What Traffic Tickets Can Lead To Jail Time?
Traffic violations can have serious consequences, especially when they escalate to more severe offences. Various traffic offences may lead to jail time, depending on the circumstances and the driver’s history.
- Suspended License: If you continue to drive with a suspended license, you face hefty fines and jail time. Repeated offences increase the likelihood of serving time behind bars.
- Careless Driving: This can range from minor infractions to severe cases involving multiple accidents or even fatalities. In more severe cases, you may not avoid imprisonment.
- Driving Under the Influence (DUI): DUI charges usually come with severe penalties, including imprisonment. Courts tend to impose stricter penalties if you have prior offences or if the DUI caused injuries.
- Dangerous Driving and Street Racing: These activities often risk public safety. If you engage in these behaviours, especially if it results in accidents or injuries, jail time is a likely outcome.
Key Factors Considered by the Court
- Severity of the Offence: Courts look at how serious the traffic violation was. For example, driving under the influence that led to an accident causing injuries could lead to imprisonment.
- History of Offences: If your driving record shows repeated violations, you’re more likely to face imprisonment.
- Impact on Victims: The number of people affected and the extent of their injuries are also considered.
- Behaviour After the Offence: If you ignore court orders, such as not paying fines or continuing to drive with a prohibited licence, expect stricter penalties, including jail.
Offences And Potential Penalties With Jail Time
| Offence | Potential Penalty |
| Driving Under the Influence (DUI) | Jail, Fines, Suspended Licence |
| Careless Driving | Jail, Fines, Points |
| Suspended License | Jail, Fines |
| Dangerous Driving | Jail, Fines, Points |
| Street Racing | Jail, Fines, Confiscation of Vehicle |
Video Transcription:
What traffic tickets can lead to jail time? There are a few. There are some key ones, key offenses that list right on them that you can go to jail. If you look up the penalty section of offences such as stunt driving, suspended driving, careless driving, fail to remain, you will note right in the body of the, of that legislation, you will have a provision there for periods of incarceration.
It is, however, important to note that when a court or when a prosecutor is considering requesting jail time or implementing jail time, they are going to consider several different factors. For example, They would have to, in order for a court or a crown to be suggesting that it’s appropriate that the defendant go to jail, they would have to have a set of facts that are ultimately terribly aggressive.
So, for careless driving, by way of an example; if you had a driver that committed an offence of careless driving, affecting multiple motorists. There were many injuries, and perhaps even a fatality. Now, in that situation, it would be proper, and there is case law to support the fact that that person may in fact be exposed to a short, sharp, jail term.
But the vast majority of these offenses, like careless driving, it’s a last option. So, in order for a court to actually on a regular basis be using jail for something like suspended driving, a court or crown would consider the number of offenses, the effect of the sanctions so far. So, what happens for a suspended driver is they’re not supposed to drive for six months.
They’re going to get charged a significant fine. If that person is ignoring the fine and hasn’t paid it, if that person continues to drive ignoring that suspension, or worse, a court ordered suspension, well, the court really has no option because there are no other penalties available for that court to control that particular individual.
So the request or the demand was not to drive, that’s being ignored. So they’ve imposed penalties to bring the message home, that you’re not supposed to be driving. When those things are ignored, the legislation allows for the court to impose a jail term, an appropriate jail term, to deter that individual from committing that offense any further.
It’s also designed that someone looking from the outside who may consider repeating that behavior or doing that for themselves would cause them pause. They would consider, well, if I did this and if I ignored that court order, and if I don’t pay my fine, I could end up in jail. That’s why those are there.
But I can assure you, it’s relatively rare. So in my experience, When clients start to read legislation and they start to read the penalties for whatever they may have committed and they come across that jail term or the possibility of a jail term, they get very, very afraid, very concerned. Fortunately, they do call us when that happens and I will explain in the same way or one of my staff will explain to them in the same way. In 99 percent of these cases, there is really nothing to worry about with respect to going to jail.
