Can You Fight A Distracted Driving Ticket?
Can you fight a distracted driving ticket? Yes. Easy answer. And you should. That’s my instruction at this point in time. These particular convictions, these particular tickets, have some pretty significant consequences to your insurance rate. That’s a nice euphemistic way of saying it’s going to get very expensive if this goes on to your record.
It’s important to be aware of that. That’s not a fear tactic, that’s to let you know it’s something you should at the very least be raising your eyebrow to. There is a possibility of a license suspension, which can import other consequences. You’ll have to arrange transportation to get to work, for example.
I had a colleague who had this particular charge and, and she was representing a client on it. I was working with her as she dealt with this, and it was a particularly challenging case. Not because the facts were challenging. It’s because of the intensity of Ontario and this type of offense.
There is such a current in Ontario of conviction and concern with this type of ticket. People are very focused on this. The facts of Lisa’s particular representation were, I’m paraphrasing to a degree, but it looked like this. There was a cancer patient obviously struggling with that. She had medical equipment on board. One of the pieces of equipment was a monitor to check her medication levels. And what she had done was nothing illegal and nothing wrong, but she looked at what was happening with her medication levels and in doing so, she was observed and she was observed, in my opinion, in the fever pitch of what police are doing out there with this type of offense.
They’re looking into any possible vehicle for any sort of distraction, in particular, an electronic device, usually a cell phone. In this particular circumstance this woman looked at, you know, her medication levels, and that was observed by a police officer. The police officer mistook what she looked at, and as a result, she was charged.
It took us and her a long time to represent this particular individual and we were successful. That charge is gone. And the other good fortune that we have, the last we’ve heard that woman is still surviving, which is quite good.
So that being said, you’re these type of charges and how to fight them:
A, you need to fight these because of all the consequences. The conviction itself will also last for approximately five years on your record causing future problems. There are defenses to this type of thing. The purpose of this particular legislation is to stop that distraction because it’s caused profound problems in our world.
People have been killed, people have been injured, and there is a purpose for the legislation. The current chapter that we’re in is that it’s being overused. Everyone is getting caught in this particular dragnet, and the risk is that innocent people are going to be convicted. People are going to be consequenced when it’s not necessary for them to do so.
For example, I’m not going to talk about a specific case, but I’ll talk about a scenario where if you were stopped at a light, perfectly stopped position, clear sunny day, you know the intersection, you look at your cell phone, you received a text from your girlfriend, your wife or your boyfriend, quickly look at that particular device and then you carry on.
If you touch that device as you’re looking at that and you’re seen, you will be charged with this particular offense. Well, if you were to put these facts. on a continuum? Well, there was no real distraction there. There was no public risk, and certainly the driver in that situation was not at risk. So, it’s a very weak prosecution.
There are defenses. They can prosecute, because it’s a technical prosecution, but it is certainly something you want to consider getting some help with, and I would encourage you to do so.
