On the way to our snowy vacation, as my luck would have it, I got pulled over for speeding. This pisses me off.
Now, I was going above the speed limit. Well above it in fact. I was in the passing lane trying to get around two assholes in lowered trucks (who the hell drives those during a rain storm in Oregon anyway?) playing a game of car tag. This was dangerous so as soon as a passing lane opened I gunned it; and got immediately noticed by the cops. They saw the two dingle berries (in fact passed right by them) but pulled me over instead. Erg.
Try as I might I couldn’t talk my way out of it. I give him the facts but he ignored me out of hand and threw a ticket at me. $250 worth of ticket.
Frustrated, and not wanting to make a scene in from of my family, I just took it and went on my way.
After we got back, a few days later, I called the county office to see about sending in my penance as there was no way in hell I was going to waste 6 hours round trip driving and $100 in gas to show up in court. The woman was, to put it mildly, so far from helpful that the light from it wouldn’t reach her in 100 years. She informed me that the tickets from that office often take a week or more to get put through their system. She had no reference at all to the ticket number and couldn’t do a damn thing.
So whats got my dander up, you ask?
The fact that in this digital age, where a dashboard cam video of a cop tazering someone can end up on Youtube within a day, a cop can’t find the time to put some freaking numbers into a computer at the end of their shift astounds me. Perhaps I don’t know all there is to know about the other side of writing the ticket, but it seems that it would be required of them to put them in the system in an orderly manner.
I called them again today, a week later, and still it wasn’t in the system. Double erg.
Enough about this ordeal already eats at my thin veneer of patience, but is there something that could be making it take longer then normal? Does anyone have any light they could shed on the inner workings of the police ticketing system? Can someone spot me $250?
Perhaps tomorrow they will have it in their system. If not then I am going to seriously consider raising some mildly annoying hell about it. Or just wait until the next day. What ever I have energy for.
-Cheers
09/01/2008 at 3:40 pm Permalink
Well that sucks you got a ticket! Maybe they are to hillbilly and don’t know how to enter it into the computer system. Or if at all your lucky maybe the cop lost it and never filed it. maybe he left it in his pants and it went though the wash.
Besides isnt there a law or something that if they don’t enter it in a certain amount of time into the system that it is not valid. I’d look into that.
09/01/2008 at 5:51 pm Permalink
Update: After I called again today, the woman said that it would be another week. Then, after making her open up whatever program she was reluctant to do, she typed inthe number and low and behold there was the ticket info.
The best part was that after she said a somewhat surprised “Oh, here it is”, she said that it can be reduced to $180. (score).
So some good things came of me keeping my tongue in check at least. Of course the next person to call me was a telemarketer. Unfortunately, I think she quit after talking to me but the world didn’t really need another telemarketer.