Sunday, January 16, 2011

e-Absolution - Paying For Your Traffic Sins Online

I recently received a traffic violation for failure to stop at a stop sign. I’m pretty sure I stopped, so I don’t think I was guilty, but like everyone else I didn’t want to be bothered fighting it. So I proceeded to go online to look up the fine. I was blown away to find out it was 90 bucks! I saw that I also had the option of going to “traffic school” to keep it off my record. This is nothing new. I think it was like 85 bucks in addition to the 90 dollar fine. But what shocked me was they now are offering an online version for a mere 100 bucks you can wipe away your traffic transgression from the comfort and convenience of your own home. $190 bucks, for a stop sign violation! And they don’t even have to provide an instructor for this money making machine. This was an injustice and I opted to have my day in court more to make a statement that they were going to have to work to steal 90 bucks out of my pocket. I ended up getting it reduced to $50 by taking a deal and pleading no contest. To conclude, I believe the system is broken for the following reasons. One, the poor police shouldn’t have a ticket quota which encourages ticky-tacky tickets. Two, it shouldn’t pay for their salaries this also encourages ticky-tacky tickets. Three fines should be proportional to the offence. I don’t think I damaged society $190 bucks for my alleged rolling stop. Four, I think that I should be “innocent until proven guilty” just like a normal criminal case. I would’ve like to see some evidence beyond the cop saying I did wrong when the result goes to pay his salary and meet a quota. Five, “traffic school” is a joke, and they should call it was it really is… Extortion. Just another way to get money by threatening put the ticket on our record which would increase our insurance premiums unless we pay up.

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