Stunt driving charges in Ontario

The speed, how it was measured, and whether the device was working and properly used. On a charge that turns on a number, the number is the case.

Disclosure is where that starts: the officer's notes, the make and model of the measuring device, its calibration and testing records, the officer's training on it, and the conditions at the time. Radar, lidar and pacing each have their own requirements and their own failure modes, and a device that was not tested as required is a different case from one that was.

Identity and location matter too. Which vehicle was measured, on which stretch of road, and what the posted limit was at that point, since the threshold changes at 80 km/h. A charge laid on the wrong side of that line is the difference between stunt driving and speeding.

For the non-speed stunts the evidence is different again and usually more contestable, because paragraph 8 in particular turns on what the driver's intention appeared to be. Stopping suddenly is not an offence; stopping in a manner indicating the sole intention was to interfere with another vehicle is, and that is an inference somebody has to support.

Far more than the fine, and the fine is now between $2,000 and $10,000 on its own.

The licence suspension is the part that reshapes a life. Section 172(3) sets a minimum of one year on a first conviction, three years on a second, and an indefinite suspension on a third or subsequent. For anybody who drives to work, or drives for work, a year is not an inconvenience.

Insurance is the other cost and it is rarely quantified at the roadside. A conviction of this kind is treated as a major offence by insurers, and the repricing at renewal runs for years. It is common for the insurance consequence over that period to exceed the fine substantially.

And for anybody who is not a Canadian citizen, a conviction carrying a possible term of imprisonment is worth having looked at alongside the immigration position rather than after it. This is a provincial offence rather than a criminal one, which matters, but the analysis is worth doing rather than assumed.

That depends entirely on the disclosure, and the honest answer is that nobody can give you one before reading it. What can be said is that filing to dispute the charge preserves every option, including resolving it to a lesser offence later, and that paying or pleading early closes all of them.

The most common useful outcome is not an acquittal. It is a resolution to a speeding charge under section 128, which carries a fine and demerit points but none of the section 172 suspension or the insurance treatment that follows a stunt driving conviction. Whether that is available depends on the speed, the record and the evidence.

Where the measurement holds up and the speed is high, the work shifts to the sentence: the position within the fine range, and the length of the suspension above the statutory minimum. Those are real arguments with real value even where the finding is not in doubt.

We will tell you where a case sits once the disclosure is in hand. What we will not do is promise a withdrawal before anybody has read the file, and an offer to do that is the thing to be most careful of when choosing who represents you.