Hi everyone,

Firstly I wanted to say that it was a tough decision to post this from my account or anonymously. I’ve read countless ticket dispute threads, and in all of them it seems like the OP has blinders on, or was hiding part of the story. I don’t want to be ridiculed if I am completely out of line here and I truly want to know how I should be handling this. As a disclaimer before the massive wall of text that is about to ensue, I want to accept full responsibility for what I did wrong but I want to make sure it is in the right way and reasonable to what I did wrong. I’m looking for more insight and an outside perspective on this situation. I realize there will be parts of this story that I don’t actually have proof of, so I’m sure that will have an effect on the outcome. Anyways, thank you to those who take the time to read this massive post and give me constructive feedback. I will update when possible or if I realize I’ve missed some points.

The following took place 1 year ago.

I owned a small car with an aftermarket 1 way alarm and remote start feature. This was equipped with the car when I bought it 2 years prior to this incident. This was my daily driver that I used for most of fall, all of winter, and most of spring. During the colder months I would use the remote start 4 to 5 minutes prior to leaving my house, obviously to warm up the car, defrost the windows etc. I did it nearly every morning before work or school, hundreds of times. Many times I would look out the window to the driveway to make sure that the alarm would detect me pressing the button, and to make sure it started. Sometimes I would forget to leave the car in neutral, so the car wouldn’t auto-start, instead the power would shut back down. I witnessed this happen dozens of times right in front of me.

Fast forward to the day of the incident, I was staying at my girlfriend’s house in Burnaby. In the morning I was getting ready for school and to drop her off at work on my way. 5 minutes before leaving as per usual I hit the auto-start on my car. Being a basement suite though I can’t see my car through any windows to the street. 5 minutes later we walked outside to find that my car was gone. I panicked and thought it might have been stolen overnight. I looked up the street though and saw the car was half a block away, probably 40 feet, hopped over the curbed and resting against a bus stop post (in the grass). I was very confused at this point and had no idea what had happened. My first thought was that during the auto-start process, someone may have jumped into my car when they saw it turn on as it unlocks for about 30 seconds before locking again. When they tried to drive away the first time they hit the brakes the car would have shut off and they would have lost all power options (possible steering lock?) and went onto the curb into the bus stop.

This part gets hard to explain because there are so many things happening at once now, so I will tell it from my point of view. We walked up to my car to inspect the damages, the bus post was bent over to about a 45 degree angle, there was no bend in the post, it just shifted in the ground. There were tire tracks and mud dug up where my car had gone onto the curb then stop at the bus post. Right away I pulled my car off the side walk onto the street and got out again to check out the damage. Nothing further on the ground or post, and on my end, my license plate was bent/scraped. No vehicle damage other than that.

My girlfriend needed to get to work right away, but my class wasn’t for another hour-ish, so I decided to bring her to work then I could deal with the situation after. On the way to her work which was about a 10 minute drive, I asked her to look up a city number to report damage to property. She got the number for me, and I figured I’d call when I got over to school which was another 15 minutes away. When I arrived at school, I looked at my phone and had a bunch of missed calls and texts from both my parents. They were asking if I had been in an accident and if I was okay. Right away I knew someone must have called in my plate when they saw the accident, so I called them to tell them I think someone tried to steal my car. My dad then informed me that in fact a person had called the police when they watched my car start itself, then drive up the street on its own and crash into the bus post. My heart sank immediately knowing now that something had happened with my remote start causing my car to roll. My dad was actually quite upset because he received a call from an officer that was apparently treating both him and my mom like crap, telling them they are lying about who is currently driving the car etc. (forgot to mention my dad owns the car, I’m the primary on the insurance, that’s why they got the call not me). Also, I’m going to include the officers’ actions/”attitude” although I know it shouldn’t have any bearing on the outcome of the case.

So my dad tells me I need to call the officer right away and gives me his number. Still in the parking lot of my school I call him immediately. He asks the obvious: Can you explain why somebody called in and said your car was rolling down the street and crashed, and then why you fled after this happened. I explained to him how everything happened, how I remote started my car, and then thought someone attempted to steal it before crashing. I told him that after hearing someone witnessed my car moving with nobody in it, I knew it was a problem with the anti-grind (is that the right term?) or the wiring that prevents my car from starting if it is in gear. I told him it could be possibly that this malfunctioned and my car must have lurched forward in first gear and started rolling. On the phone he told me that there was a mother and child standing at the bus stop and they had to jump out of the way of my car. He also said that if my car pulled a U-turn and drove 7 blocks down to Hastings people could have been killed.

So now I’m sweating, scared, regretful and downright freaking out that I have totally dropped the ball in this situation. The officer told me I needed to meet with him right away so I told him where I was and asked where he would like me to go. We decided on a park 5 minutes away and he said he’d be there shortly.

I head there and park in the lot to wait. About 10 minutes later the officer drives up, doesn’t park in a stall, instead drives in front of me and slams on his brakes. I went to get out of my car to greet him (I didn’t know if I should be doing this or not) but he opened his door and yelled at me to stay in the car. He then walks to me and asks me to roll down my window, takes my DL and insurance, goes back to his car to do his thing. When he comes back we talk about everything that happened. I explained the story again ^exactly how I told it above, so he asks me to test my car. I put the e-brake on, car in first, remote start it. The car tries to start, no kill, lurches forward a couple inches while bogging to stall, instead of stalling it catches and sure enough starts to roll. It was rolling at a speed slow enough it wasn’t displayed on my speedometer. The officer stayed standing while talking to me as I rolled forward ever so slowly. He told me to turn it off and reverse back so I did.

He then took pictures of my car, the damage on the front. In his report he ended up saying the damage to my car was $1000. My front bumper had a crack at the very bottom that is hardly noticeable that happened a year prior to this when the car was lower and I clipped the little cement thing in a parking space. Even though this was on the side not near my plate I guess he assumed it was damage from the post. Even so $1000 had me kind of annoyed, but I thought it wouldn’t make a difference so didn’t say anything.

He brought up me fleeing the scene of an accident, and I told him I had to rush my girlfriend to work, but had the intent to report this to make sure someone fixed the post. He was very upset at this and told me he had fixed the post already, just by pushing it back up, and moving the dirt back into place with his foot. I felt like an idiot for not just doing this myself, I don’t know why I thought there would be more to it than that.

So on to the ticket now (kind of rushing my writing at this point, sorry but I didn’t realize how long this would be). He came back to my window and gave me this big speech again about the mother and child who jumped out of the way, how dangerous this was to others etc. (and I completely agree with him, it actually scares me how much damage this could have done). Then he said that the whole drive over he was thinking about what to charge me with. He thought that fleeing an accident wasn’t enough, and landed on Driving without due care. When I saw the fine and ticket I was definitely bummed but thought it could be so much worse. It was around $300-$350, and I thought: to me it doesn’t matter what he calls it, I made a genuine mistake, I don’t really know how I could have prevented it other than checking the wiring or something, but I will pay this and that will be that.

A couple hours later I look at the ticket and realize driving without due care is 6 penalty points, which is also a $300 fine when I renew my insurance (no other points on my license) In addition to this my license is put under review and could possibly be taken away. At the time I was in school full time, working full time, and lived in a city where it would be impossible to transit to these things and have enough time to do them still. I drive 35-40k a year and it would take a huge toll on me not having a license for any period of time. At this point I thought to myself I need to dispute this ticket, firstly so it’s not a $600+ fine, secondly so my license isn’t in question. Of the few people that I told (obvious bias feedback though), everyone was angry/surprised that the charge he chose was driving without due care, as I was not even in the vehicle, which he even claims to have a witness stating this.

I finally got my court date a couple days ago for this December and I’m trying to decide what approach to take, and what to ask to happen with this charge. I’ve been exploring other things that I would admit to being guilty to, but not sure what would actually work out. My main concern here is still having my license taken away, although I don’t have much on my driving record, I don’t want to take the chance. I’m okay with paying like a $300 fine, although $600 seems excessive :(

I originally was looking into the fleeing the scene scenario and thought maybe I could ask for this charge instead (does it even work like that? Can they switch it, or is it just an innocent or guilty type thing – I know I have more research to do on how this works.) Upon looking it up though, the usual rule that you must stay at the scene of an accident only applies to when you hit another car. If you hit property of some kind, you must take the proper steps to report this but you don’t need to wait there. Section 83 I believe (saved on other Computer.) Another thought I had was this could be something along the lines of failure to properly maintain vehicle? I haven’t looked up the fine/points for that though.

Basically I’m looking to hear outside perspectives now, am I totally out to lunch on thinking he is out of line with the charge? Is this just a slap on the wrist, or am I correct for wanting a lesser charge. Some general notes are below for things I may have missed.

(These are NOT coles notes)
-E-brake was on, car was on a VERY slight upward hill (facing up, drove up, didn’t roll down the street)Car was in first gear, idling at between 1000 and 1500 rpm (cold start) therefore with the e-brake on it could only be going somewhere around 5kmh (just an estimate and based on the officers’ test)

-I have no idea if there was actually a mother/child at this bus stop, he didn’t say they called in, it was a different witness.

-My past traffic violations are below, all 6 years ago with my N, my Full Class 5 is clean.

-1 Speeding Ticket, 1 Failure to display N, 1 ticket for Tail Light tint.

-I removed the remote from my keychain so I couldn’t use the feature anymore and prevent it from happening again. I have sold the car and the new owner knows of the problem and is aware it needs to be fixed before using the remote start.

Again, thank you to those who take the time out of their day to read this, I truly appreciate it.