O.P.P.
Crack Down
6,554
charges were laid by the O.P.P. over
the long
weekend. The charges included:
Speeding:
4,165
Hazardous
Moving Violations: 462
Seatbelt:
398
Other
Highway Traffic Act Charges:
667
Liquor
Licence Act Charges: 406
Insurance
Act Charges: 161
Impaired
Drivers Arrested: 66
Drug
Offences: 11
Unsafe
Vehicles: 211
Fatal
Collisions: 7
FYI: "Emergency vehicles" were parked randomly on the highway to trap drivers speeding past them. It's the law that you must slow down and move over into another lane if it's safe to do so. Drivers who didn't were fined $490 for a first offence. Repeat offences can go as high as $4,000.
Traffic
Tickets Go High-Tech
The Ontario
Provincial Police are now "test driving" new computer
software that will eliminate human error and help
prevent traffic tickets from being thrown out of
court.
Sgt. Cam
Woolley of the OPP predicts that by the end of 2006, 330
police cruisers and 220 Ministry of Transportation
vehicles will be using the new "e-ticketing"
system.
How
It Works
When a
driver is pulled over, the police officer will simply
scan the person's licence and enter the offence, and the
system will automatically fill out the "electronic
ticket" in the same way Pizza Pizza knows all about you
when you order.
Cam Woolley
says that a lot of drivers really get angry about being
pulled over and delayed by having to wait for the
officer to write out a ticket. He says the new
"e-tickets" are so quick you'll be back on the road in
no time, to
be caught speeding
again.
Pitfalls
Of The Old System
Up until
now, the "manual" system that police have used to issue
tickets has left open the possibility that a good
defence lawyer can get the ticket thrown out of court,
on a technicality. For example, an officer might write
down the wrong date or fine amount, or his writing may
be illegible.
Plus,
there's a chance that the ticket gets sent to the wrong
court. Court clerks have to copy everything, sometimes
making mistakes. The ticket goes through so many hands
before it gets in front of a judge; there are several
opportunities for things to go
wrong.
The new
"e-ticket" system reduces the opportunity for error at
every level, and automatically sends the offence data to
the right court.
Your
Insurance Rates
Drivers are
shocked when they learn that being ticketed for not
having their driver's licence or insurance card with
them carries as much weight as a speeding ticket when it
comes to their insurance rate. So do seatbelt offences,
driving in the "High Occupancy Vehicle” lanes (HOV), and
so forth. To view the other types of tickets
affecting your insurance rate, click
here.
A single
ticket can increase your insurance rate by up to $500.
Two tickets can increase your rate by up to $1,500.
Three tickets can cause your insurance company to cancel
your policy. A combination of one accident and a couple
of tickets causes the most severe increase in rates and
cancellations.
Here’s a
rate comparison put out by the
Ontario
government,
showing the lowest to highest rates for 4 driver
profiles, with rate differences of over $15,000.
Toronto
Driver Profiles
|
Lowest
|
Highest
|
19
Years-Old, Clean
Record
|
$5,750
|
$15,551
|
Driver,
1 Ticket &
Accident
|
$2,051
|
$17,468
|
40
Year-Old, Clean
Record
|
$970
|
$4,641
|
70
Year-Old, Clean
Record
|
$970
|
$2,576
|
Most
at-fault accidents automatically come with a ticket,
meaning that if you had a minor traffic violation to
begin with, suddenly you'll have one accident and two
tickets on your record. This can send you into the
high-risk market.
To
check out the price of a new or used car before you
check the best insurance rate, click
here.
Insurance
Rate Check
Don’t be
paying for other drivers’ bad records and accidents.
Make sure you’re with the right insurance company. Fortunately, InsuranceHotline.com
can do a quick rate comparison for all driving profiles
and find you the lowest rate, by clicking here.
This new
development in traffic ticketing technology means that
bad drivers will have less wiggle room when trying to
get out of their ticket, perhaps making them more
cautious drivers. This is good news for drivers whose
insurance rates have been going up as a result of the
accidents that speeders can
cause.
Most drivers
are fearful that insurance companies check your drivers
abstract every year on renewal. They don't. It would
cost them considerable resources to do that. They will
only check it if your file has been flagged for some
reason, like moving, having an accident, or adding a new
driver to your policy. To order your own driver’s abstract,
click here.
Fight
None of this
means that you still shouldn't fight every driving
ticket in court. Police are not the judge and jury.
Regardless of demerit points, a ticket is a ticket. Even
if you go to court and there's no fine associated with
the ticket, you need to make sure that the judge drops
the ticket entirely off your record. Otherwise the
ticket will remain on your driving record and your rates
will go up.
The
Good News
This
e-ticketing system provides the police with instant,
real-time data on drivers about the location and type of
collisions and offences. For example, if a certain kind
of accident is happening regularly at a particular
intersection, then the police will know about it
instantly.