QUESTION: I was wondering if anyone could help or give me information about how to dispute a ticket for driving without insurance.
We were luckly pulled over a couple days ago by a officer who pointed out that our insurance ran out prior and issued us a ticket for it.
The issue we have with this is that ICBC would not let us change our address so we would receive a notification letter to renew our insurance because we had outstanding Toll charges.
Is there a way to dispute this??
ANSWER: Any violation ticket can be disputed, the real question here is will the court dismiss the ticket.
Insurance is fairly straight forward, you are either insured or not insured. You prove it by showing evidence of a policy that is in effect with a valid certificate of insurance from ICBC.
The only other way around it is to show that you are not required by law to be insured and this is usually done through financial responsibility documents and is common for governments. RCMP vehicles do not carry ICBC insurance because the federal government has financial responsibility and deep enough pockets to pay for damages from the public purse.
What that really means to the average driver is that if your ICBC insurance is expired, you are uninsured and that's that.
There is no need for ICBC to tell you about upcoming renewal because your certificate of insurance contains an expiry date. It is your responsibility as the vehicle owner to insure that your insurance is valid before you (or anyone you loan your vehicle to) drive.
The officer only needs to show that it was reasonable to believe that you were not insured and it is now up to you to prove at trial that you were.
The Offence Act sets a minimum penalty of $345 for driving without insurance. You could choose to dispute the penalty either in court or in writing and if you don't have a driving record that contains previous convictions for driving without insurance it is likely that the court will show some mercy and adjust the penalty.
You could speak with the officer and offer to plead guilty to driving an unlicensed vehicle if they withdraw the no insurance charge. Sometimes this can be accomplished just prior to trial when you dispute the allegation rather than the penalty.
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