Insurance Paper Ticket, what would you do?

I was stopped yesterday. The guy had seen me zigging in and out of traffic and doing like 130!

anyways he asked for papers and I gave him all I had but the insurance paper for this year wasn't in the car! WTF , the last year was but not the new one.

I asked him to check it if he can he went to his cruiser and came back I asked him and he said no. I doubt he would have let me gone if he couldn't find that out!

However he didn't have prove of my speed or somehow thought that the $70 of insurance sh!t would be enough. I got a ticket for "failing to surrender insurance card!"(one low class ticket!)
(he had just seen me!)

WHat should I do with it now?

I thought taking it to court wouldn't make sense as I obvously didn't have it so no bases for arguement. Should I plead guilty with explanation?

Anybody has had that thing, how to lower it?

it doesn't have any demerit point, does it?

Any ideas please

Thanks Amin

They will drop the charge if you show in court with your current insurance slip.

I had it happen to me but the cop gave me 48hrs. to bring in my papers for proof and the ticket would be revoked. I'd say take it to court like Jakub said.

Just pay the ticket. You could have received one for much more. You get no points for the failure to carry, and it's basically a favour that the cop did you.

I doubt they'll lower it at all, because $70 is like 2 tanks of gas, so if you can't afford this, you shouldn't be driving.

If they do somehow lower it, they won't drop it below half...so maybe to $35 instead of $70. However, that is doubtful, and to me, my time is worth a lot more than $35 for a half day at least. If you go to court you'll get a time of something like 1-4pm. Your case could be at 3:30, even if it only takes 5 minutes. Just pay the damn thing.

Amin, jon is right about knocking it down to half and also don't forget about the parking charges which will easily cost you from 8-12 dollars on that day..now you do the math. Pay it and get over with bc if you do miss the court date, your license will get suspended and there is $100 cost for that to re-establish it. Save yourself the headache and pay it.

He didn't do much of a favour as he didn't have much to prove what I was doing.

He was in collector and "saw" me going in the core lane. With no radar or anything, and as he was driving he should be paying attention to his own driving!

But hehe, a cop is a cop!

Maybe i should just pay it, I don't know!
but I have a summer ahead and it wouldn't a be a bad experience to be in court once!

Thanks
Amin

Amin, a similar thing happened to me a few years back. Was pulled over and gave the officer all my paperwork. It turned out that my insurance card had recently expired (I had the new one at home, I had just forgot to put it in my wallet). Anyway, he said I could take a valid insurance card to a police station within 48hrs and the ticket would be revoked. Being the quirky person I am, I decided I wanted to have some experience in traffic court, so I decided not to do the police station thing and let it go to court. As has been mentioned, when I got to court, I just showed them a valid "pink slip" and a copy of my actual policy (just for ovrkill). Charges were dropped, no fine. I'm glad I went to court, it was an experience.

Anyway, back to business. All of the above applied because I actually HAD valid insurance at the time I was pulled over. If you don't/didn't have insurance, that's a different story.

Your question: "Can't the police just pull up my license on their system and find out if I have insurance?" Absolutely not. Believe it or not, there is no mechanism in Ontario that ties automobile insurance to licensed drivers. In my opinion, a rather larger "loophole" in the system; but that's another story. The only way they could verify whether you actually have insurance or not, is to call your insurance company. Ripley's believe it or not.

Anyway, if you did/do have valid insurance for your car, don't pay the ticket. Just bring your insurance card to court with you and you're fine.

The point of the ticket that he got was not for having no insurance, if it was, the fine would be upwards of $3,000 and he wouldn't have been driving his car away that day.

Take this advice at your own risk. I don't see why the JP would drop the charges, nor do they ever do so in London. The ticket says "failure to produce insurance card" or "failure to carry insurance card" correct? They don't care if you have one, in fact, they know you do, because otherwise you'd be getting that $3,000+ ticket above. The point of this measily $70 ticket is for not carrying the proper card at the time. Whether you have it or not is of no consequence. Just pay it.

I got stopped without insurance papers at all. Cop gave me 72 hours to bring the papers to the cop shop.

If yo don't take it to court to get the charge dropped, (which they will). You will be convicted.

Sure...it's 'only' $70, but everyone is forgetting that there is a CONVICTION involved here. That means it takes 3 years from the date you are convicted (not the ticket date) for that to be cleared off your record.

Every year you go for renewal, "Have you ay tickets or convictions?" You have to tell them. The smart thing to do is bring it to court with your valid insurance slip. THEY WILL DROP IT. PLus you get the day off work.school.

ronnie

Now that I think about it, I was charged with "driving without insurance" (or whatever the official phrase is). Jon's correct, if you were charged with "failing to surrender proof of insurance" (or whatever), certainly you should pay the fine (since you WERE guilty of that offence). I was guilty of that offence as well, but I was never charged (or ticketed) with that one.

In any case, Amin, I apologize for misleading you. We can talk about it when you return my tools (or should I say IF you return them). Just kidding (or at least half-kidding) .

When you go for renewal, they don't ask you about tickets or convictions...and even if they did, who cares...it's an insurance card ticket and basically meaningless.

I think Ronnie should pay for the ticket when they don't drop it like he says "THEY WILL". Sorry Ronnie, but you really don't know what you're talking about.

Amin --> for your reference the area on the ticket that says criminal code, or section, should be 3(1), or (3)1. If they've used the wrong section, it could be a way to get off, but you're better off just paying it.

Remember, send the bill to Ronnie when you don't get off it court. It really doesn't matter if you bring your insurance or not. Take it from someone who sees people convicted all the time over this.

On the contrary, I got my "Fail to present proof of insurance" dropped when I presented the proof.

Exactly. If you read what I said, I never mentioned anything about that ticket. The ticket is failure to carry or something, and is the section 3(1) like I said above.

If it's that (which is the correct ticket to give, even though some officers don't know the proper code) then it's not getting dropped.

Okay, send the bll to me

Failure to surrender insurance card= dropped at court if you had a valid one at the time.

bill me

Don't get so hot and bothered Jon, I know what I'm talking about once in a while.

And for the record, ANY driving convictions count on your insurance renewal. Whether it's a seatbelt offence, tint offence, unsafe vehicle ticket, to reckless, to racing. It all counts.

A conviction is a conviction, they just tend to frown more on demerit tickets.

I know what i'm tlaking about here. I've just had the hassle of trying to clear up many petty offences on my record, only one for speeding. don't get so pissed off becasue you're just pissing me off

ronnie

I did the same thing about 2 years ago and I didn't have my license, so the copper had asked for another piece of ID so I gave him my health card with the wrong address on it. He gave me 48 hours to produce the proper ones.

I guess it all depends on if you get a cop that it is in a dier need of a blow job

I went for plead guilty with explanation at the end!