Ha Ha! Caught You!

I don’t have a problem with speeding tickets.  I have problems with the way people often get them.

   

How often have you gone down a hill so that gravity pushes you over the speed limit, and a cop has nabbed you by the time you reach the bottom?  Or how about when you’re in a 45mph zone, and a pig is lying in wait right where it changes to 35mph?

This isn’t a sport.  It’s not technical rule books.  This is my income and driving record that they’re screwing around with.  Sitting at a speed limit change is not, by fundamental necessity, serving any moral code or helping anyone.  All a speed trap serves is a way for cops to abuse a system meant to protect us so they can get something out of it for themselves.

Laws were never meant to be black-and-white, all inclusive rules.  The reason for laws existing is that we as a people have noticed that certain behaviors tend to cause problems.  That doesn’t mean that they always cause problems.  They shouldn’t be followed mechanically. 

I’m not a robot.  Everyone errs.  Ruining someone’s driving record because of something petty is like suspending a kid from school because he got too many math problems wrong.  People with the best intentions get raked across the same coals as the dude weaving through traffic for fun.  Sure, if I do something that is clearly dangerous, regardless of my good nature, pull me over.  Give me a ticket.  But don’t give someone a ticket and charge them triple digits because of an honest mistake.  For a lot of us, that’s the better part of two day’s pay after taxes!

Can’t the fuzz assess the situation and realize that there was no deliberate harm intended, or that realistically the citizen was not doing something reckless, or that an honest mistake may have occurred?

Nope!  You forgot to signal a turn.  How dare ye!  Bam.  Ticket.  Yay!  1 point for the cops.  Ha ha.  They caught you!  100 bucks please.

I often find myself asking, “who is affected by this law or that?”  I feel that several things that are prohibited only affect the person who is performing them.  For example, seatbelts.  The fact that I’m not wearing a seatbelt does not endanger other people on the road.  I am aware of my surroundings.  I have fully clarity and control of my faculties.  If I get in an accident, I may experience a higher risk of injury.  However, the fact that I don’t have a seatbelt on does not hurt anyone else. 

If I’m the only car on the road and I forget to signal my turn or lane change, is a ticket really necessary?  I got pulled over once because I didn’t come to a complete stop at a 4-way stop.  I had the right-of-way anyways, so rather than to confuse people because I wasn’t going, I took my turn.  The only problem was that the other guy was a cop.  Now, did he pull me over because I was doing something dangerous?  No.  Did he pull me over because he had a quota, because he gets a rise off of having that sort of power, or because he planned to take my right-of-way and go through the intersection first? 

Well, I know how I feel about that…

Cause I gotta tell ya, when a cop blows past me with his sirens going and damn near hits me, or blow through a light because he can, all I ever think is, “Where’s the cop to pull that guy over?”