Good to know. I thought they only looked at demerits. Is there any other offense without demerits that they consider?
Hand held device ticket advice
- Thread starter outlander
- Start date
Sorry dude. No sympathy. I can't count the number of times I've been stepping off a streetcar and had to pull back as someone drove right past talking away. It is a serious thing. Do you really want to be responsible for injuring another human being? Even if you are on the way to something important.
Get the damn blutooth. You can't put a bit of money ahead of your fellow travellers on this earth......lesson learned.
Get the damn blutooth. You can't put a bit of money ahead of your fellow travellers on this earth......lesson learned.
Every cop is looking to increase their conviction rate. That's why the fish honey holes rather than provide real assistance to citizens. Take the ticket to Points and pay whatever it takes to keep it off your record or else your insurance will go up.
Every time a cop is a dick, that's the face of the law the public remembers
Every time a cop is a dick, that's the face of the law the public remembers
WTF is all the hoopla over talking on a phone with it held up to your ear? Texting while driving is bad. Dialing while driving is bad. But when someone calls me I have to create a hazard on the side of the highway to either take the call or call them back? A little balance is needed.
Insurance companies don't care about points or your fine for any ticket. The points/fine are your punishment. The insurance companies only care about the offense(s) you have been convicted of.
No need to pull over when taking a call. Just tap the bluetooth on the visor and chat. Likewise for dialing.
As for texting while driving ... first of all, that's just plain insane. Secondly, if it's a text, it ain't an emergency.
Lesson learned??? You're right! My daily use of the phone while I drive through school zones at 3:30pm(is that when schools end) has finally caught up with me.
I do have a Bluetooth. Thanks for the advice. When I jumped out of my work vehicle into my personal vehicle I forgot it since I was rushing to get to the hospital.
The problem with our city is that a lot of people can't drive period. Even if they have both hands on the wheel.
I appreciate the advice the rest of you have given me. I talked to one of those traffic ticket places. I travel for work and might have a hard time attending court dates. Will see how it goes.
Might not do any good. The accident a couple of weeks back, when the cube van crashed into a bus, killing a lady, was reported caused by the cube van driver on his cell phone (witness says he had it up to his ear). The courts are probably being very tough right now on driving and non-hands-free cell phone use.
Unfortunately for you the cop had probably heard that story or some other version of itt 50 times already that day.
I don't know if it includes demerit points or not. From an insurance stand point, they now take any ticket in consideration
even if there is not demerit points. If you have the time and inclination appeal it, and take it to court. You not get a court date for a year,
In the meantime, get something from the hospital to prove that your dad had an emergency. If you are lucky the court will take pity on you.
The process of appealing is tedious. I believe that they make you go down to the court to do the appeal. That means that you are
probably waiting around for 1/2 a day just to file the appeal.
When you go to court, you will also be there for 1/2 day so be prepared.
This is mostly true, but our system seems devoid of common sense or the ability to make exceptions. Probably because
the system allows the defense lawyers to manipulate every aspect of semantics to escape punishment.
There are no dermit points.
http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/dandv/driver/handbook/section4.7.0.shtml
However, if found guilty, a conviction will be registered which will impact insurance premiums, perhaps substantially, for several years. Worth while to try and avoid a conviction.
http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/dandv/driver/handbook/section4.7.0.shtml
However, if found guilty, a conviction will be registered which will impact insurance premiums, perhaps substantially, for several years. Worth while to try and avoid a conviction.
Here's an even cheaper version.Why fight it? Is it really worth the effort?
The fine for "distracted driving" is $155 with no demerit points in Ontario, according to CAA. Compare that to $280 and 4 demerit points in Saskatchewan.
Rather than arguing your "compelling reason for breaking the law" you should simply recognize your compelling reason for buying a hands-free bluetooth unit for your car.
Like this one, for $60, that clips on your visor:
Couldn't agree more. Considering distracted driving now claims more lives than drunk drivers, it's time to make it a 1,000 fine and 6 points. There's no reason to text or hold the phone to your ear while driving unless you're calling 911.
The OP is SOL. He wasn't making a 911 call and has already explained to the cop the phone rang so he answered it. All he had to do was pull over where it was safe to do so, put on his hazard lights and take the call. The OP isn't getting out of this one. Pay the fine.
Sort of correct. Insurance companies look at any moving violation but typically don't raise your rates until you have 3 or more in the last 3 years.
Demerit points are an MTO thing only and stay on your record for 2 years from the date of the offence. Ins. companies take into consideration any moving violation including speeding up to 15 kph over for which there's no demerit points.
Sorry, no sympathy for cops nailing drivers for texting and talking on the phone while holding it to their ear.
Points and the like is pretty much a scam. They consider a "win" in court if they get your fine reduced which is something pretty much anyone can do by speaking to the officer and the crown prior to the trial. You don't need Points to do that for you. They rarely get the charges dropped.
I hope you are right but I think an insurance company could drop you if you have 3 tickets in less than three years, no matter if they are minor offenses...
I'm not aware of an upper level ruling, but the Ontario Court of Justice, hearing an appeal-level case, ruled it was legal to momentarily hold a device... but went into quite some detail to describe what that meant. The media coverage of the ruling was spotty at best, with some outlets even going so far as to claim it was an upper level court in addition to the usual sensationalize-and-summarize the media are so famous for.
Interestingly, there were 3 issues the appellant had with the original trial that brought her to appeal.
Firstly, she claimed she didn't have a fair trial due to legal mumbojumbo.
Secondly, she claimed that "holding" had to have intent.
Thirdly, she claimed that prosecution had to prove the device was capable of sending/receiving wireless signals at the time of the offence.
The Justice in question rejected 1 because she had a lawyer well versed in the subject and other parts of her testimony demonstrate she clearly understood the case (she argued she had only been prepared to defend "using" a cellphone, not "holding").
The 3rd point was based on R v Pizzuro 2012. The argument is if it's in airplane mode, it's not receiving/sending and therefore isn't part of the law. The Justice of the recent case disagreed with the Justice in the Pizzuro case and gave a ton of reasons and evidence why. It's not in doubt which was correct in my mind. Of particular emphasis was the review of the legislative rationale behind the law, which made it quite clear what the intent of the law was, and therefore it's intended interpretation.
The second, and the point you're talking about, is the one that overturned the ruling. The problem is, however, that when you try to trim away the arguments the Justice gave for his ruling and condense it down to, "Holding isn't against the law," you miss the subtlety and nuance. And case law is all about subtlety and nuance. Unlike the media, I would have chosen the entire logical thought and not the snippet of once sentence.
The key part here is the phrases "to hand it to a passenger or move it within the car." The Justice outlined what form of "holding" is permitted, specifically. While all cases can't be covered, it's clear that "holding" a device, even if you aren't looking at it, for an extended period of time, is beyond the scope of what he meant. Additionally, if you look at it while holding it, to read the number of who is calling you, for example, is also clearly outside of what the Justice intended.
Trying to negotiate for a lesser fine is always the best option, usually the easiest as well, but if the Crown decides not to go for it, there's not a lot of wiggle room with the distracted driving legislation despite how the media portrayed this most recent ruling.
REFERENCE: R. v. Kazemi, 2012 ONCJ 383
You're half right.
Straight from the Highway Traffic Act: Subsection (1) does not apply in respect of the use of a device to contact ambulance, police or fire department emergency services. 2009, c. 4, s. 2.
Emergency means formal emergency, not a personal one. If you don't need police, fire or paramedic services, it's not an "emergency" you can use your phone for. All other provisions of law notwithstanding of course (if someone has a gun to your head and you're under duress, for example, I'm sure you can argue your way out of it).
I don't know of any agencies where "conviction rates" apply to traffic enforcement. Maybe they exist, maybe Toronto Police is the only agency that does, but I'd be very surprised. The police version of performance evaluations for traffic and patrol is usually based on citations issued, not on citations upheld in court, in addition to the various other criteria (dress, deportment, paperwork, etc). Police have little control over the conviction rate on such petty matters. I've showed up to court before to find the Crown had decided to dismiss all of my cases because there he prepping for something larger. How can they hold that against me? That would hardly be fair. On the other hand, if 500 tickets were written by each officer on average in a given month and I only wrote 100, my Sgt would want to know how I was spending my time on the tax payers dime that I only witnessed 1/5 the violations my coworkers did. Perhaps I could come up with a reason (was on leave for most it, then seconded to a task force, plus I had recurrent training, my range qualification and a first aid refresher all in the same month so I was only on the road 1/5 of the time), perhaps I couldn't and I'd be expected to pull up my socks.
In any case, clearance rates are very important for detectives because they work real crimes and politicians use those stats to get re-elected. No one cares if a speeding ticket sticks or not except the person to whom it was issued. You're $100 fine just isn't that important in the grand scheme of things.
