Wiktor Goes to Court, pt 1
I have been thinking about starting a blog for a while, and now that I have something to write about I may as well go ahead with my plans. So here goes, my first entry.
On the break between Christmas 2006 and New Year’s, I got a ticket leaving downtown, going northbound on Center Street. The limit there is an “un-posted 50â€, and I was unfortunately clocked at 79. That’s 29 over, which got me a ticket of $172 that comes with 3 demerits (interestingly enough, I was 2 km/h away from getting the next category of ticket which comes with 4 demerits).
As I’ve done in the past, I went to the First Appearance Center to try to get the charge lowered to something with no demerits. Unfortunately, that is no longer possible, and I can vouch for that. The best deal they could give me was to halve the fine and give me two demerits by changing the charge to speeding 14 km/h over.
Now let me back up for a bit. Before I went to the first appearance center, I talked with one of my coworkers about the ticket, and he said he would give his lawyer friend a call. Long story short, I got some advice about what to do when taking the ticket to court.
So as I’m sitting there contemplating taking the lowered charge, I think about the plan I had going in: to me, the fine is negligible; I know I did something wrong and I will pay the fine as a consequence. The story with demerits is different; they go on my record and potentially raise my (already demoralizingly high) insurance. So my plan was to take nothing less than zero demerits. Being faced with 2 vs. 3 makes no difference to me, both go on my record, so I tell them I mean business and decline the deal. A court date is set for March.
