Yesterday, I got my first ticket in quite a while. A parking ticket. I’ve only had one other parking ticket before and that was the day that I forgot my government-issued ID badge for work and had to return home to retrieve it.
I double parked my mother’s car and ran into our building to get it and while inside I realized the time for fajr had come in so I stayed to pray before returning to my car. As I came out of the building, a police car was parked behind me and the officer was writing me a ticket. He hadn’t even finished writing it so I had to wait (patiently I think or maybe hope) for him to finish filling in the form and then I was off to work.
I was determined as always to fight the ticket in court so I returned the slip indicating that I wanted a trial and a date was mailed to me. I forgot about the court date and so the county without offering me any notice of judgment or sending me a bill sent my account to a collections agency and so the $50 ticket increased to $200. $50 for the county and $150 to the scam collections agency.
And then later that year, when I went to renew my vehicle registration tags online or by mail, I was told that I would have to do so in person because there was a block on my account. So I went to the local MVA (Motor Vehicle Administration) and was told that because I has not paid my ticket in a timely manner that there was an additional $35 fee added to the standard fee of $128 for a 2 year tag. So all in all I paid $235 for double parking my mother’s car.
I almost always plead not guilty, plea bargain, or have my speeding tickets dismissed due to the non-appearance of the police officer.
My most unusual ticket was for “following too closely”, which I think is one of the more dubious and ridiculous citations. Continue reading
