OHTA.ca

Hi all,

I wish I could introduce myself under better circumstances.

Anyway, I was driving home from work one night and got pulled over for making a left turn onto a street where left turns are prohibited. I was going down a hill, it was 5:30PM (cloudy and dark) and turned my signal on. The next intersection has a set of lights that just turned green, allowing many oncoming cars towards me. I focused my attention to the oncoming traffic and arrived at where you would normally stop before turning and waited - looking for a hole to safely execute the turn. I honestly did not see any signs (there are two posted that I found out later - one above and one on the right side of the 3 lane road). I turned left and a Police Officer was sitting in the cruiser waiting for that exact offense to occur. So the lights came on and I get issued with a ticket [182(2) Disobey Sign].

I'm a young professional with a clean driving record (other than this ticket). It was a complete honest mistake - I've actually done this many times without ever seeing the "No Left Turn signs".

I know that from the point where I was waiting to make the turn, I can't see the signs at all - only when approaching that stop point. I re-created the scenario on my drive home tonight (without the turn! ) and noticed this.

Anyway, do you think I should take this up to Court? Or should I just pay the $110 fine and receive 2 demerit points. I wouldn't mind opting for the latter if I knowingly committed the offense at the time, but the signs were completely unknown to me at the time.

All this for driving a couple of people home as a favour.

Hmm... Anyone?

Where did this happen?

Cheers

Viper1

This was in Owen Sound, ON. I was pulled over by a City Police Officer.

Couple of options:

- Plea-bargain to a municipal by-law infraction

- Fight the charge, including setting a trial, getting disclosure (officer's notes + copy of by-law prohibiting the turn), going to court and fighting it tooth-and-nail (sort of)

If the officer took decent notes, your best bet it to call the Prosecutor and plead it down. The advantage is, a municipal infraction won't go on your driver record. Plea-bargaining can be done at any point should you decide to go that route, up to the trial.

Radar Identified wrote:Couple of options:

- Plea-bargain to a municipal by-law infraction

- Fight the charge, including setting a trial, getting disclosure (officer's notes + copy of by-law prohibiting the turn), going to court and fighting it tooth-and-nail (sort of)

If the officer took decent notes, your best bet it to call the Prosecutor and plead it down. The advantage is, a municipal infraction won't go on your driver record. Plea-bargaining can be done at any point should you decide to go that route, up to the trial.

Thanks for the info. I ended going with Option 3 on the ticket and setting up a trial - more or less to buy time. I'm thinking the plea-bargaining to a municipal by-law infraction is a good next step at this time. Just not even sure how to do that! I'll do some more research on it.

On a side note - are you involved in aviation in any way (ACC / Pilot)? Your name makes me wonder.

Cheers...

North44 wrote:I'm thinking the plea-bargaining to a municipal by-law infraction is a good next step at this time. Just not even sure how to do that! I'll do some more research on it.

Probably a good idea - check your PMs.

North44 wrote:On a side note - are you involved in aviation in any way (ACC / Pilot)? Your name makes me wonder.

Nice catch - yes, I'm an airline pilot. And yes, that is where the nickname came from.

For those of you who don't know... "radar identified" is the phraseology used by Canadian Air Traffic Controllers when they have positively identified an aircraft on their radar scopes and will start providing radar service.