MONTREAL – A couple from Ontario is furious after receiving three traffic tickets – two for the same offence – within minutes of one another while they were trying to visit an exhibition at the Olympic Stadium Thursday.
Caroline Guy and her husband were driving their pickup from Vaughan, Ont. Thursday toward the Olympic Stadium. A black unmarked police cruiser stopped them for having illegal tinting on their windows a few blocks from the stadium near Hochelaga Ave. Shortly afterward, they received a ticket for running a stop sign at a nearby block, and then were hit for the same infraction by the same police officer at another stop sign a block away.
“We see the cop car coming up behind us again, and I said, ‘surely it can’t be for us again,'” Guy said.
According to SPVM spokesperson Laurent Gingras, even if a car with out-of-province plates complies with the law in its own province, it still must comply with the regulations making cars street-legal in Quebec. So far as the notion the couple were targetted for being Ontarians goes, Gingras denied it.
“I suggest to these people that they should contest their ticket and the court will decide who’s right,” he said. “If you obey the laws, obey the by-laws, you shouldn’t have a problem.”
Yet given the details of the case – three separate traffic infractions in sequence – Guy’s account raises questions with one defence attorney contacted by Global News.
“It is very odd that after being ticketed for a stop sign, the driver then goes and commits the same infraction,” said Eric Sutton, a Montreal lawyer. “Usually people are fairly wary about what they’re going after receiving a ticket. It’s human nature.”
Sutton didn’t put much stock in the idea the couple was being harassed for being Ontarian. However, he said, they may have a right to bring a civil claim against the police department if they can prove they were singled out.
The couple has said they will contest the tickets.
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