When I was given a speeding ticket several years ago, I did what many drivers do — I 'fessed up to the police officer and quickly paid the fine. The circumstances of my apprehension were dubious at best (I wasn't going very fast; no speed limit was posted nearby), but pleading guilty seemed like the least painful way to clear up the matter.
More at Canadian Business Online:
(Opens new window)
Turns out, I'm an idiot. Speeding tickets are easy to fight and the fight can be well worth the effort. "In many cases, speeding tickets are nothing more than an arbitrary tax," says Ian Tootill, executive director of SENSE, an anti-photo radar group based in Vancouver. "It's probably everybody's duty to fight them in whatever way they can."
You're not just dealing with the annoying cost of the ticket, which averages about $150. You're also dealing with the impact on your insurance premiums, which can be painful and long-lasting. The Insurance Bureau of Canada estimates your premiums will rise about 25% if you have four speeding tickets on your driving record. You can find out the exact damage with a quick visit to
www.InsuranceHotline.com. There, I discovered that if I received three tickets a year for three years, my annual premiums would rise a horrifying $5,000.
"Insurance companies are absolutely brutal," says Brian Lawrie, founder and president of POINTTS, a Toronto-based paralegal firm that employs former police officers to help drivers fight tickets. "Insurance companies take absolutely no notice of demerit points. What they look at is convictions. If you plead guilty [and receive no demerit points], it still counts as a conviction on the books of the insurance company." Your record remains on those books for five years.
The solution? If you feel that you have been wrongly accused, contest your ticket. According to U.S. estimates, only about 3% to 5% of ticketed drivers take their case to court. Yet about half of drivers who do fight back emerge from court victorious. Canadian statistics, though unavailable, are probably similar. But to ensure you're among the winning half of defendants, you have to know what you're doing.
The first step to keeping your record clean is making nice with the police officer who pulled you over. You want him or her to approach you in a good frame of mind, so stay in your car and put your hands where the officer can see them, preferably on your steering wheel. Think of it as damage control. By being polite and considerate, you stand a better chance of getting off with a warning or at least having the charges reduced.
Never — and I mean, never — admit any guilt. Police officers often ask potentially damaging questions, such as, "Do you know why I have pulled you over?" or "Do you know how fast you were driving?" Answer "Yes, I was speeding," or "I think I was doing about 120" and your case is cooked. "Anything the officer can do to make you admit your guilt makes his life at lot easier," says Eric Skrum, communications director at the National Motorists Association, a lobby group based in Waunakee, Wis. Skrum recommends politely turning the questions back on the officer: "Why have you pulled me over?" "How fast was I going?" Alternatively, just keep mum and profess ignorance as to why you've been stopped.
If the officer still issues you a ticket, inspect it. If you see a minor error, such as a misspelling of your name or a licence plate number that's off by a single digit, a judge probably won't dismiss your ticket. However, if the officer has forgotten to enter your name entirely or failed to sign the ticket, that's considered a "fatal error" and you're off the hook.
If you haven't been blessed with a big slip-up, don't worry. Make a careful note of your surroundings, especially the traffic and weather conditions at the time of the incident, and any obstructions that could interfere with a radar reading, such as bridges, railway tracks and power lines. Pick out precisely where you are on a map and, if you have a camera handy, snap some photos. They could be useful backup for your upcoming court appearance, and they will help refresh your memory.
Next, transform yourself into an indignant victim. On your ticket, you'll be given a choice of three ways to plead: guilty (you pay the fine); guilty with an explanation (you explain your situation to a justice of the peace in hopes that he or she will reduce your fine); or not guilty. Not guilty is the one to choose if you feel that you weren't speeding, the officer got the wrong car, or the evidence against you is flimsy.
Send in the ticket and wait for notice of your court date. If you don't mind being sneaky, here's a tip. As soon as you receive notice of your court appearance, ask to have the date changed. A police officer's court appearances are often lumped together on one day, a date that is convenient for him or her. Change the date and it's less likely the officer will show up. (And yes, when an officer doesn't show up, the charges against you are usually dismissed.)
However, never assume that the officer will be a no-show; their track record is actually pretty good. Also, don't bother drawing up a list of excuses for your court appearance. Excuses like "all the cars were speeding" and "my speedometer was broken" are words uttered only by the guilty-with-an-explanation crowd — and you're not guilty.
Instead, request full disclosure of the prosecution's evidence by sending a letter to the relevant police station. Be precise with your request. At a minimum, ask for the officer's copy of the ticket, the kind of speed measurement device used to nab you and the officer's training record for that device. Radar devices are not infallible, with potential interference coming from highways and railway lines. Police officers can also make errors in spotting a speeding car in a group of vehicles, especially if their training is substandard. "Radar is an extremely accurate device," says Lawrie, who pulled over many a speeder during his 10 years with the Metro Toronto police before becoming a paralegal. "But what it tells you is something out there is moving at, say, 80 km/hr. It could be a train or it could be another car on the highway."
Ask the officer why he thinks your car was the vehicle picked up on his radar. The officer must demonstrate that he had a visual estimation of your speed before he used the radar to confirm it. That's not always easy to prove, especially if you're armed with traffic and weather conditions and the officer's training record. "Radar is used to corroborate a visual estimate of speed," says Tootill. "In other words, a police officer is supposed to look at you and say, 'I think the driver is doing such-and-such a speed. I'm going to use this device to determine if that is the case.' But often what they're doing is setting themselves up two km away on straight stretches of road and firing at people with the devices [without estimating their speeds beforehand]." That's a no-no.
If the idea of cross-examining a police officer sounds daunting, there are ways to boost your confidence. You could hire a lawyer, if you don't mind racking up expenses that will likely dwarf the cost of your speeding ticket. Or you could turn to a paralegal firm that specializes in traffic tickets. POINTTS, for instance, has offices in Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta, and it offers you a free consultation to find out if your case is worth pursuing. Once a case gets to court, the firm claims a 90% success rate. It charges a flat rate, in the range of $250 to $500, depending upon the complexity of the matter. Other firms, such as X-Copper, guarantee their results: if you lose your case, the $300-plus fee will be either refunded or absorbed into the cost of the ticket.
There are cheaper ways to fight your speeding ticket. The
NMA Web site contains useful information, most of which is applicable to Canadian drivers. Also check out the
SENSE Web site. Better yet, simply drop in on a court session to see how the system works. You might be pleasantly surprised by the informal nature of these courts. You might even pick up some tips if a seasoned pro is fighting a ticket that same day. And who knows, after you fight your first ticket, you may emerge a seasoned pro yourself.
