lmost, since one of the them I was stopped by the po-po for having out of state plates on my Subaru Outback. It just so happened, my timing was perfection! that I had gone to the DMV that day to register my car (from California) and received my new plates. I threw those in the back seat, when on University Ave there was a flashing red light in my rear view mirror. What, is that for me? Yep it was. He pulls me over, "Do you know your plates are expired and out of state?" I'm like, "well, dud, like I'm from California" (well, I really didn't use those words exactly). Yes sir. "Do you live in Denver?" Yes sir. "How long have you lived here?" Here I lie, about 2 months, (really more like 6 months). "Do you know it's illegal not to register your car when residing in this state?" But sir, I have my plates! Oh, where are they? In the back seat, because I just got them today, I remark happily. Po-po is not pleased at all! (I think that ticket was a hefty fine). So he says to me, put them on. I'm like what? Put them on! I say I don't have a screw driver. Guess what he says? "Use a nickle". Yep you heard me, use a nickle. Not a quarter, not a dime, not even a penny, use a nickle! Oh how those three words are burned into my brain to this very day! Use a nickle! So I get out of my car, now it's about 25 chilly degrees outside and it's getting dark. I take my plates, use a nickle to pry off the old ones (do you know how hard it is to unscrew a screw with a nickle?!) and put on the new ones, this taking about 20 minutes because I'll be darn if he didn't sit in that warm po-po car of his watching me do this. I think he secretly enjoyed seeing me suffer. I should have reported him! The one ticket I did get was one of the photo tickets, again on University Ave (I should have avoided that street altogether!). All of sudden I see this flash, but, I thought nothing of it. A couple of weeks later, I get in the mail a photo of me driving in my car, my passenger's face (my husband) blurred out like I was having some sort of secret affair. I thought I looked pretty good for a black and white photo, although I had this quizzical look on my face (what was that flashing light?). Well that good black and white photo which wasn't suitable for framing cost me $300.00!
My very first ticket was in Oakland when I was really green around the ears. The four of us had gone out to dinner at a place called the "Gingerbread House" in Oakland. This restaurant only had two seatings for dinner. The four of us enjoyed the 9:00 seating, ate Cajun food and my friends had several bottles of wine between them. Leaving the restaurant and me unfamiliar with Oakland trying to find the freeway to get back to San Francisco, I saw the freeway entrance, but I was in the wrong lane to turn so instead I went straight for a half block and made a u-turn. So what if it was a little deserted street and I was going the wrong way down a one way street, what was the harm in that at midnight? Well, when I got to the corner to make the right turn onto the freeway, there was the po-po lying in wait. He followed me onto the freeway for 5 miles, surely waiting for me to drive like some drunk reckless person. When he finally pulled me over, shining the light in my eyes and sniffing the inside of my VW, he asked me if I had been drinking, to which I tersely said, No! He made me follow his flashlight with my eyes, which I guess it was some sort of sobriety test which I passed. He asked me what we were doing and I said I was trying to find the freeway back to SF, to which, after he wrote me the ticket said, would you like me to escort you to the freeway? I'm like yeah, deflated, defeated, and suddenly that Gingerbread House food giving me a terrible upset stomach!
So when I got that ticket the other day, with my daughter strapped in the back seat, the police said he clocked me at 54 mph in a 35 zone, asking me for my license and registration of which I couldn't get my glove box opened, it was a new Saturn Vue which had a faulty glove box lock, the po-po said in his most generous sounding voice, of course after running my plates and seeing what a good little citizen I have been, said that he was going to reduce it to a parking ticket. A parking ticket I queried? Yes, it would act like a parking ticket and I will reduce your speed to 45 mph also. Somehow my mind could not wrap around the words speeding and parking. Those two words just didn't jive in my head. After he gave me my ticket and I resumed driving, this time 35 mph, my daughter's voice came through the fog, gee mom, I felt like crying! When I told my husband that I got a speeding/parking ticket, he's like what does that mean and why didn't you tell him who you work for, maybe he would have cut you some professional courtesy? First of all, being stopped like that is not an everyday occurrence for me, so I really didn't have my wits about me and besides he threw me off by throwing out words like parking. When I got my ticket, I was hoping it would be of the parking fines and not the speeding fines. Not! So the other day when I was leaving my house, lo and behold, there in front of my subdivision, was a motorcycle cop lying in wait. I'm like OMG, they're in my own neighborhood, my own backyard and where the speed limit is only 25 mph. 25 mph! Only wheelchairs and skateboarders go that slow! It's unnatural for cars to go 25 mph I whine to my husband and daughter! It's just not fair, not fair I think to myself, going 25 mph, still feeling the sting from paying $200.00!-Single D
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Reality Check-Traffic Tickets
Several months ago I got a speeding ticket. Ok, I was distracted,rushing to my daughter's orthodontist and then planning on leaving town for a week in San Diego. Who wouldn't be distracted? Which led me to think of my other tickets, not that there have been that many, which I could probably count on one hand since I drive more like "Driving Miss Daisy". I'm the person on the highway doing the speed limit! When we lived in Denver, I got almost two tickets there. I say a
lmost, since one of the them I was stopped by the po-po for having out of state plates on my Subaru Outback. It just so happened, my timing was perfection! that I had gone to the DMV that day to register my car (from California) and received my new plates. I threw those in the back seat, when on University Ave there was a flashing red light in my rear view mirror. What, is that for me? Yep it was. He pulls me over, "Do you know your plates are expired and out of state?" I'm like, "well, dud, like I'm from California" (well, I really didn't use those words exactly). Yes sir. "Do you live in Denver?" Yes sir. "How long have you lived here?" Here I lie, about 2 months, (really more like 6 months). "Do you know it's illegal not to register your car when residing in this state?" But sir, I have my plates! Oh, where are they? In the back seat, because I just got them today, I remark happily. Po-po is not pleased at all! (I think that ticket was a hefty fine). So he says to me, put them on. I'm like what? Put them on! I say I don't have a screw driver. Guess what he says? "Use a nickle". Yep you heard me, use a nickle. Not a quarter, not a dime, not even a penny, use a nickle! Oh how those three words are burned into my brain to this very day! Use a nickle! So I get out of my car, now it's about 25 chilly degrees outside and it's getting dark. I take my plates, use a nickle to pry off the old ones (do you know how hard it is to unscrew a screw with a nickle?!) and put on the new ones, this taking about 20 minutes because I'll be darn if he didn't sit in that warm po-po car of his watching me do this. I think he secretly enjoyed seeing me suffer. I should have reported him! The one ticket I did get was one of the photo tickets, again on University Ave (I should have avoided that street altogether!). All of sudden I see this flash, but, I thought nothing of it. A couple of weeks later, I get in the mail a photo of me driving in my car, my passenger's face (my husband) blurred out like I was having some sort of secret affair. I thought I looked pretty good for a black and white photo, although I had this quizzical look on my face (what was that flashing light?). Well that good black and white photo which wasn't suitable for framing cost me $300.00!
My very first ticket was in Oakland when I was really green around the ears. The four of us had gone out to dinner at a place called the "Gingerbread House" in Oakland. This restaurant only had two seatings for dinner. The four of us enjoyed the 9:00 seating, ate Cajun food and my friends had several bottles of wine between them. Leaving the restaurant and me unfamiliar with Oakland trying to find the freeway to get back to San Francisco, I saw the freeway entrance, but I was in the wrong lane to turn so instead I went straight for a half block and made a u-turn. So what if it was a little deserted street and I was going the wrong way down a one way street, what was the harm in that at midnight? Well, when I got to the corner to make the right turn onto the freeway, there was the po-po lying in wait. He followed me onto the freeway for 5 miles, surely waiting for me to drive like some drunk reckless person. When he finally pulled me over, shining the light in my eyes and sniffing the inside of my VW, he asked me if I had been drinking, to which I tersely said, No! He made me follow his flashlight with my eyes, which I guess it was some sort of sobriety test which I passed. He asked me what we were doing and I said I was trying to find the freeway back to SF, to which, after he wrote me the ticket said, would you like me to escort you to the freeway? I'm like yeah, deflated, defeated, and suddenly that Gingerbread House food giving me a terrible upset stomach!
So when I got that ticket the other day, with my daughter strapped in the back seat, the police said he clocked me at 54 mph in a 35 zone, asking me for my license and registration of which I couldn't get my glove box opened, it was a new Saturn Vue which had a faulty glove box lock, the po-po said in his most generous sounding voice, of course after running my plates and seeing what a good little citizen I have been, said that he was going to reduce it to a parking ticket. A parking ticket I queried? Yes, it would act like a parking ticket and I will reduce your speed to 45 mph also. Somehow my mind could not wrap around the words speeding and parking. Those two words just didn't jive in my head. After he gave me my ticket and I resumed driving, this time 35 mph, my daughter's voice came through the fog, gee mom, I felt like crying! When I told my husband that I got a speeding/parking ticket, he's like what does that mean and why didn't you tell him who you work for, maybe he would have cut you some professional courtesy? First of all, being stopped like that is not an everyday occurrence for me, so I really didn't have my wits about me and besides he threw me off by throwing out words like parking. When I got my ticket, I was hoping it would be of the parking fines and not the speeding fines. Not! So the other day when I was leaving my house, lo and behold, there in front of my subdivision, was a motorcycle cop lying in wait. I'm like OMG, they're in my own neighborhood, my own backyard and where the speed limit is only 25 mph. 25 mph! Only wheelchairs and skateboarders go that slow! It's unnatural for cars to go 25 mph I whine to my husband and daughter! It's just not fair, not fair I think to myself, going 25 mph, still feeling the sting from paying $200.00!-Single D
lmost, since one of the them I was stopped by the po-po for having out of state plates on my Subaru Outback. It just so happened, my timing was perfection! that I had gone to the DMV that day to register my car (from California) and received my new plates. I threw those in the back seat, when on University Ave there was a flashing red light in my rear view mirror. What, is that for me? Yep it was. He pulls me over, "Do you know your plates are expired and out of state?" I'm like, "well, dud, like I'm from California" (well, I really didn't use those words exactly). Yes sir. "Do you live in Denver?" Yes sir. "How long have you lived here?" Here I lie, about 2 months, (really more like 6 months). "Do you know it's illegal not to register your car when residing in this state?" But sir, I have my plates! Oh, where are they? In the back seat, because I just got them today, I remark happily. Po-po is not pleased at all! (I think that ticket was a hefty fine). So he says to me, put them on. I'm like what? Put them on! I say I don't have a screw driver. Guess what he says? "Use a nickle". Yep you heard me, use a nickle. Not a quarter, not a dime, not even a penny, use a nickle! Oh how those three words are burned into my brain to this very day! Use a nickle! So I get out of my car, now it's about 25 chilly degrees outside and it's getting dark. I take my plates, use a nickle to pry off the old ones (do you know how hard it is to unscrew a screw with a nickle?!) and put on the new ones, this taking about 20 minutes because I'll be darn if he didn't sit in that warm po-po car of his watching me do this. I think he secretly enjoyed seeing me suffer. I should have reported him! The one ticket I did get was one of the photo tickets, again on University Ave (I should have avoided that street altogether!). All of sudden I see this flash, but, I thought nothing of it. A couple of weeks later, I get in the mail a photo of me driving in my car, my passenger's face (my husband) blurred out like I was having some sort of secret affair. I thought I looked pretty good for a black and white photo, although I had this quizzical look on my face (what was that flashing light?). Well that good black and white photo which wasn't suitable for framing cost me $300.00!
My very first ticket was in Oakland when I was really green around the ears. The four of us had gone out to dinner at a place called the "Gingerbread House" in Oakland. This restaurant only had two seatings for dinner. The four of us enjoyed the 9:00 seating, ate Cajun food and my friends had several bottles of wine between them. Leaving the restaurant and me unfamiliar with Oakland trying to find the freeway to get back to San Francisco, I saw the freeway entrance, but I was in the wrong lane to turn so instead I went straight for a half block and made a u-turn. So what if it was a little deserted street and I was going the wrong way down a one way street, what was the harm in that at midnight? Well, when I got to the corner to make the right turn onto the freeway, there was the po-po lying in wait. He followed me onto the freeway for 5 miles, surely waiting for me to drive like some drunk reckless person. When he finally pulled me over, shining the light in my eyes and sniffing the inside of my VW, he asked me if I had been drinking, to which I tersely said, No! He made me follow his flashlight with my eyes, which I guess it was some sort of sobriety test which I passed. He asked me what we were doing and I said I was trying to find the freeway back to SF, to which, after he wrote me the ticket said, would you like me to escort you to the freeway? I'm like yeah, deflated, defeated, and suddenly that Gingerbread House food giving me a terrible upset stomach!
So when I got that ticket the other day, with my daughter strapped in the back seat, the police said he clocked me at 54 mph in a 35 zone, asking me for my license and registration of which I couldn't get my glove box opened, it was a new Saturn Vue which had a faulty glove box lock, the po-po said in his most generous sounding voice, of course after running my plates and seeing what a good little citizen I have been, said that he was going to reduce it to a parking ticket. A parking ticket I queried? Yes, it would act like a parking ticket and I will reduce your speed to 45 mph also. Somehow my mind could not wrap around the words speeding and parking. Those two words just didn't jive in my head. After he gave me my ticket and I resumed driving, this time 35 mph, my daughter's voice came through the fog, gee mom, I felt like crying! When I told my husband that I got a speeding/parking ticket, he's like what does that mean and why didn't you tell him who you work for, maybe he would have cut you some professional courtesy? First of all, being stopped like that is not an everyday occurrence for me, so I really didn't have my wits about me and besides he threw me off by throwing out words like parking. When I got my ticket, I was hoping it would be of the parking fines and not the speeding fines. Not! So the other day when I was leaving my house, lo and behold, there in front of my subdivision, was a motorcycle cop lying in wait. I'm like OMG, they're in my own neighborhood, my own backyard and where the speed limit is only 25 mph. 25 mph! Only wheelchairs and skateboarders go that slow! It's unnatural for cars to go 25 mph I whine to my husband and daughter! It's just not fair, not fair I think to myself, going 25 mph, still feeling the sting from paying $200.00!-Single D
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