:: Trying to keep track of it all... ::

:: 2.15.2005 ::

Traffic court!

So today, being the scofflaw that I am, I had to go to traffic court.
It was kind of interesting actually. Not something that I hope to ever have to do again, but watching all the other scofflaws before me was mildly entertaining.

But you dont care about that, you want to hear why I was at traffic court.
Well... OK.
But its really dumb.

I and a couple of other guys were heading back to work after lunch a couple of weeks ago, and I got busted going 36 in a 25 mph zone.
I know, I know! I'm insane risking peoples lives like that. But if you've read anything at all on this site then you know that I'm pretty much fearless, and routinely break the law.
Ahem... anyway thats not why I went to court.

After pulling me over the officer told me what I had done wrong and asked me to present my license, registration and proof of insurance. So I dug out my license and registration and handed them over.
He looked like he was still waiting for something.
"Uh, is there anything else?"
"I still need your proof of insurance sir."
"Isnt it on the registration?"
He looked puzzled.
"No sir, its a seperate document."
Now it was my turn to look puzzled.
"A seperate document?"

Now you see I'm from Massachusetts where you can't register a vehicle unless you have insurance first. Because of this they just put your proof of insurance on the registration itself.
While mildly inconvenient paperwork-wise, this always made sense to me because what state in their right mind would allow people to register vehicles that are un-insured.
Yay, Washington!
Yeah, here you can get plates (or tabs as they're called out here in the wild wild west) and drive around willy nilly running into houses and other people completely un-insured. Isn't that great? It's a right dammit!!

whatever...

So, anyway I and my two buddies from work looked through every nasty, wrinkled, cookie crumb and french fry stained document in the car, but to no avail.
All we were able to find was an old insurance document from last year when we lived in Maine. It had the policy number on it though, so the officer who at this point was laughing at me (along with my two dumbass co-workers) offered to call Progressive and check it out.

After an interminable 15 minutes (thanks Jim and Duncan!) he came back to the car. "I'm sorry sir but Progressive says that this policy has expired."
"What? Oh thats right. When we moved here Progressive had to set up a whole new policy for us, because our region had changed."
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to write you a ticket sir. If you could have proven your insurance coverage I would have let you go with a warning, but now I have no choice."

Yeah, great... thanks...

So he writes me a ticket for... $690!!!
$550 for no proof of insurance and $140 for the speeding (which again was a diabolical 36 in a 25).

"Sir, if you check the box marked mitigation hearing and go to traffic court and prove your coverage, you can have the fee reduced to a $25 filing charge."
I picked my jaw up out of my lap and thanked him for his time.

Needless to say Tabitha was not happy.
And my coworkers of course thought this was hilarious.

So thats why I was at traffic court today.
I told you it was dumb.
I ended up paying the $25 filing fee and the judge reduced my speeding from $140 to an even $100.
Guess I'll take what I can get. Could've been a lot worse, to the tune of $565. Dont really have that kind of scratch lying around to waste on stupid traffic violations.
Which brings me to our next bigblackvan installment:
"Taxes! Why you should pay your quarterly estimated or How I learned to love the IRS"

Stay tuned!!

:: Zachary 8:54:00 PM [+] ::
...