URGENT HELP NEEDED PLEASE!

[///M]

A friend and I were driving down to NYC today and I got a ticket at Syracuse. I was ticketed for doing 81 in a 55mph zone. I believe I was unfairly ticketed, and I want to fight it. However, I have no clue how to do so for an out of province ticket, and I only have 48 hours to respond. To make matters worse, I\'m not at home in Toronto at the moment so I can\'t visit XCopper or anything.

Additional points:
* The car only had km/h on its speedometer. No mph display whatsoever. (05 Pontiac Grand Prix, Canadian-spec)
* I don\'t belive I was going nearly 81mph. I am very sure that I wasn\'t going more than 115km/h as indicated by the speedometer, and I don\'t see how that could work out to be 81mph.
* As a young Asian guy driving a brand new Grand Prix, I think I might have been racially profiled against too (I had quite a bit of trouble getting through customs today - but that\'s another story that I won\'t go into here).

If I choose to plead not-guilty, I will have to appear in court in person in Syracuse. I won\'t be able to make the time to do that, and regardless, it\'s a huge hassle (4-hour drive one way). If I plead guilty, I\'ll be charged 6 demerit points, which will go on my Ontario driving record. I don\'t want that either. Also, I\'ll have to pay a fine of a yet-to-be-specified amount (there\'s no set amount on the ticket - apparently I have to mail it and and the court will get back to me).

Anyone have any experiences dealing with out of province tickts? I\'m really stuck as to what to do now, and I only have 48 hours to respond to it. If anyone has any experiences with an out of province ticket, please share them. Thanks.

[Ex-Rolla]

Hey Autoexe... I know you said you only have a couple of days, but I\'ll ask my sister if she has had any experience with these issues... I\'ll try and get back to you later today.

Ex

edit: I just sent this page to my sister through email, so I hope she check it out today.

[TheProfessor]

Autoexe, I thought that if you are from out of the US and you get a ticket it has to be paid on the spot? Sounds dumb, but I thought that they did that cause they couldn\'t force you to pay if you left the country.

If I\'m wrong (which is quite possible), I would definately plead not guilty/book the date and make the 4 hour drive. Worst case you lose one day of pay, but if you take the points you\'ll get so screwed on insurance.

[///M]

Originally posted by PSIVIC


Autoexe, I thought that if you are from out of the US and you get a ticket it has to be paid on the spot? Sounds dumb, but I thought that they did that cause they couldn\'t force you to pay if you left the country.

If I\'m wrong (which is quite possible), I would definately plead not guilty/book the date and make the 4 hour drive. Worst case you lose one day of pay, but if you take the points you\'ll get so screwed on insurance.

The date has already been set by the cop if I plead not guilty - it\'s on May 18 in Syracuse.

I called X-Copper this morning and they said their out of province department should be able to help me, and weekends don\'t count on the ticket so I can still make it in time if I visit them when I come back on Monday.

If I choose to plead guilty and pay it, I\'ll have 15 days to mail the ticket back with my details filled in. The court will then mail me details about the fine, the charges and I\'ll have to pay it. The weird thing though is that the fine\'s not listed on the ticket itself. I even found another cop to ask what the fine would be and he didn\'t know. :sarc

edit: today I finally figured out how to work the speedometer on the car...to adjust it to MPH there\'s an option in the trip computer...I actually starting to like the car alot even though I hate the styling - it drives very very nicely compared to say, a Camry.

[RedRaptor]

Originally posted by autoexe

As a young Asian guy driving a brand new Grand Prix, I think I might have been racially profiled against too


Geez...not the race card again? Thats really played out now. :sarc

[firstmazda]

I heard you don\'t even have to pay attention to out of country tickets.
BUT i don\'t know this for sure.

A friend of mine has a full out fried rice civic and on the way back home to T.O.
he was pulled over and ticketed for being lowered, exhaust, visor, a whole bunch of
stuff totalling like $2k USD.

as soon as he crossed the border, he tore them up and threw them out the window.
says they can\'t chase you down.

is this true??

Ray

[whodilly]

I think NY state has a deal with Ontario where the tickets are valid and they can charge you. My dad got a ticket in NY and after some consulting, he found out that he had to pay the fine or appear in court, otherwise it would be put on his record and they could send collectors for you.

NOt sure if this is true.

[Illmatic]

Originally posted by firstmazda


I heard you don\'t even have to pay attention to out of country tickets.
BUT i don\'t know this for sure.

A friend of mine has a full out fried rice civic and on the way back home to T.O.
he was pulled over and ticketed for being lowered, exhaust, visor, a whole bunch of
stuff totalling like $2k USD.

as soon as he crossed the border, he tore them up and threw them out the window.
says they can\'t chase you down.

is this true??

Ray

I don\'t know if this is true, but if it is you definitely would not want to be caught again driving in the area you were originally ticketed in. I would think that they would at least keep this info on file somewhere...