quote:

Originally posted by Little John A lot of people think that it is only points that cause your insurance to go up, THEY ARE WRONG, the insurance companies see a speeding ticket as a ticket even if there are no points involved. Cops usually try and use the line of reducing it to no points to get you to stop discussing the ticket with them and to make themselves look like they are "helping" you. Unless they will reduce the ticket from a major violation to a minor they are not really helping you in relation to insurance, they are only reducing the set fine amount.

Tru dat.

Having a few minor tickets of 10-15 over the limit isn't good either, but i'll take 10 over the limit over 3 demerit points anyday.

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When I had to do this I set a court date and when I went in to court the DA asked me how i was going tgo plead. I said not quilty...... SO he said would you ple to a leser offence (lower speed and no points) so I said yes. All I ended up with was paying $40...... As long as the DA gets a convivtion they don't care how big it is

I'm just nitpicking, but I don't think they're reffered to as DA's here.

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quote:

Originally posted by Little John Well not exactly, the more court dates you have the greater chance you have that officer is not going to show and the greater chance that the officer is not scheduled to go to court. This is what I did: 1st appearance: Talk to the crown and ask for a deal (don’t worry you are going to refuse it) When in the court room check if the officer is there, if not take the trial and plead not guilty If the office is there, then when you stand in front of your “HONOUR”, state that due to the serious nature of the ticket that you want to seek legal council and schedule another date (seeking legal council is a right) Just before the second court date (about a week and a half) fax a document into the crown stating a request for disclosure of the officer’s notes. 2nd appearance: Check if the officer is there, if not take the trial and plead not guilty If the office is there, go to court and state that you cannot afford legal council and state that you are waiting to receive the disclosure to review the case on your own to see what you are up against.(The disclosure will not have arrived in time for this second date) 3rd appearance: Check if the officer is there, if not take the trial and plead not guilty If the officer is there you may at this time ask specific questions relating to the case, you should ask questions that are not noted in his notes(which you have already), if they answer ask him how many tickets he has given since the ticket was issued(proving how impossible it is to remember). Ask him how he can remember such details? You have to ask which method he caught you with and the range that he caught you at. These machines must be operated within a certain range and must be calibrated after every placement. He most likely will not have the other section of his notes with him that specify those details (since it has been so long and he is no longer fighting tickets from that batch), and after he answers the question ask him where in his notes that it supports his comments(if he doesn’t have the notes, you are off). The point of all this is to create as many court appearances as possible to enhance the chance of the officer not showing up. And if he does he may not have all the specific notes relating to your case. I did this myself and it worked for me after 6 court dates, as they did not supply the disclosure, which was 100% worth the 187km/hr ticket I was given. I told them (each time a new judge) that I have now been here 6 times and this represents $XXX dollars of lost income which is more then the ticket (failure of due process) P.S. if you take this advice, and it works please pm me and arrange to buy me a nice cold beer!

No no no NO NO!!! I'm sorry to be an ass here, but I hate when people give bad advice and I'm worried that someone here might actually try this. If this worked for you, it was a total FLUKE - do not ever try it again!

1. More court dates means a greater chance of the officer not showing up - WRONG! As I mentioned earlier, the officers generally have schedules for this stuff, which the courts know, and they will schedule your next court date for when they know he's available. Either that or they'll simply ask him when he can show up. The courts coordinate this stuff with the *police*, not the *defendants*.

2. The courts will NOT be sympathetic to you if you show up on the court date and say that you want to seek legal council. Generally, your court date will be scheduled for more than 2 months after you file your notice of intention. You had 2 months to seek legal council - unless the judge just got laid yesterday night and is high on opium today, he's going to say TOUGH SHIT!

3. The courts will DEFINITELY NOT be sympathetic to you if you're on your SECOND court date (3-5 months after filing) and you say you're waiting for disclosure when you only sent the request a week ago! You had several months to ask for disclosure! Unless you sent the request by registered mail and can prove that it was actually RECEIVED, you're toast. And even if you can prove it, the best you'll get here is not an acquittal but just another trial date, and they will most likely have sent the disclosure by then.

5. The courts will UNDER NO CONCIEVABLE CIRCUMSTANCES be sympathetic to you if you whine to them about how many trials you've been to and how much money you've lost when you are the one who keeps rescheduling due to your own perceived inability to prepare a defense!

6. IF you ask for disclosure, it is practically GUARANTEED that the cop WILL bring all of his notes because he knows you're challenging the facts of the case!

7. Asking stupid questions like whether or not the cop remembers how many tickets he's given is only going to get you a reprimand from the judge. It's irrelevant. And as for calibration records and tracking history, the cop doesn't HAVE to remember any of this stuff - he's allowed to read from his notes!

8. On the other hand, if the cop does not have his notes but has memorized the important details that never change like what frequencies the tuning forks are at, you will get nowhere by asking him to produce his notes! He doesn't need his notes - as an officer of the law, the court will assume that he remembers and is telling the truth!

Basically, you got lucky because they failed to send the disclosure. And if you didn't retain proof of your request (i.e. registered mail), then you got VERY lucky that the judge didn't tell you to suck a lemon. This does NOT normally happen! Please people, for your own sake, do not follow this advice!

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Actually it does work, and it has for 2 of my friends so far. Cops are known to miss court dates, even when they are scheduled to show, if you increase the number of dates it increases your chances. The structure I have given is much better then planning your trial by having a friend waiting in car outside the courtroom.


The point is this, you can hardly win a court case just by debating with the officer in court, but what you can do is add more variables to the case in your favour, make the court do more work and the greater chance they have in messing up. The office must always reset the machine after placement, there is no way he can just remember the set times(you have got to remember traffic cops do this every day and it is unreasonable for them to remember off hand the details of one ticket). Traffic law is not treated even a 1/4 as serious as criminal law, and as I can speak for myself as one who has always driven performance cars and bikes and knows first hand with about 8 personal accounts of going to court (separate tickets), that they do make many common mistakes due to the shear overwhelming volume of cases during the day. They are much more likely to let a case fall thought the cracks than a criminal one.

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I've had a few tickets in my life and the only reliable thing I can say that was worked is this. Note, most of my experience is with the Alberta Traffic courts, but I imagine it's pretty similar.

So long as you are aware of how many tickets you can have on your record without your insurance going up,(doesn't really matter with the demerits, demerits from my understanding only really address how quickly you can get your license suspended), you can just delay the conviction dates until some other tickets have come off your abstract. Now this only really works if you get occasional tickets, like 1 or 2 a year, but that was my case. I would delay the court dates until I had one ticket come off my record, and then go into court and plead guilty and have the fine reduced. Typical excuses I would use to get long continuances would be things like I'm leaving the country for work for x months, or I am travelling for x months, etc. Usually, you can get about 2 delays before they say you have to make it in. I've actually had a court date delayed for almost 1.5 years from the original issuance of the ticket.

This really doesn't get you off the hook per se, but very rarely in my experience have they ever taken points off a ticket for me, and they do keep a records of your convictions, so it's not like you can exactly say that it was a one time thing if you regularily get pulled over. At the least this keeps your insurance rates lower than if you were to get dinged with all of those tickets within a short amount of time.

Oh, and although my g/f had a cop not show up once, I've been in and out of court for these for almost the last 5 years, (I average about 1 ticket a year), and not once, even with all the continuances, has a cop not shown up for the court date.