Violation Ticket Defects

Violation Ticket WriterJudging by the questions submitted to DriveSmartBC, one of the first responses people have after receiving a violation ticket is to find a defect, real or imagined, as a justification for not having to pay or to justify a dispute in traffic court.

Contrary to what you might think, an officer may make a number of errors or omissions without causing the ticket to be null and void.

Shaded Areas

Right above the officer’s signature blank on a violation ticket is the advice “Shaded areas of this ticket are not part of the offence charged.”

These shaded areas contain information such as your driver’s licence number, address, birth date, vehicle licence number, vehicle type and the name of the registered owner.

There are only two critical shaded boxes on the ticket and they are the dispute address and provincial court hearing location. As long as they are completed correctly the ticket could be held to be valid.

Location of the Offence

The location of the offence specified on the ticket is prefaced with the words “at or near.” If one end of the block is Burnaby and the other is Vancouver, it is possible that either one could be used successfully if the offence occurred slightly to one side or the other of the city boundaries.

Getting out your tape measure to prove that you were a few metres into Burnaby and the ticket says Vancouver probably won’t get you off the hook.

Description of the Offence

Traffic tickets do have to give you sufficient information to understand the offence that you are being charged with. The act or regulation, section number and ticketed amount must be exact or it will be cancelled by the ICBC Ticket Unit.

The description of the offence is a bit more flexible. There are wordings provided in the Violation Ticket Administration and Fines Regulation but it is not mandatory that they be used precisely. Speed Against Highway Sign could be replaced by Speeding Contrary to Sign and still be acceptable.

Officer Fails to Sign Violation Ticket

If the officer fails to sign the violation ticket, that will be the end of it. Should you decline to sign, the officer simply completes the Certificate of Service on the back of the original copy.

Correcting Errors

Before we get to traffic court, the final opportunity for the officer to correct a problem with the ticket is to track you down and issue you an amended copy. They have up to one year from the date of the alleged offence to do this.

The Offence Act allows for amendments to the ticket in court.

The first method is for the officer to ask the court to amend the ticket prior to accepting a plea from the accused.

The second is for the officer to ask that the ticket be amended to conform to the evidence at the conclusion of the Crown’s evidence.

In either case it is up to the presiding justice do decide whether to allow this or not. In my experience, I’ve found that they are generally reluctant to do this.

Clerical Errors

Even clerical and spelling errors may be excused. Unless you can convince the justice that the ticket does not sufficiently identify you, a transposition or mistake in the spelling of your name could be overlooked.

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My name on my violation ticket is completely wrong. It appears to be a merge of my name and two other names. My address, gender, postal code and city are also incorrect. Is this enough to have the ticket dismissed? Thank you for your time.

If the name is incorrect, chances are that the ICBC Ticket Unit will cancel the ticket outright. However, the only way to be certain is to dispute the ticket and see what happens.

If you do get to trial, again, you will have to explain your position to the JP and see what they decide. With this level of error, relying simply on your description provided here, I think you may be able to raise some doubt.