I just got charged with a traffic ticket, Failing to yield to pedestrian.
I was going to turn right, I was at around 15km/hr all of a sudden I saw a black woman wearing all black to my left. It was raining and at 11:20 at night, bad visibility too. I didn’t hit her though. But then a cop pulled me over, and gave me a ticket for $180.
I want to put it to court, but on what grounds? And what should I be going for in court, thanks.
Save your time and pay the ticket - the only way you’ll get off is if the cop doesn’t show up.
My wife has a perfect record in challenging Ontario moving violations – in three out of three cases, they dropped the ticket either due to the cop not showing up, as you suggest, or because the judge had pity on my wife.
Unless you were going to lose a day’s pay or something, I’d suggest going to court. Even if the cop shows up, you can make big puppy dog eyes and tell your story.
Plus, if they are going to get $180, you might as well cost them something in court time and police pay. DOn’t let them off cheap.
Did you have a stop sign at the intersection, or a traffic light? If it was a traffic light, was the light red, yellow or green?
You were certainly in the wrong (by luck, damn black clothes in winter) but play the visibility card and hope the cop doesn’t show up. Don’t lose pay over it though.
That’s what I was going to ask.
If it was a stop sign, you shouldn’t have just been turning at 15km/h - you should have stopped and looked for pedestrians. And if it was a red light, you can only turn right on red after stopping. Since you state that you were turning right and she appeared on your left, presumably it was an intersection with a stop sign or you were at a red light (since she was crossing the street in front of you). If it was a green light for you and she was crossing in front of you, then she would have been jaywalking.
YMMV, but if I got the ticket and it was a stop sign or red light, I would just pay it. If it was a green light and she was jaywalking when there was poor visibility, I might try taking it to court.
Assuming that you were turning legally and she was crossing legally, I think the onus is on the driver to make sure it’s safe to turn the corner. Even with poor visibility, the driver is responsible for taking extra precautions to make sure he’s not endangering anyone.
How so? In many intersections, pedestrians get the walk signal simultaneous with the green light in the same direction. Thus, even though right-turning traffic doesn’t have to stop, it’s still their responsibility to yield to pedestrians.
IME this is true for smaller intersections, while larger intersections will keep pedestrian and vehicle phases separate.
The OP said that the pedestrian appeared on his/her left, which I (and Waenara) took to mean that the OP was turning from (say) a northbound lane to an eastbound lane, and that the pedestrian was walking east and trying to cross the N/S street in front of the OP’s car.
Technically (IIRC) the law says that if it is a crosswalk or intersection where the light is green for the pedestrian, then the pedestrian has the right of way. The driver is always at fault. However, if it is dark and the pedestrian is hard to see, then you might get the judge’s sympathy and either reduced or no fine. Worst case, you pay the same amount - so you might as well go for it.
I never had to face this myself, but IIRC you have the choice of “not guilty” or “guilty with an explanation” - the latter you get the points but no fine. I don’t know how much you want to sound like a lawyer, but you can try the “I didn’t see her” excuse with the explanation that you did slow down, you did look for pedestrians, you took a reasonable amount of care - you were not ignoring safety, the woman was far enough away that she didn’t get close to you until you were actually turning.
On the other hand, if the pedestrian appeared on the OP’s left during the turn, she could have been crossing the W/E street legally, going south through the crosswalk, with the OP not seeing her until halfway through the turn.
This is what I read the OP to mean, hence my ‘Don’t waste your time.’ post.
However, I suppose if the lady was crossing illegally in which case you would probably have more luck in court. I have to assume if that was the case, the cop would have given her a ticket instead though…
It could have been an uncontrolled intersection, of course, in which case neither of them would have been obviously in the wrong. (Except for the failure to see the pedestrian, of course.)
what a horrible attitude! Why would you clog up the system and waste tax money just out of spite? The ‘them’ in your post is us!
At least he didn’t suggest to the original poster to insist on his right to have a French judge in order to drag it out even further…
Tickets are as much about generating revenue as about enforcing rules. If you don’t feel a ticket was deserved, then make it unprofitable for the system. Of course, you notice how some places have a system where if you pay in a certain time without contesting it(especially parking tickets), the fine is lower?
If the system is shoddy, you should reinforce the learning experience for the perpetrators of the system.
If everyone insisted on their day in court the system would grind to a halt and maybe they would come up with a better system than one where going a running speed faster than the limit can earn you a few hundred dollars in fines; or where not seeing a person decked out to be almost invisible at night gets you a huge fine. If the police learn that handing out tickets in questionable circumstances is more hassle than it’s worth, maybe they won’t.
If the purpose of tickets is to teach proper driving, then making it break-even rather than a profit opportunity for society does not detract from that goal. If the purpose is to generate revenue rather than to enforce - why contribute if you don’t believe you deserve to? (google “phyrric victory”).
I don’t think this tactic will get you very far. If it does increase the costs of pursuing traffic violators, then it might just result in higher fines which is the opposite of what you are trying to achieve; at the same time, clogging up the court system and dragging cops to court so you can fight your battle against the system prevents courts and cops from doing its proper work which is to valiantly fight crime and injustice.
Incidentally, I know what a Pyrrhic victory is. Maybe you should google it to learn how to spell it right 
I’ve heard that the cop not showing up is uncommon these days as they are being held accountable for wasting the court’s time and resources and expected to appear to court dates.
hogarth raises a good point about appearing in court to explain yourself. A judge may find that you are not guilty of said offence or may be sympathetic and reduce or drop the fine altogether.
Not exactly, the myth goes that, say, in Toronto, you could ask for your whole court proceedings to be in French.
In reality, you can only request a bilingual proceeding as per the Attorney General of Ontario
I’ve heard that this does not create the obstacle it once did as the bilingual staff are functional in French and any other language issues are quickly solved by the court’s interpreters.
that phyrric victory is against yourself, because it will not “teach” them to charge, they will only up the price.