-=HUNGRYMAN=-

OK ..... being an ex-law enforcement officer, and seeing the exact charges you received, I am going to go out on a limb and guess that you were "cruising" with ONLY THE NEON lights on, and this is why you got the 62/6 ???

According to the Highway Traffic Act of Ontario, all motor vehicle drivers are required to use their vehicle's headlights from one half hour prior to sunset, until one half hour after sunrise. If you were out driving down the main strip (or wherever, doesn't matter) with only your neon lights, or maybe even the neon lights and your driving lights (but no "headlights"on), and is was within the time window I specified, then the officer was well within his right to charge you.

The seat belt charge is pretty clean cut, and I don't think you have a snowball's chance in hell of beating it in court. The judge will simply ask you if indeed your seatbelts had been modified from the original factory supplied belts. You will say "yes", and he will say "charge sustained".

I don't know if you are a gambler or not ...
but the best advice I can give you, which will give you a 50% or better chance of beating these charges, is to mail the tickets in with a plea of "not guilty". Let the Ontario court backlogs work in your favor. (The statute of limitations on non-criminal traffic act violations is 1 year.) It will take anywhere from 3 weeks to a few months, just to notify you of your impending court date ... then if it is day court, you can request night court, and vice versa, to further delay the process.

It may take several weeks or months again just to receive notice of your new court date, and due to the extensive backlogs in Ontario courts, your new trial date may already fall outside of the SOL ... if not you can request another new date, but I would not push your luck and request any more than 2 new dates, as they may start to catch on to you ... and then they will make sure they fit you in as soon as they can, sometimes even bumping other cases back further ...

If all else fails, and you have exhaused your 2 requests for a new date already, you will have no choice but to attend court, and plead your case .... another important factor that could save your ass, is that many cops no longer show up at the court hearings for "not guilty" traffic tickets, since for about 3 years now, Ontario Police do not get paid overtime to attend court anymore. What this means, is that if the officer who charged you doesn't show, you get off the hook. by the same token, I can guarantee you that if you were a DICK with him, he will MAKE time to show up and defend his actions to charge you.

With all this being said, it boils down to if you are a gambling man or not ... about 30% of all traffic tickets in Ontario are exonerated either due to the officiating officer's absense, or else the time limit has been exceeded.

Worst case scenario is ... that you do end up defending your actions in court ... if you are found guilty, you lose 3 points, and your pockets get a little bit lighter, which puts you no worse off than you already are!

BTW ... The Ontario Demerit point system works like this ... after you get 6 or more points, the MTC will call you in for an interview to discuss how you may become a better driver. If you go in to the interview with an attitude, you will leave without your licence. If you have a productive interview with them, then you will keep your licence, but they will caution you that the points will remain on your licence for 3 years, in which time any further accumilation will get you another interview, and most likely your licence will be revoked at that time too.

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[This message has been edited by -=HUNGRYMAN=- (edited 07-05-2001).]