Stupid Ticket (Fighting a traffic Ticket in Alberta)

I went to the courthouse today to fight my ticket. I plead guilty and asked the Crown Prosecutor to reduce the amount of the fine. He told me I could pay the fine and not get any demerits or reduce the fine to $70 from $115 but keep the demerits.

Right off the bat, I got a $45 reduction just for asking. I didn't even really say anything else to him about the incident. Just, "Can you reduce my fine."

I said, my student loans are all coming due next month, can you do $50. He thought it over for a second and I figured he was going to say take it or leave it, but he offered $60. I told him that if that was the best he could do I'd take it.

The Justice of the Peace rubber stamped the new fine, and asked if I needed more time to pay. I said no, and paid.

This time was a lot better than the first, the people sitting beside me were much more friendly. I chatted with a commercial realtor about various tickets we have had. A prison guard from the Bowdon Pen sat down a while later and joined the conversation. The general consensus in the waiting area was that we were all innocent.

One kid said he felt like he was in the penalty box. I shouted over to him that I would have rather been in the penalty box. Everyone laughed.

Here is my advice for fighting tickets or attempting to get the fine reduced. Get to the place Early. Get there at least 30-45 minutes before it opens. If you get there right when it opens, you will be there several hours. If you are early, you will be out in less than an hour. I was there at 8:15, they opened the doors at about 8:30 and there were about 30 people in front of me. I was done at about 9:00. Bonuses for arriving early are: You get to have one of the 30 chairs, and the people who get there early are generally nicer than the people who show up late.

Plan what you are going to say to the Crown Prosecutor. Always tell the truth, the Crown gets paid to decide if you are lying or not. They are good at their jobs, they hear the same lies constantly, and you are probably not a better liar than the three million people that came before you. While talking to the other innocent people who had been wrongly accused, just like me, there were three other people planning to beg for mercy using the starving student gambit. That makes four people claiming to be poor students in the first 30 minutes of the Crown's day. They don't need any more B.S. than they are already getting.

My other advice is to be nice to everyone who works there. They don't know you, they don't care about you, and they would rather give a pleasant person a break than a jackass.

Last but not least, chat with the people who are in the waiting area. Chances are they can give you some advice, plenty of them have been there before. It also gives you something to do while you wait to fight your Alberta traffic ticket.

It's totally worth it to ask for a reduced fine. Think about it, murders get years taken off their sentences. Why not get fifty bucks taken off your fine? I can almost guarantee that you will be one of the nicest people that the Crown Prosecutor has to deal with all day.

-Gary Milner, I fought the law and I won.