court experience

I went to court for a hearing of my traffic ticket this afternoon. The first time experience in my life. Just another first time.

We arrived in the NW court at 1:00pm, half an hour earlier than the hearing time. People were gathering outside of the court room and two police officers arrived as well. All the hearing for this court today are traffic tickets. Bearing some uncertain feeling when I entered the court. I'm not feeling guilty at all and I had prepared a true and strong explanation. The judge, a woman, looks very kind. The previous several hearings went well. Two acknowledged guilty but their fines are reduced to as little as $10, with a valid/understandable reason for the violation. That's a good sign for today. :-). My heart was pounding heavily when the judge called my name and I was standing in front of the judge.

Unfortunately, the officer wasn't present. (Fortunate to me) All my preparations are useless. My strongest word "No, I'm not guilty!" ended my first hearing. The debate, explanation that I was anticipating didn't happen at all. Then I won my first court hearing in my life. :-)

From this experience, I learned two things. First of all, dispute all the traffic tickets. Even though you were guilty with clear evidence, such as speeding, red light violation, your reasons or valid excuse presented to the judge may ended up with a much smaller fine for you. You may also win the dispute when the officer is not present and that's the case in a lot of circumstance. Second. as Canada is a lawful society, going to the court sometimes may be a good solution to conflicts. The second thought comes from my friend's experience of suing her landlord to get her deposit back. One more thing, to support the second thought, don't leave evidence to others just in case any dispute may happen later on, such as in your working place. ....

This topic is worth of discussing. It may be interesting to cover it later on.