1 in 5 Disputed Tickets Dismissed...

[Amaru]

Last year, approximately 20 per cent of traffic tickets in Vancouver were thrown out of court because police officers failed to appear.

However, the Vancouver Police Department says that's an improvement from the two previous years when about 25 per cent of tickets were dismissed.

Const. Jana McGuinness said the department is working to improve its numbers.

"The duties that our officers do on a daily basis sometimes prevent them from being at traffic court," she said.

"Typically, if you are an officer who has traffic court scheduled that day and you're on a major incident or even a traffic stop, something that you can't get away from, there's a chance you will miss traffic court. So we're looking at ways to reduce that and improve compliance with the scheduling, and assist the courts with their scheduling as well."

In the first half of 2009, traffic officers attended court dates 58.7 per cent of the time. That's up from just fewer than 50 per cent in 2007 and 2008.

McGuinness said the department hopes to improve those numbers further.

"There's been a long-standing myth that if you dispute your ticket, the police won't show up," she said.

"[But] that's not the case. We have dedicated officers and patrol officers that, when their duties permit, they will absolutely be at traffic court."

CBC News: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-col...dismissed.html

[Mugen EvOlutioN]

nah dont look into it, leave it as it is as its perfectly fine

[Amaru]

Originally Posted by Mugen EvOlutioN

nah dont look into it, leave it as it is as its perfectly fine

Actually... time spent in court is time that officers aren't on the streets doing their job... so why not encourage them to skip court appearances.

[Mugen EvOlutioN]

so they can go to timmies?

[skidmark]

Yeah, if you are the one holding the ticket I can see where reports like this might make you happy.

Now let's consider the citizen that has invested time in reporting a dangerous violation and supporting the prosecution only to be told that the officer cannot attend court "because of operational necessity."

My first thought when this happened to me was either why not assign it to a traffic officer who will attend court or why waste my time in the first place. I guess I should have been able to guess the outcome when the original investigator tried to weasel out of the complaint by telling me that if I couldn't identify the driver nothing could be done.