Quote:
Originally Posted by SmellMyWort
What’s a K-car?
As all aficionados of fine TV are aware, K-cars figure prominently in the Red-Green Show.
If he doesn’t give a warning but gives an actual ticket for having a taillight out- he’s an asshole. You do realize that even if you inspect the car’s lights before a trip (like we all do of course, right?), that a light can burn out during the trip?
No he’s not, you fucking moron. How could the cop have known she wasn’t warned before? The ticket is the warning. She didn’t go to jail, for christsakes.
For normal people the things go like this. Tail light out -> Ticket -> Fix tail light -> go to traffic court -> fine waived
Why is this so hard to understand? It is illegal to drive with a broken tail light regardless of the circumstances, but you can get out of having to pay the fine if you fix the damn thing.
Why are people acting like her civil liberties were trampled on? It’s a fucking traffic ticket, deal with it and fix the fucking tail light. It’s an offense, and the cop took measures to stop it. In no way does that make him an asshole.
Wah. Wah. Wah.
Don’t want a ticket? Don’t fucking violate the law.
Got a ticket, where there is no dispute that the law was violated? Pay it and learn your lesson.
I’m still not getting it. What does Xmas have to do about it? What does that have to do with “needing the money more”?
This is a K-Car: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlmoQTSoQYo
Extremely unlikely.
Incandescent bulbs (and K-cars never had CFL or LED lights) almost always burn out at the initial surge when they are first turned on.
By the way, here in Minnesota, fix-it tickets don’t even require you to go to court. Just get it fixed within 15 days, and take it to any police station and have an officer verify that it is fixed, and sign off on the ticket. And no fine, either. (At least, this ishow it was done a dozen years ago, when I last had one.)
GAH! YOU GUYS ARE FUCKING INCONSIDERATE ASSHOLES IF YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND THE OP.
- Christmas is the time of the year where we as a society have institutionalized niceness. Not being nice on Christmas is considered a big deal
- A taillight being broken is no big deal.
- A ticket is. IT COSTS MONEY. That people don’t have at Christmas because they bought gifts. And single parents are poor enough that hey can’t afford much anyways.
- Most poeple DO NOT fight their tickets (if they even know how). If they did, the prices wouldn’t be so dadblasted high.
- The fact that this has to be explained at all indicates that the Dope has way too many social morons, and explains the general hostility that necessitated this stupid forum in the first place.
It’s perfectly fine that you disagree. But if you honestly didn’t understand this, then you are stupider than the “Atheism is Dead” guy. And, unlike the OP’s mom, you deserve to be treated poorly.
You know any cops, BigT?
I do. The worst thing that can happen on the job is having to clean up a fatal collision on the highway with kids in the car. Can you imagine having to take car of one of those on Christmas Eve? In snow, visibility is bad. Very, very bad. And so is braking. A tail light out is a hazard, and it risks the lives of the kids. On a clear day, the cop very well might have thought “screw it”, but it wasn’t a clear day.
I received a ticket . . . and a $100 fine, because one of my tail lights, though working, was missing the red plastic lens. And this was on Thanksgiving.
O.K., now that one is hard to defend, but the one in the OP… not so much.
If that’s all it take for admission to hell, it’s going to be one crowded place.
Don’t people save up the rest of the year, though? I mean, why would the cop assume the person was bad with their personal finances?
Also, you do know that not everyone in this country celebrates Christmas, right? I mean, I do, but I don’t look for special treatment on that day.
I take that back. Panache, though $100 bucks is a tad steep, if the cover was gone, how the fuck did you not notice?!
I know a bunch too. So I asked them. They basically said that unless she “earned” the ticket by acting like an asshole, or there was some kind of safety blitz on, it was a dick move. This is from three officers. One pointed out that a big part of their job is community relations, which means helping the public, not necessarily punishing them. It is up to them to use their discretion in this regard.
(Bolding mine) I’d like to point out that giving someone a ticket doesn’t make their taillight work, so the state of the weather is irrelevant. It’s not like the ticket is going to make the vehicle more visible.
It will sure as hell get her to fix the safety hazard though, won’t it?
If I had to guess, I would venture that the cop himself probably felt endangered/startled by the busted taillight, so decided to exercise his discretion in the matter in the direction most unfavorable to your relative.
Yes, it probably could have been handled better, and maybe he could have used a dose of Christmas cheer, but in no way, shape, or form was he in the wrong for issuing a ticket.
The cop felt “endangered” by a busted taillight? Who was this, Barney Fife?
This was the most minor possible thing a cop could do for a Respect May Authri-tie moment. Fuck Christmas cheer. If it were St. Swithen’s day he still would a been a dick to whip this on some poor single mom in the freezing cold trying to get her two small children to a family outing.
There was no need for a ticket to be issued. Cops don’t need to be Robo-Cop with chapter and verse on hand. They’re allowed to be decent fucking people too.
Listen, I’ve gotten warnings before. I’ve gotten tickets before. I have totally taken my lumps, and I don’t begrudge a cop doing his job, but all this shit about … “she should have inspected her car … it’s not the cops job to be nice … that’ll teach the irresponsible slut” … or whatever, is Machiavellian twaddle.
Bullshit. All the whiny “poor little single mom on Christmas” and “asshole cop” drivel is childish, immature, and irresponsible. The cop did nothing wrong. The driver broke the law, and rightly got ticketed for her violation.
The cop did nothing wrong. But he was an asshole while he was doing it.
Cops give warning for worse shit than this all the time. There was no decent reason for a ticket.