Hi all, I am newbie to this site but I have read a lot of useful information here. However, I don't see any case similar to mine being discussed.

One evening after my friends birthday party, I took a side street on route to home. The location was East Beaver Creek and Hwy 7 in Richmond Hill, Ontario. What it seems to me was like a construction site turns out to be a RIDE program and I drove right passed it. Shortly after, the cop car pulled me over.

The end results was a warning on Alcohol consumption within the legal limit and DRL suspension for 72 hours. They also issued me a ticket for DISOBEY OFFICER TRAFFIC (Failing to obey directions of police constable, section 134(1)). I felt a bit unfair as I honestly think that the road was too dark and there is no indication that it was a RIDE.

As I recalled, there were few guys standing by the car and I don't think they have a stick to direct me to stop. There were some flashing light, kind of like a construction site.

I later discovered that this ticket will cost me 3 demerit points and I am quite determined to fight this.

As for now, I have received a date to speak to the Early Resolution (ER) prosecutor. My goal is to have my demerit points reduced or eliminated. But I have read in many discussion that there are very limited tools that the prosecutor can use to reduce my ticket. Is this true? What do you guys think the prosecutor will do on ER?

Also, what is the best way to fight this? should I just go straight to court?

Thanks, in advance.

If the lights were blue then you should've stopped. If the lights were Amber you could argue that it looked like construction. If you can't remember then you likely weren't paying enough attention.

Thanks for your response, Argyll.

I am almost 100% that the light is any color but blue. It is almost like red, that's why I didn't think its a RIDE.

But how can I bring this to the court? It's my words against the cop and theres no clear evidence..

Should I take a picture of how dark that road is at night time? will that help?

So first of all remember that even a 0 demerit point charge can still cause your insurance to go up. Demerits are completely unrelated to insurance and insurance companies do not care about demerit points, only convictions. They only see that you were found guilty of something and even if 0 demerits points they can still raise your rates.

When you meet with prosecutor you can explain situation and maybe they will drop it or maybe offer you a lesser charge.

If they do not drop it, then can tell them you would like to take it to trial and get disclosure.

If they offer you a lesser charge, but you want to think about it, you can say you would like to set a trial date and review disclosure before accepting it.

It would also be worthwhile finding out if this charge is an Absolute Liability offence or a Strict Liability offence. Your reasons might be sufficient to get it dropped if it is a strict liability offence but may not work if it is absolute liability.

jsherk wrote:

So first of all remember that even a 0 demerit point charge can still cause your insurance to go up. Demerits are completely unrelated to insurance and insurance companies do not care about demerit points, only convictions. They only see that you were found guilty of something and even if 0 demerits points they can still raise your rates.

When you meet with prosecutor you can explain situation and maybe they will drop it or maybe offer you a lesser charge.

If they do not drop it, then can tell them you would like to take it to trial and get disclosure.

If they offer you a lesser charge, but you want to think about it, you can say you would like to set a trial date and review disclosure before accepting it.

It would also be worthwhile finding out if this charge is an Absolute Liability offence or a Strict Liability offence. Your reasons might be sufficient to get it dropped if it is a strict liability offence but may not work if it is absolute liability.

Thanks, jsherk. Those are all valid point, esp. on the insurance part. If they have a ticket forgiveness program, then it doesn't really matter if no demerit points or not, if I'm convicted, the insurance will still forgive that incident.

How do I find out if the office is Absolute / Strict Liability? Can the prosecutor give me that info?

thanks

You can try googling it, but you can also just ask the prosecutor and they should tell you.

jsherk wrote:

You can try googling it, but you can also just ask the prosecutor and they should tell you.

Thanks! I will most likely asked the prosecutor...

Just done some googling and those came up from the search are way too much law stuff and technical for me to go through.

On a side note, I called up my auto insurance. They said I have 2 convicted tickets on file that was dated May 2013 and it will be dropped from my auto insurance policy on my renewal in 2017. So does it make sense to delay the court/ ER date to meet after May/June 2016 so that when the time of renewal comes, I will only have 1 convicted ticket?

The insurance rep said if I have 3 tickets and 1 at fault accident, they can decline my policy.

Thanks

Well in theory they won't find out about the charge until/unless you are convicted so it would be beneficial to try and drag out the ER process a little and drag out the court date a little.

However once they are aware of a conviction I beleive (not 100% sure) they can retroactive it to the date it happened.

jsherk wrote:

Well in theory they won't find out about the charge until/unless you are convicted so it would be beneficial to try and drag out the ER process a little and drag out the court date a little.

However once they are aware of a conviction I beleive (not 100% sure) they can retroactive it to the date it happened.

True.. but event if the retroactive it at the time of renewal, my 2 other tickets will be off the system so they will only see 1 convicted tickets?

What would be the longest time I can push out this ticket? haha I think it would be ideal if it can be pushed to 2017 when they renew my policy.

It really depends how busy the court is. In small town you might only get is pushed out a couple months. In Toronto you might get it pushed out 2 years. No way to know.

If they retroactive it, they will know that you had 2 other tickets at the time even though they are no longer there so they could raise your rates reflective of if you had 3 convictions at that time. Again I am not 100% sure how this works so I could be wrong.

Thanks guys for your inputs.

My next course of action is to reschedule the Resolution Meeting few days before it. The plan is to push this out further so I can gather more information and have time for more research

I will keep you guys posted.