Note to self: Next time pay the damn ticket

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

(BUM! ba da bum, ba da bum bum bum bum bum bum…)

Actually, it was a couple years ago, in a county just north of me but I felt like having an epic beginning.

There I was, minding my business, stuck among a pack of cars driving along one of the more notorious speed traps in the area. I was trapped. Trapped, I tell you. Cars to my left, cars on my bumper, cars to the front.

An opening appeared, I shot into it, accelerated to about 15 miles over the speed limit until I cleared the pack and dropped back to the speed limit.

At least, I intended to drop back, until the lights start up in the rear view mirror.

Red. Blue. Red. Blue.

Damn.

I pulled over into a parking lot, rolled the window down, and waited with my hands on the steering wheel.

Speeding. Failure to signal. My tags are expired.

I didn’t argue. He had me dead to rights. As a gift, I guess, because I didn’t rant maybe, he ticketed my only on the tags. About a $60 ticket and no points. Yay!

Now a sane man would mail $60 to the county, get new stickers for the plates, and be done with it. But not Procrastination Man!! Strange visitor from another planet. Able to leap tall buildings. Well, not really. Procrastination MAn never gets around to leaping the building. “I’ll just leap it twice tomorrow.”

I did call the county once a couple months later and ask about it. I was judged in absentia and the fine is now $118. Please send a check. Yeah - tomorrow - no problem.

730 tomorrows pass, give or take. I was prompted to call the county after two years because my HR department sent me a letter about the garnishment of my wages for $118. The county couldn’t find where I lived it seems but did find where I worked. It gets magically deleted from my paycheck.

I called them. “What next?” says I.

“Better check your license status.” says they.

“Suspended,” says the state, “Since May 5, 2005”.

…fun date, that. It’s why I can remember it. 5/5/05.

“Shit.”

My fault - I know. Download the form, send $60 for “reinstatement”. Takes three weeks. Meanwhile I’m driving on a suspended license. Of course I have been for two years now but I didn’t know that. Now I know and I’m freaking out with every black and white car in my sight. I tell myself it’s unlikely they’ll figure this out with a plate check - I have a new truck since the ticket and new plates with it. Still…

So - finally - my license is cleared, takes three weeks from sending in the form.

“But wait!”, says my internal Ron Popiel, “That’s not all!” The state says I have to take the driving test again, and not just the written one. I have to drive for the examiner, too.

Please bring two pieces of ID with you, says the manual. I spend hours finding my social security card and birth certificate since it says my expired license is not good for ID purposes. {It was sufficient, said the clerk afterward.) Oh well, it was just sleep I lost. Of course, Procrastination Man could’ve looked earlier for the birth certificate but it was easier to put it off 'til tomorrow.

I take the written test - no sweat. I read the book before the test and I’ve been driving for years, right? Passed it healthily. Missed one. I can live with that. $11.60, please, and I’ve got my learner’s permit. Now a simple wait for two hours until the driving examiner could get to me.

Yup - me, the master driver of 25 years. No moving violations (none recorded, anyway), no accidents where I was found at fault (no-fault doesn’t count, right?). ME! I flunked my driving test.

“Right on red after stop” says the statute.

“in front of approaching F150” was my addition. The examiner wasn’t pleased.

Now, in Colorado you have to get an appointment to do your driving test - there’s apparently lots of people wanting to drive here. Next appointment was 10 days out. I decided to stop through an examining station this morning anyway and just ask if they could squeeze an an extra. “Sure,” said the smiling cutie behind the desk. I checked her ring finger. Married.

Today’s driving examiner said that it wasn’t a good day. Nobody previous to me had passed yet. Great. That’s a confidence builder. In response to his monotone voice, I made lots of lefts and rights. I carefully stopped for 2 seconds at each stop sign. This time I waited at the red light until it turned green - that’ll show 'em.

“Use the hand-over-hand method and keep your hands at 10 and 2” said the examiner. “You missed 12 points. You passed.”

“$13.60 please and we’ll mail you your license.”

Holy cow.

As God as my witness - I shall never not-pay a ticket again!

2

Wiser words were woefully never written.

3

Dude - we got a speeding ticket in Idaho on our way back to Calgary (cause 75 mph just isn’t fast enough for us!), and I had to go buy an American dollar money order and mail it to those hinky bastards, and I still had it paid in about a week. You are a procrastinator extraordinaire, my friend. When you get stupid tickets, you just bite the bullet and pay them and make them go away as fast as possible and try to forget it ever happened. Make Nike’s slogan your own - “Just Do It!”

(We could have opted not to pay at all, and never drive through Idaho again, but who knows what would happen these days? Get a “No fly, don’t let them in, period.” on our names for customs? Have Idaho state troopers show up on our doorstep? No thanks, buddy.)

4

Congratulations on your new drivers license! When I was a very broke yound adult, I once realized that every single piece of driving documentation that I had was expired and I lived far away from my home state. A guy hit me head on one night but just barely didn’t kill the engine or the radiator although the drivers side door was jammed in place and wouldn’t open. I had to rig up a drivers side headlight and tie it in place with rope. I would like to say that it was temporary but I drove that small pickup for another year just like that. In the meantime, I had gotten my first professional job and had to park far away from the company parking lot. I resisted any attempts at driiving somewhere where my coworkers could see. After 6 months of that, I bought a BMW and got things straightened out but I was mainly happy that I became legit for driving. I now know how illegal immigrants must feel. Speaking of which my drivers license is expiring tomorrow on my birthday (great system Massachusetts) and the online renewal system keeps rejecting me…

5

A wonderful lesson - sorry you had to learn it! I used to be a pretty bad procrastinator, but my spouse would leave me if I ever got that bad again, so I behave. I think I only procrastinated about the thing I really regretted getting into in the first place - sounds like a ticket would have fit the bill perfectly!

6

Bwahahaha!!! Too funny, dude!

I’m glad you are legal now!

7

Is this a contest? 'cause I once was arrested and dragged (drug?) to jail, deposited in general pop (apparently everyone else was innocent because “the bitch deserved it” - all of them, must have been 10 domestic violence arrests that night), and eventually made my way to a cell with quiet guy that left me alone because I forgot about a ticket for having a headlight out.
A headlight. It was probably a $15 ticket originally…

8

Somehow I knew arrest was a possiblity but even that wasn’t a motivator. Surely, says the back of my brain, they wouldn’t arrest me over a traffic ticket? Maybe it was just too sureal to contemplate seriously.

9

I was going to post to this thread, but I’ll do it tomorrow…

10

I thought they were teaching 4 and 8 now? At least, that’s how I was taught.

11

That’s how I fail my first driving test too! Right on red, check. Wait for oncoming traffic to pass first, not so much. “MOVE OVER! I’m driving us back!” :o

Well-crafted. :slight_smile:

12

I did something like this. No, I am not going to get into details. There are some things I won’t confess on a public message board, believe it or not.

Believe it also when I say it 90% cured me of procrastination. Now I procrastinate as a treat, and only when nothing really important is waiting for me.

13

I think that, because of airbags, they’re teaching 3 and 9 now.

14

Last week, i picked up one of these t-shirts for myself. You might want to grab one.

15

Guess it’s a good thing I’m not a driving instructor. I don’t think my “12 and crotch” method would go over very well.

16

The Colorado “how to drive” manual explains hands should be at 10 and 2 for cars without airbags, at 9 and 3 for cars with. I tend to drive at 12 and 5, which means my face will have a handprint if the airbag goes off. Luckily (?) my truck is too old for such effete safety devices.

I’ve never heard of 4 and 8. Your hands would be very low and would get bad leverage if you had to turn quickly to avoid an obstacle. Seems unsafe…

Actually, I tried very very hard to drive at 10 and 2. Been practicing that for a week. I’ve got a slightly bum shoulder and had long ago developed a habit of keeping that right arm low. I said as much after the exam. He said I kept it high, actually. Apparently I was overcompensating.

If I had to do this again, I’d probably stick tape markers on my steering wheel.

The hand-over-hand steering method feels very wonky. I tried to fake it - didn’t work, I guess.

17

I feel your pain.

My experience may not have been as bad. I got a moving violation at the end of February, my first in 30 years of driving - well, I had a speeding warning once but he decided to ticket me for my expired tags instead :smack: - My violation was running a stop sign which pissed me off to no end because I did stop and look every which way, though I did fail to see the cop hiding down the block. I am not used to my new car and how fast it will move again once I let up on the brake and since no other car was approaching, I braked, let up and was moving again. I didn’t run the stop sign, I just didn’t stop long enough. I think he had a quota to meet because the neighbors had complained about people running that stop sign and I came close enough.

I debated for a while on paying the ticket or fighting it. I decided that fighting it was a waste of time since it was the cop’s word against mine. I figured that if I went to court it would be on one of my scheduled work days so I’d have to take off and miss work. Even if I only missed a few hours, the missed work would still cost me almost as much as the ticket and if I lost and still had to pay I’d be out twice as much. So I opted to pay and take the driver’s ed course to get the points off my license. Then I realized my deadline was the next day. Ran down to the traffice court that day and paid the ticket. I know had 60days to take the course either in person at a traffic school, online or by renting a DVD at Blockbuster. I figured online would work and decided to look into that tomorrow.

Then a few tomorrows went by. Then about 55 days went by and it was the Memorial Day weekend. That Tuesday was my deadline. So that weekend I am frantically looking for the online courses and then taking the test. I tried to get it done as soon as possible so if I failed I could retake it. I was panicking that it wasn’t the right course and they would take away my license. So I go to the traffic court on Tuesday and submit my paperwork, it was okay and entered into the system, what a relief! I also managed to go get my car registration renewed on the same day, two days before my deadline.

I’ll never procrastinate again!
Yeah, right.

18

A few years ago I read an article in the Washington Post about a man who was arrested for an overdue library book ( got several letters from library asking for the book back or payment for said book, never took care of it, library handed it over to collections, still never took care of it after repeated attempts by DC to contact him, ended up in court, he didn’t show up and case was continued, he still didn’t show up and got a bench warrant for his arrest). Unfortunately, he managed to get arrested in Washington DC on the Friday before Memorial Day. He was transfered to Lorton (DC jail actually located in VA and notorious for being just a step above Hell), couldn’t reach anyone due to the holiday weekend, and had to spend 3 days waiting to get out.

For an overdue library book.

19

I’m a “6 and window-ledge” man, myself.

20

I think that was the point. Well, not making it harder to dodge an obstacle, but having less leverage gives better control, and makes it less likely you’ll oversteer or something. (At least I think it was something like that–it’s been a few years since I took driver’s ed).