Fighting your Speeding Ticket - Going to Court
You have four options in deciding what to do with your speeding ticket.
Option 1. Plead Guilty and Pay the Fine
If you plead guilty and pay the speeding ticket it goes on your record for 3 years. Your insurance company has access to this record and will base your insurance premiums on your driving record. Any conviction on your driving record can affect your insurance rates no matter if there are demerit points or not. The fine is not the complete penalty for any speeding or traffic ticket. The penalties include the demerit points, insurance implications and the fine. As well as these penalties, many speeding tickets have a mandatory licence suspension.
NEVER ADVISABLE
Option Two, Plead guilty with an explanation.
If you plead guilty with an explanation for speeding the court will register a conviction to the offence. The speeding ticket will on your record for three years. All of the implications of the speeding or traffic ticket that apply for option number one above apply here. The only thing that can happen is the Justice of the Peace can reduce the amount of the fine.
NEVER ADVISABLE
Again your insurance company has access to your driving record and will base your insurance premiums on this record for three years from the date you plead guilty. Any demerit points associated with the ticket will still apply and the conviction goes on your record. If there is an associated licence suspension with the speeding charge, you will lose your driving licence for the period prescribed by law, the Justice of the Peace has no control over the suspension.
Option Three, Make an arrangement to meet with the prosecutor and try to resolve your speeding ticket avoiding a trial. Commonly called a “First Attendance Meeting”.
Many court administration offices will try to offer this to you, using the ploy that you can get the demerit points removed. You should be very careful accepting legal advice from a clerk or employee of the court. This is highly improper, and the court staff may not be acting in your best interest but for the courts.
Many of the clerks themselves disagree with this process but they are under direct orders from their superiors to push these first attendance meetings because it saves the court administration money.. Most of these court clerks do not understand the total costs and ramifications of a speeding ticket nor are they qualified to give legal advice.
If you do make a First Attendance meeting and agree to a resolution, you will be convicted of an offence! The offence will go on your driving record for three years and the conviction is available for your insurance company to access and base your rates upon.
Attending at a first attendance meeting for a speeding ticket will not under any circumstances get your charge withdrawn. You will lose any opportunity to have your speeding ticket completely dismissed. You will lose any opportunity for winning your case on a technicality and the officer does not have to appear in court.
Everyone should set a trial date, just to see if the officer appears in court!
There are times when a defendant should consider a first attendance meeting, for example you forgot your drivers licence or your insurance card, otherwise a defendant should not schedule this type of court attendance without first seeking legal advice..
NEVER ADVISABLE
Option four - Request a trial date
This is the only way you can win your case.
This is normally the best option for all speeding tickets. Setting a trial date is the best way of winning your speeding ticket, and avoids the conviction going on your record and insurance rates for as long as possible.
Pleading NOT GUILTY is the option everyone should take for any speeding or traffic ticket. There are numerous ways of winning your case, some very simple that anyone can do, others more complicated that only an experienced traffic court agent like Ontario Traffic Tickets should handle.
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