A DRIVER believes she paid a fine more than a decade ago, but city officials say she must pay $445 to keep her driver’s license.
The owner of the vehicle said she had no choice but to shell out hundreds of dollars.
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“My driver’s license was suspended because I had an unpaid driving ticket,” said Christine Coldwell, a driver in a Toronto suburb. TVC News.
In 2011, Coldwell was stopped for violating a highway law while making a turn.
She says the police assigned a fine for the crime.
Coldwell, an accountant, said she firmly believes she paid the fine and would normally have receipts to prove payment.
But she only keeps the files for ten years before throwing them away.
She had no way of proving payment of the fine, now 13 years old.
“I’m not disputing the fact that I got a ticket in 2011, I know I did,” she told the station.
“But I’m sure I paid.”
Coldwell said he has changed his address on his license five times since he received the traffic ticket.
She has also renewed her license since the incident.
However, she said no one at ServiceOntario, a DMV-like authority in Canada, ever mentioned the allegedly unpaid fine.
The turnover fine was initially $115. Coldwell racked up $49 in late fees.
She will also have to pay another $281 to reinstate her license.
“There is no recourse for me. None,” she complained to the police station.
“Just pay the $445 fine and thank you very much.”
ServiceOntario employees allegedly told the driver they were going through his books to find unpaid tickets after a drop in revenue.
How to fight a speeding ticket
According to a legally reviewed post, there are five effective strategies for fighting a speeding ticket if it was issued improperly.
- If stopped and a ticket is issued, drivers can discuss or dispute the driver’s personal opinion. When issuing a speeding ticket, the police officer is required to write his opinion and come to an “objective” conclusion. If the fine was written based on this judgment, it can be challenged. An example would be if you were traveling at 75 mph in a 65 mph zone because other people were traveling at the same speed, you could argue that it would be more dangerous to travel at 65 mph.
- You can challenge the police officer’s presentation of evidence. If you’ve been ticketed for something like running a stop sign or making an illegal U-turn, you can’t contest it if a police officer saw you, but you can take things to court like eyewitness accounts, diagrams, or photos.
- Argue that the ticket was issued due to an “error of fact.” This is complicated, but a “mistake of fact” is a mistake made by a driver over a situation that was beyond their control, or if a driver legitimately did not know they were violating the law. For example, you were driving in two lanes because the lane markers were so worn out that you couldn’t see them.
- You could say the circumstances justified his direction. You could say you were speeding to pass a possibly drunk driver or avoiding an accident by quickly changing lanes. However, the argument will not work if there is evidence that you continued to speed after passing.
- Similar to the above, it could be argued that speeding was necessary to avoid harm. The key is to argue that if you weren’t speeding, you or someone else could have been injured.
- Consult a traffic lawyer if all else fails. Many have free consultations to decide whether or not there is a case.
Source: Find Law
Coldwell was not alone. Another driver told the station that he received a letter following a 25-year traffic ticket.
The accountant said the extremely old fines left drivers feeling like they had no way of reacting to the fine.
She ended up spending $445 to get her license back.
“I paid in protest because I had no choice because I had to drive,” she said.
This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
