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Sure there's a chance. Simply go talk to the Crown early on and see if they'll accept a guilty plea to 49-over. You don't need a lawyer to do that. You don't need to admit anything or even need to offer the Crown any reason why you think you weren't guilty of doing 166. Just offer to plead guilty to 49 over.Originally Posted by Zangief
Or roll the dice once again, go for broke and hire a lawyer, and hope for the best.
Last edited by turbodish; 06-11-2011 at 01:15 PM.
File for disclosure, the cop will have to include in his notes all the details required for him to come to the conclusion of 166km/hr.
that includes, the total distance he paced you for, what speed he was doing during the pacing etc...
when you have those variables, you can then map it or chart it and see if the math adds up. And question from there.
The cop probebly pull the 166km out of his ***. he just wanted to give a HTA172 ticket to fill his numbers. Most likely a cop with somehting to prove. Dont waste time here or doing it urself, get a lawyer while things are still fresh in your mind.
Since when retaining a lawyer to fight a stupid ticket is a gamble? The conviction rate for this HTA is low which means the cops are misusing this and worse misjudging the situations which some other tickets that fit appropriately. That's what happen when you hand the law to someone who is clueless and are always on power trips.
Last edited by apstndp; 06-11-2011 at 02:11 PM.
A stunting ticket issued on the basis of speed is a poor gamble to fight simply because speed is an easily quantified value. Either the person charged was doing 50 or more over the limit or he or she was not, and it's not that difficult to prove to a court's satisfaction that they were.
Most stunting charges are based on 50+ speeding. In most cases there's no real "interpretation" required to determine whether a given act of speeding was 50 over or not, so whining about "power trips" or misusing the law is silly. They were either 50+ over, or they were not.
As long as the cop's paperwork and notes are in order, it's quite difficult to beat a stunting charge based on 50+ speed. Your best hope in that case is to try and bargain a reduction in charge to a simple speeding charge.
If a Crown is willing to accept that bargain, it has nothing to do with whether the initial charge was justified or not. It will be based primarily on whether the Crown feels that your previous driving record combined with the local caseload situation makes the deal worth considering from a public interest point of view.
What is the conviction rate on H.172 charges?
Moderator
Unpublished, since the early embarrassment of an abysmally low one in three conviction rate. Wonder why? Hmmmmm.........
Morally Ambiguous (submissions welcome)
"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." - Oscar Wilde
Note that 17/166 is just slightly over 10%. Can the officer who paced you be that confident that the distance between him and you remained constant while, at the same time, monitoring his rate of speed? 2 km gives the officer less than 45 seconds to make that determination after reducing his speed from over 200kph trying to catch up. Then there's a natural propensity for the officer to want to catch his suspect. Could the officer have embellished the rate of speed to cover a reasonable margin of error? Possibly. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for 49kph over in all the circumstances.
Last edited by promac; 06-11-2011 at 04:42 PM.
most officers when pacing someone will do a certain speed, say 165 in their car, if your pulling away that means your going faster so will make the speed they give you 165.. pacing does not have to mean the officer matches your exact speed which is quite difficult.
Resident Loudmouth
lawyer uppp
That's a misleading response.
A person properly charged with stunting for doing say, 166 kmph in 100 kmph zone, and who then offers to plead guilty to a lesser charge of speeding would be counted among the 2 out of 3 of your "non-convictions", and would contribute to what you call an "abysmally low 1 in 3 conviction rate. I would consider that to be a conviction arising from the stunting charge, not a "non-conviction", even if the final charge on conviction is something other than the original charge.
Moderator
As would people who simply rolled over, and plead guilty.
And I would consider any conviction, on a lesser charge, to be reflective of inappropriate charging in the first place.
Morally Ambiguous (submissions welcome)
"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." - Oscar Wilde
So a person properly clocked at 66 over but who pleas guilty to less would have been charged "improperly" if charged with stunting? The charge fits the specification of the offence. How is that charge inappropriate, aside from your dislike of the particular charge itself?
Quick question, if I plead not guilty (which I'm planning to) what will happen to insurance as I'm awaiting trial? Am I innocent until proven guilty or are my insurance rates increasing right now as we speak?
Why would the cruiser have had to reach 200 kmph to "catch up"? Crown Vics can reach 0 to 160 kmph in under 23 seconds. They can do 0 to 103 kmph in under 9 seconds. Those numbers are for cars equipped with roof-top light bars. Cars without the aerodynamic drag of a light bar can do slightly better.
The OP says the cruiser was doing 103 kmph, or 28.6 meters per sec. The OP is reportedly doing 166, or 46.1 meters per second. If nothing changes, the OP would be pulling away from the cruiser at 17.5 meters per second.
You can do the math. With typical Crown Vic performance, if the cop started accelerating from 103 kmph the instant the OP's car passed him and not a moment before, and stopped accelerating the instant he reached the OP's speed of 166 kmph, about 15 or 16 seconds would have elapsed from start of acceleration to end of acceleration. In that time, the OP's car would have opened up a distance of no more than about 150 meters before he stopped pulling away from the accelerating police cruiser.
That 150 meters seems to be a very reasonably-close distance from which to accurately pace another vehicle. The cruiser wouldn't even have had to go faster than the OP to get in a position do so, let alone approach anywhere near 200 kmph. The 45 second window you suggest, even after allowing for time needed to match speeds, would have allowed for about 25 to 30 seconds of pacing time, more than enough to establish the OP's speed. Even if the cop hesitated a couple of seconds, nothing appreciable would have changed.
Last edited by turbodish; 06-11-2011 at 06:31 PM.
Insurance isn't affected unless a conviction is registered.
Moderator
All this time and you still don't understand, that I believe the offence isn't congruent with the application of justice?
Morally Ambiguous (submissions welcome)
"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." - Oscar Wilde
Oh I understand, and I also understand that this colours your perception of whether ANY application of a stunting charge is ever appropriate regardless of actual act involved.
However it still stands - the law defines stunting as speeding 50 kmph or more over the limit. If a person is actually doing that, the charge is an appropriate one to be laid. Even if it is later pled down to a lesser speeding offence, it still does not change that the original charge was the appropriate charge to have been laid in the first place.
Moderator
If the charge is plead down to simple speeding then simple speeding, and not stunting, was the appropriate charge.
Morally Ambiguous (submissions welcome)
"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." - Oscar Wilde
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