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My Day In Court


secondtube

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Well, this morning was my chance to have myself heard in court, fighting two traffic tickets.

I was pulled over in a speed trap, was charged 70 in a 50, and double the fine as it was a community safety zone.

I was also docked for having an expired licence (doh!)

Anyway, my tickets totalled 550 dollars combined (190 for speeding and 350 for expired licence). Not to mention the insurance raise, as the speeding ticket incurred a Three Point Loss.

Well, spoke with the prosecution, showed my proof of fulltime student, AND proof that i got the licence issue taken care of the Next Day, and she suggested a reduced speed from 20 over to 15 over, So No Point Loss, AND she suggested a reduction in price from 350 to 100 dollars on the expired licence ticket.

Well, when i got to the judge to finalize, the judge Further reduced the expired licence ticket to 90 dollars, dropping the total price from 550 to 170, and No Point Loss!!!!

I figure i easily saved over Three Grand this morning (can u imagine what would have happened to my insurance rates for the next three years!).

I understand my rates will STILL rise a bit, but not nearly as much as they would have....

My advice to anyone who gets a ticket for anything, GO FOR EARLY RESOLUTION!!!!! Of the 11 people on the docket, ALL 11 people got reductions! (i got the biggest by far)

I'm happy.

(time to write a midterm now!)

::

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geez, that's good news for you dude.

I've had 3 speeding tickets this year, the only one i didn't want to fight (no way to appeal, i was definitely guilty and deserved the fine) was in ottawa. the 2 i would have fought were in quebec and new york. No way I'm gonna wade into the Riviere-du-Loup justice system as an allophone, and no way I'm gonna travel all the way to Buffalo to get told by some dickhead judge that there's nothing I can do.

Good work on getting your reductions!

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That's encouraging to hear Steve.

I was hit from behind about a month ago, and charged with it (!) due to an "illegal" lane change. Long story, but this f*cko was speeding, slammed his breaks on, I could hear the screeching, and left about a 15 foot skid mark on the street - then claimed he was going 20km on the report.

So....I'm going to court, hope to come out on top, ie. insurance, etc.

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Well done. The no points thing is big, when you posted this originally I think I may have mentioned that your insurance company may forgive your first offenceif it's a minor one such as speeding under 20 k/m. If it's your second well getting no points is likely going to minimize the impact on your fees.

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Don't even worry about it. I wouldn't even call that a lapse in judgment; just an oversight.

In my work, I defend negligent drivers every day. You wouldn't even believe the boneheaded things people do. secondtube, your transgression was nothing, in the grand scheme of things.

Good job in Court today, and congratulations on a favourable result!

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I read an article in the Toronto Star recently about how many speeding tickets appear to be obvious cash grabs, especially when most fines are negotiable. I have to go for yet another speeding ticket on December 3rd, and am hoping the OPP are also negotiable.

BTW ST, unless your insurance company does regular checks, there's a possibility they may not even know about your day in court...just don't bring it up.

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That's funny you noticed that. It's actually a work-habit.

For some reason, there are certain words we capitalize by way of convention (Court, Statement of Claim, Plaintiff...), even though it's not grammatically correct, and I can't avoid it when I write informally. When I describe a type of court that has limited jurisdiction bestowed by statute, rather than referring to "the Court", by which I usually mean a superior court with "inherent jurisdiction" and is sort of used as a proper noun, I don't capitalize; and vice versa. (I know it sounds nit-picky and nerdy as hell, but you asked...)

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