“Test Drove Without Insurance...”

Hi there. So this is my situation.

I am currently working a dead end job making minimum wage and can't afford much of anything. I bought a motorcycle back in March, put it in my name without insurance, so it remained unplated. The insurance company wanted too much to insure it so I held onto it to see if I could work something out, and I decided to sell it because the insurance part of driving it just wasn't going to happen for me. It hadn't been running for a while so I borrowed a friend's motorcycle and without him knowing I took off his license plate and put it on my motorcycle to take it for a 15 minute test ride. I didn't want to sell something that didn't perform correctly.

A cop had followed me for the length of about 2kms or so before pulling me over and when he had I was in a parking lot, which is private property. Not sure if that makes a difference. Regardless, I was pulled over and when things were said and done I left with a ticket for driving uninsured and for driving with unauthorized vehicle plates. When I was pulled over the officer asked me for the documentation for the vehicle and I didn't have any. The ownership wasn't complete so I didn't bother carrying it on me, and again I don't know if that makes a difference. I know it was a stupid move and I took the risk regardless but can't afford to pay the hefty fines that come along with those charges.

I've never been to court before so I don't know what to do. I don't know the first thing about all of this.

I'm not interested in carrying on the situation by defending seeing as I am guilty but I was wondering what my options were.

Thanks in advance.

--Tylor

I'd try to plea-bargain these down, looking for reduced fines. If you provide proof that you've sold your motorcycle, the Prosecutor will be less likely to oppose drastically reduced fines. You don't have too much to go on here. Both of them are relatively easy convictions for the Prosecutor.

The fact you were stopped on private property doesn't make a difference.

What do you mean by plea-bargain? Plus I haven't been able to sell the motorcycle and I've taken the ad down hoping to try again in the spring, so there goes that idea.

--Tylor

To avoid the time and expense of a trial, the Crown will frequently offer you some kind of deal, known as a plea bargain. The Crown will offer you a particular concession in exchange for you agreeing to plead guilty. Common concessions are dropping one or more charges when you have multiple offences, letting you plead to a less serious charge and/or requesting a lower fine/sentence from the Courts.

So when I go into court in the next two weeks, the Crown will offer me some sort of deal if I plead guilty? It was what I wanted to do in the first place. I don't want to carry on this situation because it'll be wasting time for everybody.

--Tylor

It's a possibility. If you are looking for a reduced fine/penalty, the best thing to do is explain that you made a mistake, you are in the process of trying to sell the motorcycle but haven't found a buyer yet, etc. The main thing they want to hear is that you won't do it again...

What Stanton said. When you get to court to try your case the 'criminals' line up to see the prosecutor. At that time, in every case I saw at least, the prosecutor offered a deal. It goes something like that, 'hmm, you are charged with xyz, I can offer you abc, do you accept?' In order to be able to do that you have to contest the ticket, i.e. pick option 3 on the back of your ticket and go to the court listed on your ticket where you will be asked to fill out a form that looks something like this http://www.toronto.ca/court_services/forms/nia.pdf . Make sure you tick the box that you want the officer to attend the trial because then if they don't show up at the trial the prosecution will have to withdraw the charges. That's it. When trial date comes, and that may take a while, just show up in court and if you don't see the officer there ask the prosecutor when your turn comes if their witness is present. If he's not you're lucky otherwise bargain down the charges. You have 15 days to decide to fight the ticket.

Actually is is a summons and gives an automatic court date. The 15 days does not apply. It IS automatically going to court unless the person pleads guilty on the first court date. Plus the officer will not be there on the first court date.

Here is Ottawa for the most part all you can expect is a fine cut in half if you bargain. So the fine would still be 2500. I am not saying they offer better just that I have not seen better offered or heard of it. ( do not know if your from Ottawa).

As these are serious charges an officer not being present at the trial date would not result in charges withdrawn. It normally just gets rescheduled.

OPS

OPS Copper, thanks for the clarification. I didn't see any mention of summons just the ticket and didn't research fines. If it was summons my comments re contesting are irrelevant.