(Ottawa, ON) – The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), Ottawa Detachment has charged a driver after an incident on Highway 417 eastbound near the Moodie overpass.
At approximately 10:07 am, an officer was patrolling Highway 417 eastbound near the Moodie overpass operating a cruiser equiped with the Automated Licence Plate Recognition (ALPR) system. As a result of a “hit” on the system, the officer conducted a traffic stop. The officer subsequently arrested the driver and impounded the vehicle for 45-days.
The male driver, 38 year old Patrick Joseph PAQUETTE of Ottawa was charged with:
Driving while Disqualified contrary to section 259(4) of the Criminal Code.
He is scheduled to appear in the Ontario Court of Justice, Ottawa on May 28, 2015.
Background
The OPP is the first police service in Ontario and one of the first in Canada to target suspended drivers with their Automatic Licence Plate Recognition Program (ALPR).
Through its continued partnership with the Ministry of Transportation Ontario (MTO) and the Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner (IPC), Ontario roads will be much safer now that the OPP has the ability to detect and deal with suspended drivers who continue to drive illegally.
OPP ALPR equipped vehicles will now have access to an MTO database that contains all licence plates of vehicles whose registered owners’ driver’s licences are suspended. When ALPR cameras scan such a vehicle, they produce a “hit”, alerting OPP officers that the plates belong to a suspended driver. If the driver is found to have a suspended licence for a Criminal Code conviction, officers will immediately have the vehicle towed to an impound facility for a minimum of 45 days. If the suspension is for an HTA offence, the vehicle immediately gets towed to an impound facility for seven days. These measures not only allow for the immediate removal of these vehicles from our roads, but they also encourage compliance among suspended drivers who now face a significantly greater risk of getting caught.