Is this Careless or a Mistake?

I rear ended a car when it suddenly stopped in front of me and I had to stop but I ended up catching both the gas pedal and the brake pedal with my foot when I tried to brake (very large feet). When I realized that my car wasn't stopping as fast as it should, I quickly lifted my foot and reapplied the brake but it lengthened my stopping distance and I bumped the other car. I ended up with a careless charge but is this really considered careless?

Also, the officer asked me almost no information about the accident and just issued the charge immediately after I indicated that I hit the car. It appeared like the decision to charge was made even before he spoke to me.

What sort of requirement is there on the prosecutor to prove I was careless in court. Do they just have to say, "you hit a car, so you were careless?"

jetblue wrote:

I rear ended a car when it suddenly stopped in front of me and I had to stop but I ended up catching both the gas pedal and the brake pedal with my foot when I tried to brake (very large feet). When I realized that my car wasn't stopping as fast as it should, I quickly lifted my foot and reapplied the brake but it lengthened my stopping distance and I bumped the other car. I ended up with a careless charge but is this really considered careless?

Also, the officer asked me almost no information about the accident and just issued the charge immediately after I indicated that I hit the car. It appeared like the decision to charge was made even before he spoke to me.

What sort of requirement is there on the prosecutor to prove I was careless in court. Do they just have to say, "you hit a car, so you were careless?"

I don't know much about this sort of thing, but I looked it up and google and managed to find this: http://trafficticketsolutions.ca/careless-driving.php and this http://www.defencelaw.com/careless-driving.html. It might help a bit. In my personal opinion, I would call it a mistake. I hope you are able to fight the charge.

Rear end collisions almost always result in a charge of careless. This may be a bit of overcharging on the part of the police because other charges such as follow to close may apply and the careless is often plead down to that. However all that is required to prove on a careless is that you were driving "without due care and attention" or "without reasonable consideration" for other people using the road.

Does your mistake with the pedals constitute this? Perhaps? There's a large body of case law on what exactly those two terms mean.

A couple of charges that typically this gets "pled down to" include:

- Following Too Closely, or

- Fail to Turn Left to Avoid Collision (better of the two, for you anyway)

Radar Identified wrote:

Fail to Turn Left to Avoid Collision (better of the two, for you anyway)

Thanks for the information....

Is this a HTA offence or a bylaw offence? I could not find any reference to it at:

http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/dandv/ ... erit.shtml

It's HTA 148(5):

Vehicles or equestrians overtaking others

(5) Every person in charge of a vehicle or on horseback on a highway who is overtaking another vehicle or equestrian shall turn out to the left so far as may be necessary to avoid a collision with the vehicle or equestrian overtaken, and the person overtaken is not required to leave more than one-half of the roadway free. R.S.O. 1990, c. H.8, s. 148 (5).