Speeding Ticket recieved at home

I was pulled over on feb 7 2009 for speeding ,93 in a 60.

officer let me go with a warning. 2 days later i got woken up by a court officer at my door with a ticket for that incident on feb 7, WTF!

Is this a new procedure. I got the ticket in vaughan but it is issued through the toronto courts. He actually crossed out toronto on the ticket and wrote vaughan. what should i do?

Re: what should I do?

Fight the ticket!

The officer has up to 7 days to lay charges, so, while uncommon, nothing is out of the ordinary.

Speeding 30-49 land you 4 demerit points, and some insurance companies view it as a "major" offense, so your insurance will be impacted rather strongly (to the tune of about $400 per year).

Mail in your ticket with "I wish to dispute the charge(s) laid" to court, along with a request for disclosure. Disclosure is officer's notes for the offense. You can also talk to a prosecutor and reduce the charge to something with no points, they will likely offer you a lower speeding charge, but that will still be 3 points, however the insurance implications are much lower (likely about $200 per year, but that depends if on your history). A few regulars here will be able to discuss the crossed-out location here. If your offense took place in Vaughan, but on the ticket the officer wrote "Toronto", then it should be easy to fight based on the fact that there is a fatal error on the ticket. Once you have mailed the ticket back with intent to fight it, you will have some breathing room, as your trial will likely be a few months in advance. At that time you can do your own research in planning your own defense, or contact a paralegal to help you get rid of this ticket. You can get in touch with one in your area via a form on the bottom of this page.

More details please. Where was the "offence", road names? where is the officer from OPP or Toronto Police Service? What date is on the ticket, If you could scan and post it, remove your personal info....

it was a toronto police officer but he was in vaughan i was stopped on islington going south approaching steeles, when you pass steeles your in toronto. the date on the ticket is 2009 02 07 10:35 pm

but it was givem to me on the 10th at 8:30am.

That's a weird one. Although, as was mentioned, they can issue the charge in the manner that they did, it's definitely not normal, unless there was some sort of emergency call that the officer had to handle ASAP.

Racer pretty much nailed it. The scratching out of "Toronto" and substituting "Vaughan" should be considered a fatal error. Here's another thread where a few people talked about changing the ticket itself after it has been issued. Specifically look at ticketcombat & hwybear's posts:

http://www.ontariohighwaytrafficact.com/topic660.html

If you don't have the time to fight the charge on your own, a paralegal should be able to skate circles around this one.

Agreed.

sound like a toronto police officer laid charge outside of his jurisdiction. Is it possible for a on-duty toronto police officer to lay charge in mississauga if he happens to be in Mississauga for whatever reason?

liveontheedge wrote:

sound like a toronto police officer laid charge outside of his jurisdiction. Is it possible for a on-duty toronto police officer to lay charge in mississauga if he happens to be in Mississauga for whatever reason?

No such thing as "jurisdiction". A police officer can enforce the laws anywhere in the Province of Ontario.

A police officer can enforce the laws anywhere in the Province of Ontario.

An Ontario police officer can enforce anywhere in Ontario...There are some restrictions

Blueline.ca

They are "peace officers" anywhere in Canada so they can enforce any "federal" statute. The hiccup comes when there is a need to enforce a provincial statute such as HTA or LLA etc and for those Mounties that are in Ontario and in positions where they are expected to apply enforcement of provincial statues they are sworn in as special constables and have the appropriate "police" authority conferred upon them. RCMP members working Ottawa in particular get special constable status so they can actually make use on Ontario statutes.

As I have made reference in other threads, way back when Ontario revamped its provincial statutes and worded them all to say Police Officer rather than Peace Officer it created an issue for a number of agencies that until that point could enforce provincial statutes. The RCMP and all special constables in Ontario were excluded. The Ontario Police Act was amended in that the special constable section had a subsection added to allow for "police powers" to be conferred to special constables. That was the remedy, and the remedy available to RCMP was to become special constables.

When the provincial statute revamp took place (early 80s) it left special constables such as those at universities and Niagara Parks Police unable to enforce provincial laws until the PSA was "fixed".

Just to add to what Bear & Reflections said... the US is big on "jurisdiction." People get out of tickets down there because Officer So-and-So "didn't have jurisdiction." Because of watching American TV shows, a lot of Canadians get the idea that the officer has to have "jurisdiction" here. Such is not the case.

Yes, a Toronto cop could lay a charge in Mississauga. Another example, Windsor Police could come up to Toronto and run a speed trap, perfectly legally. They wouldn't in reality, but they could, and no one would be able to get out of the tickets because of Windsor Police "not having jurisdiction." However, "cross-jurisdictional" (if that's what you want to call it) tickets happen all the time in the GTA.

I believe jurisdiction is more of a court thing. A cop has been writing

Tickets in Toronto all day then catches one in Vaughn he may write the city of Toronto.(on the ticket)

The court jurisdiction then comes into it.

He might have 99 tickets for Toronto and 1 for Vaughn.

I am not sure how the jurisdiction's are divvied up now but I am sure these two are different courts. hence no jurisdiction with wrong/altered city on ticket.

Cheers

Viper1

Radar Identified wrote:

Just to add to what Bear & Reflections said... the US is big on "jurisdiction." People get out of tickets down there because Officer So-and-So "didn't have jurisdiction." Because of watching American TV shows, a lot of Canadians get the idea that the officer has to have "jurisdiction" here. Such is not the case.

Yes, a Toronto cop could lay a charge in Mississauga. Another example, Windsor Police could come up to Toronto and run a speed trap, perfectly legally. They wouldn't in reality, but they could, and no one would be able to get out of the tickets because of Windsor Police "not having jurisdiction." However, "cross-jurisdictional" (if that's what you want to call it) tickets happen all the time in the GTA.

If that Windsor cop was driving 165 to get to the radar trap would that be considered on a case?

4 hour drive each way otherwise and no time to run the trap.

Cheers

Viper1