OHTA.ca

Hi folks,

Just got a speeding ticket this morning. Officer flagged me down in a speed trap, issued me the ticket and I was on my way. He knocked me down to 10km over.

At my destination I checked my ticket out. There are numerous issues which I would consider fatal errors but wanted the experts on this board to weigh in:

The time is wrong.

The name is COMPLETELY wrong and bears absolutely no resemblance to my name.

The address is completely wrong (probably belongs to the name listed on the ticket)

The birthdate is completely wrong (ditto from above)

The gender is wrong (ditto from above)

There is no signature on the electronic ticket

and.

There is no Driver's license Number - it's blank.

The only things that are correct is my car's license plate number.

They caught a lot of people in the speed trap. I would guess the officer mixed up the drivers.

Best course of action? Do not respond?

Thanks in advance folks.

kegman1 wrote:

The time is wrong.

The name is COMPLETELY wrong and bears absolutely no resemblance to my name.

The address is completely wrong (probably belongs to the name listed on the ticket)

The birthdate is completely wrong (ditto from above)

The gender is wrong (ditto from above)

There is no signature on the electronic ticket

and.

There is no Driver's license Number - it's blank.

The only things that are correct is my car's license plate number.

You may want to wait a week and a half from the offence date and call the court to see whether or not the ticket was filed by the police officer. If the ticket has not been filed at that time, wait another week to call a second time. Given the compounded errors, the Officer may not file the ticket with the court. If the ticket has been filed, you can then decide whether to retain a paralegal or proceed on your own in addressing the original issue. It does certainly sound like there was a problem with the copy of the ticket that you received. The question beyond that would be whether or not the officer's copy to be submitted to the court was the same.

Well no signature means it is a fatal error.

No drivers license also means it is a fatal error.

Was there more than one person pulled over at the same time as you? I would imagine that somebody else got a ticket with your information on it and you got theirs.

However, this is still improper service as you were not served with an Offence Notice with your name and address and drivers license on it (also a fatal error).

So what I would do is NOT respond at all.

Best case is the officer does not file the tickets and/or the JP notices the errors and quashes them.

Worst case is that you are "deemed not to dispute the ticket" and are found guilty. If this happens, and you get notice of a conviction in the mail, then you can file an appeal. If you are charged based on the ticket number that was given to you, you would point out all the errors that are wrong, and especially that there was no drivers license number and no signature. If you are charged based on another ticket that was given to somebody else, but not to you, then you argue that you were never served with that ticket, but were given this other ticket that was for somebody else.

Can you post a photo of your ticket? I'm interested to see a ticket with so many errors on it!

Thanks for the replies folks. Even if I wanted to pay the ticket I couldn't be certain that it was MY ticket that I was paying since there is nothing on the ticket that bears my ID. I will wait and see and update the thread when this resolves one way or the other.

No signature on an electronic ticket is not a fatal error. They aren't required on e-tickets

No drivers licence number on a ticket is also not a fatal error. How else would you give someone a ticket who has never had a licence?

The big issue is that you got someone elses ticket and possibly someone got yours!

Update: Ok so I went to the online payments for www.toronto.ca/POA website and the ticket was indeed filed by the cop. The system is able to look up the ticket by the ticket number and location codes (whereas I was not able to before). I am able to pay the fine now (I did not pay it or enter any info) but nothing shows up identifying that it is indeed my ticket. So it seems we are not in the best case scenario: where the cop realized there was an error and did not file. He filed it anyway, although I am not sure if he filed it with the same information as what appears in my ticket.

My inclination is to not respond and wait for the conviction notice. The best case scenario at this point would probably be that the JP quashes it. If the conviction notice comes in then I know they got my address right and the cop fixed the errors?

Thoughts appreciated.

I'm thinking that the ticket that you got may have been someone else's ticket, and someone else may have your ticket.

The fact that the ticket that you got has no driver's license on it and it has nothing to personally identify you, this means that there will be no consequences against you for this ticket. So simply do not dispute the ticket or pay for the ticket - let the person identified in the ticket receive a notice of conviction.

But if someone else has your ticket, technically the officer hasn't met the service requirements specified in s. 3(3) of the Provincial Offences Act:

"The offence notice or summons shall be served personally upon the person charged within thirty days after the alleged offence occurred."

So if you do get a notice of conviction for a ticket, you can file for a reopening and say that the officer didn't provide you service of a ticket under s. 3(3) of the Provincial Offences Act; you just got someone else's ticket. At that point, it's too late for the officer to give you the right ticket because it will have been more than 30 days after the offence was allegedly committed.

Having said that, the officer can still give you the right ticket within 30 days of the alleged offence, if he realizes his error.

You can be recharged via a summons for up to 6 months though this is unlikely.