i used online traffic school several years ago, after successful completion the ticket was dismissed. i had to pay $125 or so.
bad cops are annoying, most of my tickets are in local law enforcement speed trap / revenue enhancement schemes set up by a dopey mayor and city council.
it’s disheartening to see a soccer mom arrested and get her car towed because she lost the previous speed trap ticket (same location) from six months earlier and got an arrest warrant. some of the new tickets are electrostatic, like cash register receipts, easy to lose.
some cities have their cops cruise low income areas with ALPS (Automated License Plate Scanning) and the computer beeps when a nearby car has paperwork, owner, or insurance issues.
Seems like a simple lesson, don’t speed, know the speed limit and pay your traffic fines. Someone with impressionable children in a vehicle should demonstrate safe driving practices.
You will get killed on IL Interstate if you go the speed limit. Typically 20 over. no one else did a plea bargain with City attorney prior to trial as I mentioned previously?
The last time I travelled through Illinois on I 88 the speed limit was the lower than most of the states to the west, 55 MPH. Travelling at a reasonable speed of 60 MPH, no one tried to kill me. I believe more people carry hand guns in vehicles in Nevada than the Midwest.
If you are suggesting that driving at a reasonable speed is a road hazard, do the commercial truck drivers travel at 20 MPH over the speed limit? Would this behavior not jeopardize their license?
The speed limit for trucks in California is 55 MPH, while for cars it is 65-70 MPH. Trucks are not driving 75 MPH and people are not killing each other.
Just saying speed limit 65, 85 is the norm in the left lane, I94. Remembering a guy who drove the speed limit in the right lane on my commutes with a big sign on the back of his car, “Please pass kindly!” I would not want to have to take the 5th if I document it.
In MA and Southern NH - if you’re doing the speed limit of 65 (even in the right lane)…other drivers WILL cut in front of you less then 1’ from your front bumper. Cars will honk at you. Other cars will tail gate you so close that if you slowed down to 64 they’d hit you. 65 is UNSAFE around here.
I22 near me has gotten similar. Speed limit is 70. I usually do 75-80. When I consistently get passed, tailgated, and cut off going 80 in a 70, as seems to be happening lately, I feel like we need another HP officer or two. I feel like 10 over is manageable. Once you get above that, things get dicey with folks passing semi’s in the wrong lane, not letting them get back over into the slow lane, etc.
Memphis is similar. Have to drive fast to survive. And I always see a wreck or two when traveling through. I try to avoid Memphis altogether.
There is a small city here in OK that I try to avoid and which shall remain nameless. It’s Kingfisher…oops. Everytime I went through that place I would make it a point to remain 5 MPH UNDER the posted limit. I would get stopped and ticketed for speeding anyway. In the instance below I was 10 MPH under and it got me cited for 10 over…
Once I showed up for court and the cop was a no-show. The judge said the cop had gone fishing and he did not need him there anyway. That led to my questioning their legal system and the right to face my accuser. That in turn led to the judge lecturing me about respect for the law and to quote the judge “The officer did not know you and just did not like your looks. As a matter of fact I spent 20 years in the Air Force and I don’t like your looks (long hair/beard) either. How do you plead?”.
Not guilty.
You are guilty. Pay the clerk.
lol … not many. It seems like I get one about every 10 years. The only one I had to pay the fine was when riding a motorcycle, and involved a rattlesnake.
Heh heh. That reminds me, I got out of one by blaming my girl friend. I don’t know if that’s the reason or not but she was from the big city and I was from out of town. I must have been 18 with my VW. It was late at night after a date, pitch black and stopped at a red light. No other traffic. Waited and waited and waited for the light to change. She said it’s probably not working, just go through it, which I did. Red lights flashing. He had to see me sitting there patiently for several minutes so just explained that “we” thought it wasn’t working and I was from out of town. No gun, no drugs, no alcohol, just a couple kids on a date with a VW and the sun roof open to the stars. What a life when I look back.
There’s an intersection like that near me. Probably everybody knows of one. They tend to be complicated designs, where the roads don’t exactly meet up as a simple cross. Long traffic light cycles are a potentially dangerous situation. I’ve had drivers at that intersection in line behind me get out of their cars and walk up to me – while I’m waiting in front of them for the light to change – explaining to me that the light is broken and I should just go. For the most part they are courteous about it. I tell them “no”, the light is almost certainly working, and from years of experience I know this light just takes a long time to change. In most cases they say “ok”, and get back in their cars and wait until it changes. In a few unfortunate cases where “no” isn’t acceptable to them, they’ll hurl expletives at me. Fortunately the light always changes eventually and I can drive away, and they can’t catch up b/c they are out of their cars … lol …
I have been stuck only a few times waiting for light that did not change as soon as it should. One time I blew through it no traffic but usually wait it out, Guess drivers in WI are a little more sympathetic.
There is a road where I used to live with a signal that was constantly red unless it sensed a car waiting in the intersection. There is a big sign with an arrow pointing to a portion of the road that reads “Stop here to actuate signal”, but sometimes drivers would zone out and not notice the sign. Usually, they figured it out, but once in a while, you had to give your horn a tap or get out and explain to the other driver why the light was stuck on red. Occasionally someone would drive through the red light because they assumed it was broken.
The only time I did a wheelie on my triumph motorcycle was waiting at a red light and heard screeching tires coming up behind me, no one in the intersection at a red light but gave it everything it had saying I am outa here! Probably the front wheel was 6" off the ground but I escaped unscathed.
I wheelied my “Honda Hurricane” (later rebranded a CBR) so many times when I was a kid that I had to replace the front wheel bearings lol. And then there was the rear tire…an unusually quick wear item.
