Ontario Highway Traffic Act

It might not be best in my opinion to say that this was placed on the back burner for a while, better to phrase it as it has always been your intention to complete the appeal process, and it was all those urgencies that were preventing you from doing so as they were quite serious.

Given it was a default conviction, you might want to try to apply ...

I believe that fear for life (or might be safety) is a valid defence to speeding charge. I don't remember the exact wording but it should be in the HTA.

If you state that you saw this dark car behind you with tinted window, and you have a reason to fear that it is someone who is targetting you (for kidnapping, rape, robbery, or to shoot you dead ...

It's hard to answer without all the details surrounding the circumstances of that ticket, and what happened at trial (i.e., default conviction for failure to appear, etc..)
Assuming that there was no criminal code components during that charge at the time of the ticket/conviction, I think you may have a good chance to have this appealed.

Afterall ...