Stunt Driving in Ontario: What Has to Be Proved, Whether You Have to Attend, and What Goes on Your Record

Your roadside suspension is not on your summons and was never going to be on it. Those are two separate processes that started on the same night, and until you can tell them apart, none of the paper in your hand makes sense.

I am a licensed paralegal and Highway Traffic Act and Provincial Offences Act defence is the whole of my practice. This article does not re-explain what stunt driving is, because I have already written that one. What follows is the next four questions people ask me, in the order they ask them: whether the suspension appears on the summons, what a stunt driving case actually rests on, whether you have to attend court, and what ends up on a record. By the end you will know what each document you are holding is for, and what the date on one of them is.

The Documents in Your Hand Do Three Different Jobs

Most of the confusion in the first week comes from reading three documents as though they were one story. They are not. Two of them record decisions that were already made and cannot be argued about. The third is the only one that opens a court file.

The Licence Suspension Was Decided at the Roadside

Section 172(8) of the Highway Traffic Act says that where a police officer believes on reasonable and probable grounds that a person is driving, or has driven, in contravention of section 172(1), the officer shall request that the person surrender their driver's licence and shall detain the vehicle. Section 172(9) then suspends that licence for 30 days from the day the request is made, and it does so whether or not the driver was able to hand the card over.

Nobody signed off on that. Section 172(18) of the same Act says there is no appeal from, and no right to be heard before, the vehicle detention, the licence suspension or the impoundment. Section 172(15) says the officer keeps a record of the licence received with your name, address and the date and time of the suspension, and gives you a notice showing the time from which the suspension takes effect and how long it runs. That notice is the whole of the process. There was no hearing to miss.

One line in the Act settles what that suspension is not. Section 172(21) says the licence suspension and the vehicle impoundment are intended to promote compliance with the Act and "do not constitute an alternative to any proceeding or penalty arising from the same circumstances or around the same time". The 30 days are not a punishment that closes the file, and they are not credited against anything later.

The Vehicle Notice Is Its Own Document

Section 172(10) says a detained vehicle is removed to an impound facility at the owner's cost and risk and impounded for 14 days from the day it was detained. Section 172(16) says the officer prepares a notice identifying the vehicle, the driver's name and address, and the date and time of the impoundment, and gives the driver a copy showing when the impoundment takes effect, how long it runs, and where the vehicle may be recovered.

Two further subsections catch people out. Section 172(13) says the operator of the impound facility is not required to release the vehicle until the removal and impound costs have been paid, and section 172(14) makes those costs a lien on the vehicle enforceable under the Repair and Storage Liens Act. If the car was not yours, section 172(19) lets the owner bring an action against the driver to recover what the impoundment cost them. None of that is decided by the court that has your charge.

The Summons Is the Only One With a Court Date

The charge arrives under the Provincial Offences Act. Section 22 lets a provincial offences officer serve a summons on a person found at or near the place where the offence was committed, before an information is even laid, and section 24(1) has a justice consider the information and then confirm that summons or issue one. Section 3(2)(b) allows the other route, a certificate of offence with either an offence notice showing a set fine or a summons.

What you will not get for stunt driving is a ticket with an amount printed on it that makes the problem go away. Section 12(1) of the Provincial Offences Act says that where the penalty prescribed for an offence includes a fine of more than $1,000 or imprisonment and the proceeding is commenced under Part I, the fine or imprisonment provision does not apply and the offence is punishable by a fine of no more than $1,000. Section 172(2) of the Highway Traffic Act sets a fine of not less than $2,000 and not more than $10,000, or imprisonment of up to six months, or both. There is no set fine to pay here. There is a date to attend.

So the answer to the question people search at two in the morning is a flat no. The summons does not show the roadside suspension, and it is not supposed to. Section 172(18) puts that suspension outside the process the summons starts, while adding that it "does not affect the taking of any proceeding in court". Two files, one night.

What a Stunt Driving Case Rests On

Section 172(1) is four words long in substance: no person shall drive a motor vehicle on a highway in a race or contest, on a bet or wager, or while performing a stunt. All the content is in the regulation.

The Regulation Decides Which Kind of Case You Have

O. Reg. 455/07 is where "stunt" and "race" and "contest" are defined for the purposes of section 172, and section 3 of it lists the driving that counts as a stunt. Three of those paragraphs are pure arithmetic. Paragraph 7 is driving 40 km/h or more over the speed limit where the limit is less than 80 km/h. Paragraph 7.0.1 is 50 km/h or more over where the limit is 80 km/h or more. Paragraph 7.1 is 150 km/h or more, whatever the limit says.

Every other paragraph describes conduct, and most of them are drafted around what the driving indicates an intention to do. Lifting some or all of the tires off the road. Causing the tires to lose traction while turning. Spinning the vehicle or causing it to circle without maintaining control over it. Preventing another vehicle from passing. Driving as close as possible to another vehicle, a pedestrian or a fixed object without justification. Paragraph 5 is driving with a person in the trunk, which is on the list because somebody once did it and somebody will do it again.

That split matters more than anything else in the disclosure. A paragraph 7 case is about a measurement and the officer who took it. A paragraph 3 or paragraph 8 case is about what an officer says the manner of driving indicated, which is a different kind of material to read and a different kind of case to prepare. Section 2 of the regulation adds a further definition for race and contest, built around a "marked departure from the lawful rate of speed", which section 2(2) defines as a speed that may limit the driver's ability to prudently adjust to changing circumstances on the highway. The first thing worth knowing about your own case is which of those doors it came through.

What Disclosure Ordinarily Contains

Disclosure comes from the prosecution, not from the officer and not from the court counter. York Region's own Provincial Offences page on preparing for trial and requesting disclosure puts the entitlement plainly: "You have a right to obtain the officer's notes and any other available evidence relevant to the charge against you." The same page routes Part I and Part III requests differently and sends them to a prosecution office, which is the shape most Ontario courts use even though the address and the form change.

What arrives varies. That York page notes that for an early resolution meeting "only the Officer's notes will be provided", which is a useful reminder that a disclosure package is not a fixed object with a fixed table of contents. It is what the prosecution has and produces, and reading it against the paragraph of the regulation that is actually alleged is most of the work. Disclosure is argued often enough in Provincial Offences court to have grown its own body of decisions, and I keep a section of that case law on this site.

What You Can Check Before Any of It Arrives

The documents you were handed at the roadside already carry facts you can check, because the Act says what has to be on them. The notice of suspension has to show the time from which the suspension takes effect and the period it runs, under section 172(15). The impound notice has to identify the vehicle, your name and address, the date and time of the impoundment, its length and where the vehicle can be recovered, under section 172(16). Whether those match your memory of the stop, and each other, is worth knowing before anyone else reads them.

The charging document has its own requirements. Section 25(1) of the Provincial Offences Act says each offence charged in an information shall be set out in a separate count, and section 25(2) says each count shall in general apply to a single transaction and must contain in substance a statement that the defendant committed the offence. Where a proceeding did start under Part I, section 3(3) requires the offence notice or summons to be served personally within thirty days after the alleged offence occurred. I am describing what the statutes require, not telling you what any of it means for your case. That part depends on facts I have not seen.

Whether You Have to Go to Court

This is the question I get asked most, usually by somebody who has already worked out that the date lands in the middle of a work week.

The Act Lets Someone Else Go for You

Section 50(1) of the Provincial Offences Act says a defendant may appear and act personally or by representative. That is the provision a paralegal or a lawyer attends under. Section 50(3) lets the court bar a person who is not licensed under the Law Society Act from appearing as a representative where the court finds they are not competent to represent or advise the person they appear for, which is the reason the licence exists.

The Act Also Allows Attendance by Video or Phone

Section 83.1 was added to the Provincial Offences Act in 2020. Subsection (1) defines an "electronic method" as a video conference, an audio conference, a telephone conference or another method set by regulation. Subsection (2) says that in any proceeding under the Act, or any step in one, any person including a defendant may participate by an electronic method "made available by the court office".

Read that last phrase twice, because it is where the Act hands the decision to somebody else. The statute permits electronic attendance; the individual court office decides what it actually offers. Subsection (4) adds that a justice may order a person to appear in person where satisfied that the interests of justice require it or that it is necessary for a fair trial, and subsection (3) allows regulations to except particular proceedings altogether. Your notice, from your court, is the document that tells you which of those applies to you. If you are not sure which court your matter is in, my directory of Ontario's Provincial Offences courts will find it.

What the Act Says About Nobody Turning Up

Section 54(1) covers it. Where a defendant does not appear at the time and place appointed for a hearing, and the prosecutor proves that a summons was served or a notice of trial was given, the court may hear and determine the proceeding in the defendant's absence, or adjourn the hearing and, if it thinks fit, issue a summons to appear or a warrant for the defendant's arrest.

I am not going to tell you which of those a court would do, because that is not knowable from here and anyone who tells you otherwise is guessing. What the section does establish is that a matter does not pause because nobody came.

What Ends Up on a Record

A Provincial Offences Conviction Is Not a Criminal Code Conviction

Stunt driving is section 172 of the Highway Traffic Act, a provincial statute, prosecuted under the Provincial Offences Act, and section 2(1) of that Act states its purpose as replacing the summary conviction procedure for provincial offences "with a procedure that reflects the distinction between provincial offences and criminal offences". A conviction under section 172 is not a conviction under the Criminal Code. That is the whole of that answer, and it is a smaller answer than most people expect, because the record that actually follows a driver is a different one.

The Driver Record Is the One That Follows You

Ontario's own page on how to get a driving record says a three year driver record shows your demerit point total along with "active fine suspensions, Highway Traffic Act and Criminal Code of Canada convictions, suspensions and reinstatements for the past 3 years". A Highway Traffic Act conviction lands there.

Who gets to read it is set out in the Act itself. Section 4.2(2) of the Highway Traffic Act lists the purposes for which the Registrar may disclose personal information and the requesters who may receive it. Item 5 covers underwriting policies of insurance, investigating insurance claims and verifying driver records, with licensed insurers and brokers as the authorized requesters. Item 6 covers verification of employee driving records by employers who require the information, "where the employee has consent to the employer obtaining this information from the Registrar". That table, rather than anything to do with criminal records, is the honest answer to who finds out.

The Suspension on Conviction Is a Different Suspension

The 30 days at the roadside are not the suspension people mean when they talk about losing a licence over stunt driving. Section 172(3), as amended in 2024, says the licence of a person convicted under section 172 is suspended for a minimum of one year on a first conviction, a minimum of three years on a second, and indefinitely on a third or subsequent conviction. Section 172(5) lets a court extend the first conviction suspension to no more than three years, and the second conviction suspension to no more than ten years, where the court considers it proper and desirable for the protection of the public using the highways.

Two subsections soften the counting. Section 172(7.1) deems a conviction more than 10 years after the previous one to be a first conviction, and section 172(4) allows the Registrar to reduce an indefinite suspension in prescribed circumstances where it was not imposed for a fourth or subsequent conviction. All of that sits on top of the fine under section 172(2) and runs from a conviction, not from a charge.

Where That Leaves the Date on Your Summons

The roadside decisions are closed. The Act gave no hearing before them and gives no appeal from them, and thirty days and fourteen days will pass whatever anyone argues. The charge is a separate matter that has not been decided by anybody yet, and the date on the summons is the point at which it starts being dealt with rather than worried about.

Between now and then, the useful work is unglamorous: find out which paragraph of O. Reg. 455/07 is actually alleged, request disclosure from the right prosecution office, read your notice for the attendance format your court is running, and decide whether you are attending yourself. If you would rather that was somebody else's job, that is what my stunt driving defence page is for.

Talk to a Paralegal Before Your Court Date

I am Carli Geist, a paralegal licensed by the Law Society of Ontario. I am based in Burlington and I appear at Provincial Offences courts across the province, and Highway Traffic Act and Provincial Offences Act matters are all I do.

Consultations are free. Call me at (289) 682-2076 and bring the paperwork with you, all three pieces of it.