I issue a 2nd disclosure request for these notes?

2) The crown seperated his cases out of his file as everybody spoke with him. The cases remaining in his file he dealt with as "no shows" prior to dealing with the trials. Next time would it be possible to jump to the front of the trial line by making him think i'm a "no show".

3) Final comment is that after watching a few cases most defendants are like lambs to the slaughter.

1) Yeah, definitely! Typed and photocopied please:)

2) Why? You get a third court date, you've got it thrown out without a real fight.

3) That is truly sad, but they come unprepared, and suffer the consequence. A LOT of people don't even ask for disclosure at all! Almost everyone never makes any notes of their own either.

I just wanted to provide a final update to this thread since I hate how many other threads end the day before court and we never get to find out how things ended up.

Yesterday I arrived in court prepared to do battle arguing legal points before the Justice. I was ready with:

1 An 11b Motion to stay due to unreasonable delay.

2) A Motion to Quash the ticket based on the ticket being on an old form.

3) A Motion of "Non Suit" based upon the expected testimony.

4) A prepared list of questions.

5) A prepared closing statement.

6) Copies of various cases to prove my points.

I walk into the court room and approach the crown to let him know I was there and to see if I can get my case dealt with earlier in the day. The Crown pulls my file, quickly reviews it then states "we are going to be with drawing the charges". I WIN!

I hope that they withdrew the charges as a result of my 11b application, but my win felt very anti-climatic, I was keyed up for a battle. I wanted to win because of a motion I made and the work I put into being prepared.

Of course Im thrilled that I won, and I know that if I had to sit in court for a few more hours before I got my turn I would have wished for the outcome that I actually got. Not to mention everybody else sitting in the court room wishing that they could be as "lucky" as I was. Strange but somehow I felt cheated by how it came about.

If I had to do it again for a minor charge I would probably request a trial, and file for disclosure, but would come to court prepared to take a deal from the crown. It feels like the process of going to trial is a punishment and your better of to just take the deal and get it over with.

Anyways I just wanted to thank everybody for there help and making this such a great site. I learned a lot and plan to stick around and add my 0.02 on other peoples problems.