Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Traffic Court - before

I have to go to traffic court tonight. I've never been before and I can't say that I'm looking forward to it, but here's the deal: I got a ticket for speeding in a construction zone (thus doubling the fine and looking really bad to my insurance company) when I don't think I possibly could have. I'm fighting the ticket in the hopes of saving paying a hefty fine and insurance rate increase.

It happened more than a month ago when I was driving my friend, Bekah, home from the airport. She lived in a small town (one that is completely surrounded by KC proper) and I'd only been to her house once before so I didn't really know the way. As she was directing me, we came upon an intersection full of orange cones. It had recently been paved but didn't yet have lines painted, and I was waiting at the stop light to make a left turn. While waiting for the light, Bekah was telling me where I'd be making my next turn, but I was trying to figure out where I was going to go when I made my left turn. There were so many cones and without the lines being painted I was nervous about turning into oncoming traffic. I slowly made the turn and tried to make sure I was going where I needed to go, and it was maybe a block out of that turn that the cop pulled me over. I don't know how fast I was going - the speedometer had not been my focus - but I was cited for doing 45 in a 25 mph construction zone. I don't think there's any way that I could have accellerated that fast - and Bekah and I were honestly VERY surprised by the whole incident. As it turned out, where I ended up pulling over was also right by where I was going to be making my next turn to get to her house (a second reason I couldn't have been going that fast, if I was going to be making another turn that soon). I used to work for a police department and for the most part I respect the work that those officers do, but this guy wasn't very nice about the whole thing. He never once tried to be friendly or even cracked a smile. He was really kind of mean - and I'm hoping he was just having a bad or something, because I'd hate to think of anyone being like that all the time.

Like I said, I've never been to court before (other than being called once as a witness at a hearing when I was a police dispatcher). I'm dressing up (even wearing a skirt) and going to try to be polite and succinct. I'm really hoping the officer doesn't show up for court, which supposedly happens quite often. Then I won't have to pay the fine and the charges will be dismissed. If the officer is there, I will simply state me case as best as I can and hope for the best. At worst, the charges hold and I have to pay the fine as if I would have just signed the ticket. I've got nothing to lose. I just wish that made my stomach stop flip flopping...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good luck. Hope all goes well

revhipchick said...

ditto!

i like the pic, you and trouble inspired me to post my own!

can't wait to hear how it went. maybe the judge will say "hey, aren't you that wonderous woman they quoted in the KC Star?"