ANGRY
So.....
Tonight, I'm driving along in Sarnia, pretty normal like when suddenly the big truck in front of me stops........like just stops.
Turns out someone had stopped very quickly in front of him, and so on and so forth. I can't see shit, since the truck in front of me is quite large. Kid driving the truck is 19 years old, nice guy, gets out, asks if I'm ok and all that. We move off the road. His back bumper is bent at a pretty severe downword angle. My little Volkswagon is pretty amzingly alright, there's a good ding where I hit his trailer hitch, but nothing otherwise.
Anyhow, the kids Dad insists that we call the police.
Police come statements are taken. As the cop is handing me back my paperwork I notice the ticket on top. Failure to turn left to avoid a collision. 110 bucks, plus two points. Explains that it could have been careless driving, which is 400 bucks and 6 points.
I make it clear I'm fairly incredulous here. His response is someone has to be at fault.
Lesson I guess, is don't be the last guy to show up to a car crash party.
What do I do from here kids, I don't get in a lot of car wrecks, can I still contact the guy and offer to pay for it off insurance, or am I better off putting it through. I could do a whole other post on why I want to wring the neck of insurance companies.
It burns my ass that I have to pay this ticket, plus fix this guys truck, when the whole problem was started by a guy who just drove away.
cheers
Tonight, I'm driving along in Sarnia, pretty normal like when suddenly the big truck in front of me stops........like just stops.
Turns out someone had stopped very quickly in front of him, and so on and so forth. I can't see shit, since the truck in front of me is quite large. Kid driving the truck is 19 years old, nice guy, gets out, asks if I'm ok and all that. We move off the road. His back bumper is bent at a pretty severe downword angle. My little Volkswagon is pretty amzingly alright, there's a good ding where I hit his trailer hitch, but nothing otherwise.
Anyhow, the kids Dad insists that we call the police.
Police come statements are taken. As the cop is handing me back my paperwork I notice the ticket on top. Failure to turn left to avoid a collision. 110 bucks, plus two points. Explains that it could have been careless driving, which is 400 bucks and 6 points.
I make it clear I'm fairly incredulous here. His response is someone has to be at fault.
Lesson I guess, is don't be the last guy to show up to a car crash party.
What do I do from here kids, I don't get in a lot of car wrecks, can I still contact the guy and offer to pay for it off insurance, or am I better off putting it through. I could do a whole other post on why I want to wring the neck of insurance companies.
It burns my ass that I have to pay this ticket, plus fix this guys truck, when the whole problem was started by a guy who just drove away.
cheers
Comments
you can always try to fight it. main thing with insurance is you don't want any convictions on your record. if it is cheap to repair, don't report it but if you have a conviction, your insurance may find out about it down the road. 1st step, get the charges dropped. call a paralegal or an experienced lawyer if you are rich.
stp
Fight it or pay it, either way is going to cost $$$.
If it is points then you have to fight it. Most of the ticket fighting places guarantee no points of money back, if you are getting points your insurance will go up no matter what and the points on your record will stay for a few years, in the short term you will pay more for a ticket agency but in the long run you will save on the insurance so fight it.
Basically, the cop explained it like this. He said that everytime there is an accident someone has to be at fault, otherwise a collision would not have occured.(runs a little contrary to no fault)
Typically, since I rear ended someone the fine woiuld be for careless, 400 bucks, 6 points. He gave me failure to turn left to avoid a collision, which sounds so made up it's crazy. Turning left out of the passing lane would have put me in oncoming traffic which hardly seems sane.
I have already informed my insurance company that the accident occured. I don't keep secrets form people who have the power to punish me like mad when they find out, and they always do.
I know when I lived in London, to attend Court was simple, they had open court every Tuesday and Thursday. Show up, leave your name, and wait your turn.
I don't know how it works in Sarnia.
cheers
2) Fight the ticket, but lord only knows what your defence is going to be..
Here's how I'd play it.
1) Plead Not Guilty
2) Get Court Date
3) If court date > 10 months, file motion to dismiss based on lack of speedy trial (www.magma.ca/~fyst)
4) If court date < 10 month, go to court
5) If in court, try to remember officers appearance. If you don't see him go to trial.
6) If officer is in court, accept plea bargain from the prosecutor.
7) If you go to trial and the officer lands up showing up, before the trial starts, ask the worship to save time for the court, you'll accept the prosecutors offer if they are still offering it. You'll get yelled at for violating procedure, but any judge/prosuctor just wants to get out of court.
8) If no plea offer AND the cop shows AND it's within 10 months, yer screwd.
I've fought my own speeding tickets in the past. It's pretty easy, the court is pretty lienient. You'll always get either a reduced fine or a good plea offer. If you are REALLY nervous about going to court yourself, just go sit in the room one day. You'll see the worlds greatest public circus and understand it's all about the money.
This website is great, thanks for the info BBCZ.
Wondering this though, on the back of my ticket, it asks if I intend to challenge the officers evidence, do I want to say yes or no to this. The accident had zero witnesses, and the only evidence are statements from myself and the other driver, who I believe acknowledged that there was very little I could do to prevent the accident. I feel honestly as though I could call the kid up and he would likely attend court as a witness on my behalf.
The accident was quite minor, no injuries, minimal damage, I just don't want a conviction.
Thanks for the advice guys.
Cheers
Very true, points are used by MTO and police for suspending etc. Any speeding ticket is going to cost you insurance (unless you get a freebie or two from your company), 5km/h over and 40km/h are the EXACT same as far as the insurance company is concerned.
/g2
mike
Not sure if this will help you...I had a small incident when I was younger, showing off in my Mustang and squealed the tires from a stop through 1st and 2nd gear, there was a cop directly behind me at the stop, doh! Anyways had a buddy in the passenger seat, we both had our seatbelts on. the cop gave me an excessive noise ticket and a seat belt ticket, I immediately challenged him and showed him my belt was on, he said I must have quickly put it on...lying prick, I always have it on!!!! Anyways, I fought the seat belt had my friend show up and first I told my story, they asked me to step out of the court room and my buddy told his story...the judge basically said to me ' I see no reason why and officer of the law would lie, therefore he must be telling the truth and you are lying, the ticket stands' I have never been so pissed off....and the cop had a nice smirk on his face the lying bastard! You may get it reduced on some other technicality but putting your story against a cops regardless of who's right is likely futile?
This isn't a situation where I was pulled over for speeding or some other moving violation. The police officer was not there when the accident occured and did not arrive for twenty minutes afterward. He was not a witness to the event.
The charge is "failure to turn to left to avoid a collision" Highway Traffic Act Section 148(5). I looked it up online and this section refers to passing. It basically says when overtaking a vehicle I am required to move far enough to the left to avoid a collision, and that he is only required to allow me half the roadway in which to do so. Essentially, the police officer is saying that I did not move out to avoid the collision.
My contention is that doing so was at worst impossible, and at best, highly inadvisable. I was in the passing lane, as was all other vehicles involved. Moving to the left would have taken me into oncoming traffic, potentially endangering others. Moving to the right would have meant moving in front of other motorists as well. Furthermore, it happened very quickly, I'm not sure anyone posesses that sort of reaction time. If I had been charged with following too closely, it may have been a different defence(like would have none). I still don't feel that I was following too closely, as I am a motorcycle driver as well, and typically am very mindful of how much space I have around me. Considering I was charged with this particular offence, I don't believe that I am guilty of a crime.
The cop does not really have a story, he just has the statements given by myself, and the other driver involved.
That's why I was wondering if I planned to challenge his evidence, I simply was not sure he actually had any.
Thanks again for all the help.
Cheers
I definitely would fight, it sounds like you got very unlucky, really did nothing wrong, and now may have to pay for someone else's stupidity for a while.
Let us know how you make out, and GL!
They use a whole different set of rules and just cause you beat the charge means squat to them.
Hobbes
I reported it to them for an altogether different reason, one that will haunt me later regardless.
When I first started driving, my Father, a mechanic and business owner, allowed me to put my cars under the ownership of his company, save me some money while I got on my feet etc. AS I got older, accumulated student debt etc, I never really seemed to get my feet under me. Probably I didn't try to hard.
Needless to say, when my old man finally kicks me off the company teet, I'm in for a world of hurt anyhow.
So, I didn't want to mess around with not reporting since ultimately it would be him that got burned.
Thanks again for the tips guys.
P.S: with all due respect to anyone here in the insurance business, but that is a crooked crooked raquet man.
True, but not quite in practice. When it's a points violation, your insurance company is notified of the infraction. Then they pull up your record and re-price your ass. When it's not (ie 5km/h over) theres no notification. So unless you gave your insurance company a reason to spend the time checking out your record, it's highly likely it goes unnoticed and your rate does not increase.
No: You agree with whatever the officer thought of the incident and it will be entered into record without his presence.
Yes: You disagree with the officer, he has to show up to court and present his evidence and you have the option of questioning him.
Obviously, the answer is yes.
Oh, you thought that it's innocent until proven guilty? ha ha ha. Not in today's motor courts. The system is extremely skewed against the normal joe.
mike
Before I moved from Ontario to Vancouver I managed to get the prosecutor on the phone. I explained my point of view that I didn't feel I was guilty of this particular crime(failure to turn to the left to avoid), as I was not passing at the time. Regardless of whether or not I was guilty of some other crime.
Ultimately he agreed and the charge was withdrawn.
Pretty awesome result no?
but if you do hit a car in front of you that stops suddenly, by definition, you are following to close. On a typical road, you should have enough room in front of you to allow for emergency braking.
On a side note, I have experienced that there is a big difference in speeding infractions. I was caught in a speed trap last summer, and the officer had me driving at 80 in a 50.....but he gave me the minimum ticket (forget what the min speed infraction is). It was a $50 ticket, no points. He told me that these types of tickets are NOT reported to insurance companies, and that the only way they find out about it is if you offer that information yourself...
But in the end...no charge = no conviction = no change in insurance
Minimal charge for speeding is 1-15km/hr over, and the insurance company WILL find out when they run updates on your policy...you might be lucky and may update yearly...or longer, but you will pay for it one way or another.
/g2
btw..TD MM has a group rates for UW alumni when you graduate. It's a good place to start for comparing cheap rates.
My rate went down too.....the officer was pretty convincing...he said that the type of ticket he gave me isn't viewable by any party. I guess we'll see if my rates change next year....
/g2