Good news, everyone! If you got a traffic ticket recently, and you planned to fight it in court, you can go ahead and rip it up right now. Yep, tear it right up, and throw it in the garbage. Actually, you should probably check the date you're supposed to appear in court first. If it happens to be February 18, 2008, you're in luck. If it's not on February 18, well, you still have time to dig that ticket out of the trash, garbage-picker.

As a result of the new Family Day holiday, an estimated 1,100 minor traffic charges will be dismissed because Toronto courts will be closed that day.

The court closure is estimated to result in $50,000 in foregone revenue for the city. However, city spokesperson Brad Ross told CityNews that "We reviewed all those cases and determined that some of them we would have to withdraw because of the undue delays would actually end up costing the city more in court costs than it would in the fines that we may have realized."

The authorities did emphasize that more serious offenses and criminal cases would not be affected by the court closures.

Aside from the traffic ticket issue, there's been a lot of media attention about the possible detrimental effects of the new holiday, but really, is anyone that broken up about having an extra day off?

Photo by Gabi~ from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.