Earlier this month, I received my first speeding ticket.
But it shouldn't count because it was so unnecessary and unfair.
We were going down this road, which is a downhill.
There were three cars, literally, surrounding me. It's a two lane road, so i had a car in front of me, next to me and behind me. We were ALL going the same speed, which was about 40 mph in a 25 mph zone.
Then at the bottom of the hill, we see two motorcycle cops with laser guns, so naturally all of us slowed down immediately.
As we're passing he signals me to pull over. So I did.
And when i pulled up to him, he asks his partner "Hey, is he the one?" which infuriated me.
I thought, since he wasn't sure and we were all going the same speed, he'd let me off with a warning. Nope.
He gave me a ticket for going 41 in a 25 zone and the ticket came out to 137 dollars.
Great.
So I mailed in the ticket and said I wanted to contest it in person, because i really felt that i was done wrong.
Yesterday at 9am was my court date.
And i had no idea what to expect. This is my first time at court.
It's finally 9, the judge walks in, we all stand up, blah, blah, blah.
Now i'm getting my defense ready.
I was going to tell him that the cop wasn't sure it was me, because he had to ask "Is he the one?" Not only that, but I was going with the flow of traffic.
Any good driver's ed teacher will tell you, it's safer to go with the flow of traffic than it is to obey the speed limit. Accidents happen when drivers go faster or slower than the flow of traffic. So if the flow of traffic is going 40 at a 25 zone, it's safer to go 40.
My name is called up, and I go to the front. He asks me, for the record, to state my name, i do so.
Then he goes over my file and asks, do you admit or deny the charge.
And i had to think. I did go 40, there's no doubt about that.
I told the judge, I admit the charge.
Then he just said, "Okay, since you admitted, i'll knock down you fine. Instead of 41, i'll mark it down to 30 in a 25 zone. Take a seat and wait for your papers."
I ended up paying $25 for the ticket and $47 for court fees, which is still less than 137.
But it got me thinking.
How many times do we justify and find excuses for the things we've done wrong?
I was happy with the decision.
And we should just ask for forgiveness, instead of trying to justify our actions.
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2 comments:
I've never met anyone yet who was given a speeding ticket fairly.
I don't know about asking for forgiveness from things that you don't necessarily feel aren't crimes. I mean, if one person is a vegetarian, and you eat meat, should you apologize to them for eating meat? Then again, I think most speeding tickets are stupid, especially ones given in places with absurdly low speed limits, like 25 in a straight away at a 20 degree decline. That's just ridiculous.
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