Quote:
Originally Posted by SPOC
Careless Driving is a 'catch all' offence that can be applied to almost any moving violation. Its also an arrestable offence and, your vehicle can be siezed until the final disposition of the offence (sec 217 HTA). When I say siezed, that doesnt mean pulling plates, that means held until the court case is over several months later. The reason I mention this is because, you dont see officers running around "power tripping" with these existing authorities...
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^actually this happened to me, however my lawyer managed to get my car out after 2 weeks.. Instead of the 10 months it took for my case to be heard and tossed/lesser included charge.
it was based on a statement from an assailant (complete stranger with pages of criminal charges) of mine, he took the criminals word as gospel, and treated me (no criminal record) as though I were lying and using the police to settle a personal score..
Had I not secured a lawyer I would have likely been charged due to the fictitious story my assailant made up and the officers took a liking to. It went so far as the prosecutor read into "facts" this fictitious story before a judge.
There was no actual physical evidence, the guy said I fired a gun at him, did they test for residue or ask for my shirt? no. did they find a firearm with or without my prints? no. did they find shell casing or any evidence at the intersection in question or in my car on any of their 3 searches? no. Did they withdraw the charges prior to court? no.
Regardless it cost me thousands (about 2 semesters university value), I had to pay impound based on charges that were reduced to 1 HTA offence...
I have my reasons for being bitter and a critic, and until you (SPOC) have been unjustly charged with a crime you didn't commit, I don't think you'd understand.
Oh yeah, and I beleive in the need for Policing and the basic principals behind it, but believe that somewhere along the way the system has been preverted.
EDIT: I too have recieved a ticket from a RIDE program; "alter license plate" it was fold so that "ontario" faced upwards, the ###"s faced forwards, and "yours to discover" faced downwards.. Rather than take the opportunity to inform "joe citizen" who hasn't been drinking of his infraction he decided to give me a ticket, and he declined to give me my MADD coupon book too.