Question: My husband got pulled over for speeding. We recently sold our old car and transferred the insurance to the new car. Instead of putting our new 2001 silver Chrysler PT Cruiser on the ticket, the officer put our old 1987 purple Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera in the vehicle description on the ticket.
Do you think he can get out of this ticket for that, even though my husband signed the ticket?
The Vehicle Description
I would be curious to know how the officer made this error too. The two cars are completely different, but I wonder if the vehicle description was copied without thinking from out of date documentation presented at the roadside.
The Offence Act
Information sufficient despite certain omissions
97 (1) No information, complaint, warrant, conviction or other proceeding under this Act is insufficient because of the absence of details if, in the opinion of the justice, the information otherwise fulfills the requirements of section 96.
(2) Without restricting subsection (1), no information is insufficient merely because it fails to
(d) name or describe with precision any person, place or thing, or
The Shaded Area
This kind of mistake is not immediately fatal to the ticket. If you look near the bottom you will find something to the effect of "Shaded areas do not form part of the offence charged." In effect, the shaded areas of the ticket can hold errors (like this vehicle description) or even be left blank and the ticket would still be a valid document.
Creating Doubt
You could use this error in combination with any other errors made by the officer during a court dispute however. They would all have to add up to the point where the justice could decide that the officer has so much wrong that the observation of the offence could be wrong as well.
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