I recently got pulled over and issued a ticket for following too closely and am looking to challenge the charges. However, I will be at school by the trial date. This is significant because I received the ticket in Ottawa (where my family lives), but attend school in Waterloo (almost 6 hours away). I will also be starting co-op this summer and as such likely won't be returning home in order to fight the ticket if I could have the trial delayed. So essentially I am moving 6 hours away from where I got the ticket before it will be able to go to court. Is there any way to have the trial moved to a more convenient location so that I can actually fight it based on these circumstances? If I haven't provided enough information please let me know and I'll be happy to fill in any blanks.

NO.

Court will be in the jurisdiction of where the offence took place.

When you receive notice of the trial date, you can have some one from your family go in and request an adjournment to a later date. That's the easiest way.

At the very least, I would call the Crown and try to plea bargain down to a lesser offence.

You could also call a ticket fighting company in Ottawa and have them represent you.

Haha, will I actually be able to get the court date adjourned to more than a year from now? That will probably be the next time I'm in Ottawa, the court system doesn't put pressure on me to come back sooner to fight this?

Given that the original court date is likely to be 6 or so months away, if not more, then yes.

racer wrote:Given that the original court date is likely to be 6 or so months away, if not more, then yes.

So wait, where does the law draw the line then? I mean there is a possibility that I could permanently end up moving to Waterloo (obviously this ticket is the sole motivation behind that move ), but they've got to say enough is enough eventually and tell me I have to make a court date. Although if for some weird reason this isn't the case, I may have just found a new ticket fighting strategy, wait until I have my degree to come back and fight the ticket.

Well, you can move the court date a couple times, may be more, depending on circumstances and the way you word your circumstances to the courts, but you will eventually have to face the music (and the trial, which can be conducted in your absense, and yes, you can be found guilty in absentis).