Disobey Sign - No Left Turn - Option 3?
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.