I was involved in a single vheicle crash(my car) and damaged a road sign, this happened on wet roads in light snow. I had glanced down at my speed when going thru a stop light, when i looked back up the car in front was in a full panic stop, he went into the on coming traffic turn lane, in ffront of him was a line of stopped cars on the highway, I braked very hard( no abs) and was sliding on the wet roads, saw i would crash into the traffic in front and chose to avoid the crash to the right, the paved shoulder was covered in sand and was not able to keep the car from sliding off into the steep ditch, all of the other people left the scene as they were not damaged, the police showed up 40 minutes after the crash and the road had basically dried up.

The officer said that he could charge me with carless, but instead opted for failure to drive in a marked lane. I have pictures of the scene and am requesting the environmet canada reports for that area at that time.

I did a statement for the officer telling my speed and distance from the cars infront of me but he seemed to not beleive it. the officer did not do a scene investigation, take measurments, I made the right choice to take the ditch rather than hit someone, but!

how do i fight this ticket, i want it to be withdrawn as it a crappy charge,

Please advise

thanks

You are going to have to give more information.

You were going through a stop light? Was it red?

Why was the car in front of you in a "full panic stop"?

The charge given can be given but if you said in your statement what you said here, there are more appropriate charges including careless.

Please tell the while story and exactly what you were doing in order to help.

Envirmant Canada reports will do you no good. You're supposed to adjust your driving to conditions.

I was going thru a green light, the car in front was in a panic stop because the traffic in front of him was stopped,

I was adjusted to the driving conditions as my speed was below the posted limit for that road, i was doing 70 kms to be exact, thats what i was checking as i went thru the green light!

i stated in my statement to the police that i was doing 70, and that the car in front of me was approx 65 yards ahead before i checked my speed. at 70 kph you cover approx 19 meters per second, so so there is approx 60 feet, then response time would take anothe .2 to .5 sec so approx 15 -20 ft. the distasnce from the light to the crash was less than 300 ft.

any way any help is greatly appreciated.

- You are to drive according to the weather conditions. Wet roads aren't an excuse to get into accidents, or in your case, drive into a ditch.

- What the driver does in front of you is irrelevant. You are to leave enough space in front of yourself and the vehicle in front of you so you can come to a full stop. Since you had to put the car in a ditch to avoid hitting the cars in front of you, you were driving too close and/or too fast for the conditions.

Classic case of follow too close. If the person in front of you avoided a collision by whatever means and you couldn't do so with that extra car length now given to you, I would even stretch this to careless. So those who think points are important, careless has six, follow too close has four, and fail to drive in marked lane has three.