Last week my son, was out riding his ORV/ATV down a quiet cottage dirt road. He was pulled over and ticketed for driving an ORV without a valid driver's license. He is 15 years old and does not have a driver's license. When filling out the ticket the officer accidentally put our street name as my son's last name on the ticket. The street name is nothing at all even close to our last name. There is no driver's license number on the ticket as my son does not have a driver's license, it has his first name correct and his birth date and mailing address correct, but a completely wrong last name writen in. Do we have to pay this ticket? A former police officer neighbour friend of ours up here said to do nothing, as with the wrong last name and no drivers licence # that it will never be traced back to our son. Just return the summons and mail that comes to return to sender no such person. He said if we go to court the ticket could be amended in court and the fines would stand. I have no idea what I should do. Any information would be appreciated.

Under the Provincial Offences Act a "Young person": means a person who is or, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, appears to be,

(a) twelve years of age or more, but

(b) under sixteen years of age,

and includes a person sixteen years of age or more charged with having committed an offence while he or she was twelve years of age or more but under sixteen years of age.

Under section 95 of the same act, it states that: A proceeding commenced against a young person by certificate of offence shall not be initiated by an offence notice under clause 3 (2) (a)

The officer in fact should have issued a summons to your son and served a copy on you.

Hoping Simon can help clear up what could happen if you do nothing with an offence notice that probably shouldn't have been issued in the first place.

Unless the officer issues a corrective summons to you and your son, I wouldn't worry about it. Even if a conviction was somehow entered based on the ticket, you could easily have a JP examine it and quash the conviction since charges against minors can't proceed by regular offence notice.

Stanton wrote:

Even if a conviction was somehow entered based on the ticket, you could easily have a JP examine it and quash the conviction since charges against minors can't proceed by regular offence notice.

throwing this out here ...but if the surname is totally different, no DL # to track, upon conviction on the face of a ticket a generated mto licence will be made in the name of John Wrongname and will just be in lalaland forever??

hwybear wrote:

Stanton wrote:

Even if a conviction was somehow entered based on the ticket, you could easily have a JP examine it and quash the conviction since charges against minors can't proceed by regular offence notice.

throwing this out here ...but if the surname is totally different, no DL # to track, upon conviction on the face of a ticket a generated mto licence will be made in the name of John Wrongname and will just be in lalaland forever??

I guess that was what I wondering. Could the ticket be traced to my husband via the licence plate # on the ATV? If they can't do anything with that, I am planning to just ignore the ticket.

Thank you to all that responded The information is greatly appreciated!