hyper

I was in a similar situation 2 years ago and got nailed in Markham.

(It was my 4th time driving my wife's 2 week old new car and well, let's just say going from a 4-banger to an inline 6 with much better sound proofing and suspension really gave me a poor sensation of the speed i was travelling at). I was in a rush early Saturday morning, the road was straight (downhill), empty and it was sunny -- of course there'd be a speed trap, should've known better.

Anyways, the ticket was pretty hefty (as it should) and came with 4 points -- the quotes I got to fight it were 2x more than the ticket itself and there's no guarantee any more for knocking off all the points. The way I figure is that at the minimum, all these guys will do is help me reduce the ticket, so I'd have to pay them and 1/2 the ticket. In the end, I'd still be out more $ than if I had done it myself and lost (i.e. I'd just pay up the ticket in full).

So what the hell - I decide to do this myself (hey, I screwed up - at least I'll do the leg work to try to get myself out of it ) -- a couple of folks on other car forums sent me this link: http://www.ticketcombat.com/

I did my basic homework as documented on that site - got the officer to provide copies of his notes (hey if he's gonna nail me, he's gonna have to work for it), got the land survey about the gradient and stuff, sign locations, historics of when speed limits in the area changed, etc.; not really knowing what i'm gunning for but hoping there's a screw up (from someone) somewhere. Or even better if he doesn't show up.

In the end, I settled for a lesser charge prior to going up to the justice -- I got 1/2 the points off knocked off, got them to hit me for disobey sign (rather than speeding charge) - the fines were drastically reduced (to about 1/3 of the ticket - and I had 6 months to pay -- ended up charging it to my Visa so I get some points out of it lol )

So far, my premiums haven't went up and the points will be gone from my record (driver abstract) this year. Yeah, insurance may see a record up to 6 or 9 years (whatever) - but it will still look a lot less than what it was originally.

We all make mistakes (so can the officer that nailed you -- did he go through the proper process in issuing the ticket? what about the radar / lidar calibration? did he even show you how fast you were going or did you just take his word for it?) but at least we have the right to dispute our charges - for these "common" tickets, these guys don't do anything more than what have the power to do yourself. So save some money, do it yourself and learn from it.