OHTA.ca

Hi all - your suggestions and advices would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all in advance.

Here is my story:

January 13, Sunday morning, I made a U-turn at the intersection of Brimley and Progress in Scarborough. And I was then pulled over by a cop. He pointed out that I should not have made a U-turn, as there is a clear "no U-turn" sign. He then noticed my insurance card is old, expired. I forgot to put the new one in the car. He gave me 2 tickets - Disobey sign, $110; Fail to have insurance card, $65.

The sign is not straight "no U-turn" sign. Instead it is a block, with an arrow beside it. My understanding, after researching, it's called "stay on right side of the island". So this is my first question here - did I really commit the offence?

Next, I studied the tickets bit by bit. I looked through every single detail on it to see if the cop made any mistake. I found one. For the Disobey Sign ticket, he wrote "Contrary to: H.T.A; Sect. 128". After researching, I'm sure sect 128 is wrong. In H.T.A., sect 128 is about speeding. The correct sect is 182. My question here - is this a fatal error? If I'm to take option 3 to request a trial, do I have a good case to ask the prosecutor to withdraw it, based on this error?

For the insurance card offence, it seems a relatively minor one. I read on this forum that you might get it dropped or reduce fine if you go to the court...

Thank you all for reading. Any advice would be much appreciated.

A quick look at the intersection using Google street view shows a no u-turn sign for southbound traffic on Brimley, but not other directions. Is that the direction you were traveling? You're correct in that the sign you're describing indicates to keep right of the traffic island. A no u-turn sign would be an upside down U shaped arrow with a red circle and slash through it.

Stanton - thank you for your quick reply.

I was going southbound on Brimley, and made a turn to go back northbound, as I needed to go on 401 west. I can't see the sign you referred to on Google streetview. I'm positive on that day when I was there, the sign is "keep right of the island", because I hesitated a bit if I could make a U-turn when seeing it. I do know what a real "no U-turn" looks like. I wouldn't make U-turn if I see a sign with big U and a red line crossing it. Seeing that sign of keep right of the island, in a few seconds I decided to turn. At that time, it was yellow light. There was no other cars within 150m of me.

I will go to that area again, to take a picture of the sign.

In any case, can I use the argument that the cop wrote the wrong section number of HTA on my ticket? Is that a fatal error? - Seems to me that's pretty relevant. If anyone could shed a light, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.