I received a ticket in downtown Oshawa today for hand held communication device. So here is the stupid part on my behalf. I was driving westbound on hwy two and while I was stopped at the lights I saw a police officer on a second story building with binoculars facing westbound. Being Oshawa I thought it was a drug operation and thought that it was funny that the cop was doing this so I took a picture with my phone...yes that's the stupid part. Well now I am thinking about the whole thing. How can an officer confirm you are in fact on a cellphone from that distance away. If I had a vaporizing unit in my hand which can be the size of a phone how can he be sure that it was in fact a phone. I understand when a police officer is beside you and can clearly see that. so I was waved down ahead and the cop never asked to see my phone and nor was the phone on my person. It was in a bag. So other than comments stating that I am dumb which I already know my main question how is it possible for a cop to confirm in court that you were in fact using a hand held device?

ajaxlocal wrote: Wed Aug 14, 2019 7:47 pm

my main question how is it possible for a cop to confirm in court that you were in fact using a hand held device?

At the bare minimum, the law only requires you to be holding the device.

Officers in Ontario have come up with alternative ways to look for handheld device offenders. One of the other common ways is to have an officer ride public transit and radio it in to an awaiting officer in a cruiser.

I don't think I've heard about the rooftop binoculars before, but it wouldn't surprise me. Binoculars are not created equal. With a decent set, being on a second story rooftop next to the road would be a cakewalk for spotting.

If you're interested in pursuing it further, you can request a trial. The next step after that would be to make a disclosure request and go from there.

This would have been a two-man operation, where the enforcement-stop officer would have confirmation from the binocular-officer that the correct vehicle was stopped.

I highly doubt, they're making binocular observations and later laying Part 3 Summons Charges when you get home. Doesn't seem like an efficient means of hand-held enforcement. They literally have to be fully uniformed waiting inside a bus-shelter, it'd be shooting fish in a barrel.

Regarding the vape vs. phone, it really depends on where your phone is located at the time of the traffic-stop. If it's securely mounted to your vehicle, then you'd have to sell the vape story to the stopping officer.

Would have to try to make sure the stopping officer makes notes that when you were stopped, the phone was securely mounted and a vape device was found next to you.

ifly55...I mentioned I was waved down so it was a two person operation.

For some reason, I missed the very first sentence in the OP.

File for trial, and once you get the date/location of your trial, request for disclosure.