I have been dealing with by-law tickets the police have been giving to tow truck drivers in my area who are not part of a towing association and who have not been called to the scene. The police started giving out these tickets since 2016 and the prosecutor would withdraw the charge on the day of the trial until 2018 where the prosecutor chose to put a hold on the tickets and combines them in order to hold a Judicial Pretrial. We had a few of those JPT's and when neither side would compromise a trial was set up as a test case. The charges were positioning tow truck withing 200 meters of an accident and offering tow truck services, both banned by the by-law unless the police called the tow truck to the scene. My client does not belong to the association and therefore is excluded by the police. The trial happened on October 9, 2019 and the decision was scheduled to be rendered Nov 3, 2019. The Justice on that day said he need more time to do more research on these matters and the decision came down today. You have to get to paragraph 60 in the reasons to read both charges are dismissed.
The way I beat the by-law if that a section in the Highway Traffic Act states that if a bylaw contradicts the HTA then the by-law is set aside. The Municipality Act also says that if a by-law contradicts legislative law (HTA) then the by-law is rescinded. Section 177 of the HTA permits a tow truck to stop and offer services on any highway in an emergency as long as there is insufficient tow trucks on scene. My argument was that the by-law contradicts with the HTA and therefore is non-enforceable.
It sounds simple and you may wonder why the police would hand out tickets. The issue was that some police are involved with the towing association, they attend the meetings the towing association held and the members of the association were mad because my client gets more tows from accident scenes than the association drivers. The police have arrested the drivers and sieved vehicles, one driver was charged with obstruction because he showed up at an accident scene and it took me a year to get those charges withdrawn. The next step is a few law suits personally against a few police officer and another against the police services.
The prosecuters created this event that was bigger than it needed to be. I have over 125 open files with these by-law tickets and the Justice knew what the decision meant. The prosecutors ought to have trials when the tickets were first issued and I would not have had to deal with over 200 tickets. Plus the judgment would not have such a big effect on all the open tickets which now have to all be withdrawn. The cost to issue and process all these tickets is a waste on the municipality's budget which is actually our money derived from the taxes we pay.
The way I beat the by-law if that a section in the Highway Traffic Act states that if a bylaw contradicts the HTA then the by-law is set aside. The Municipality Act also says that if a by-law contradicts legislative law (HTA) then the by-law is rescinded. Section 177 of the HTA permits a tow truck to stop and offer services on any highway in an emergency as long as there is insufficient tow trucks on scene. My argument was that the by-law contradicts with the HTA and therefore is non-enforceable.
It sounds simple and you may wonder why the police would hand out tickets. The issue was that some police are involved with the towing association, they attend the meetings the towing association held and the members of the association were mad because my client gets more tows from accident scenes than the association drivers. The police have arrested the drivers and sieved vehicles, one driver was charged with obstruction because he showed up at an accident scene and it took me a year to get those charges withdrawn. The next step is a few law suits personally against a few police officer and another against the police services.
The prosecuters created this event that was bigger than it needed to be. I have over 125 open files with these by-law tickets and the Justice knew what the decision meant. The prosecutors ought to have trials when the tickets were first issued and I would not have had to deal with over 200 tickets. Plus the judgment would not have such a big effect on all the open tickets which now have to all be withdrawn. The cost to issue and process all these tickets is a waste on the municipality's budget which is actually our money derived from the taxes we pay.
