I wanted this to be a grateful blog and not a venty blog. I can't help myself. Homeboy just ruined my day.
So on Wednesdays, I come home from work take care of a list-full of things that are awaiting me, make dinner, go pick up Eric from school around 6:30 and get him back home in time for him to eat and then head out to Young Men's. Tonight I had put dinner in the oven right when Eric called me and said he was ready to be picked up. Perfect! I head out to get him knowing dinner should be just about ready when we get home and the timing should all work out.
I'm driving along and all of a sudden there are cop lights behind me. Seriously? I wasn't speeding and I had just safely proceeded through a green light. Maybe he's headed somewhere important and needs me to get out of the way. I fully expected him to drive by as I pulled over. No such luck. He prances up and asks for my license and registration. I say, "Sure, is there a problem?" Usually I say that when I get pulled over for going 15 over or something and pretend like I can't possibly imagine what they are going to say. This time it was legit. I really had NO clue why I was being stopped. He explains that he doesn't think I completely stopped at the stop sign about 5 blocks away. I was genuinely baffled. "Really?" I say. "I remember stopping." He says it looked like I slowed down, but didn't exactly stop. Wow. He must be REALLY bored tonight.
I ended up digging around a while for the registration which I KNEW was in the glove box, but I couldn't find. As I was searching I made some small talk which involved dropping in, "Yeah, I'm pregnant and seem to lose everything nowadays!" C'mon... who gives tickets to a pregnant lady!! And he says, "Oh yeah? My wife just had a baby 2 months ago!" I'm like, oh yeah I'm so safe. Eventually I find the necessary paperwork and he goes back to his car. Meanwhile I call Eric to explain the delay, all the while hoping dinner isn't burning.
He comes back and says words I've never heard: "I'm going to give you a citation for a stop sign violation." WHAT?? Ughhhhh. He asks if I've ever had a traffic ticket before and I say no... although I think I should have said yes after thinking about it because one time I did get a ticket for speeding... it was a few years ago and it didn't go on my record so I'm not sure if I have to consider that a ticket or not. Whatever. Anyway, he explains that I'll probably qualify for traffic school and go to the court and blah blah blah waste of my time. Totally ruined my night. It was made worse when Eric informed me that traffic school isn't usually free. FOR REAL?!?! I don't want to PAY to have to sit in some dumb lecture about putting your blinker on! Geeeez.
I guess this is the danger of living in an area with extremely low crime rates. Cops with nothing to focus on but the stop signs. I guess I should have put the grateful spin on this that way, that the cop didn't have to be somewhere more important and could focus on little things. But I've met too many useless cops to believe that. (Sorry to the actual hard-working, non-jerky ones). And mostly I think it was just a big waste of time.
So there. Hopefully I've gotten the rant out of my system and can once again return to being positive.
8 comments:
Traffic school is so overrated!!! It's not cheap, I don't think, once Corbin did it online though, which was slick...good luck! Your belly is cute ;) don't you hate it when people say that...
Boo hiss. So did dinner burn??
The other comments have it right - on-line traffic school, and the cost is usually around $100 for the ticket reduced price and the school. But, my experience is in Texas. Who knows what they will throw at you in Utah. I am so sorry you had to go through that. The good news is you had your insurance card or you could have received two tickets! Or your driver's license! There are too many people who leave home without that!
yeah, Porter and I both just had to do traffic school in the same month. About $160 and $180 for us. Mine was for a photo radar red-light ticket and Porter's was a photo radar speeding ticket. Lame. Thankfully, the fees for the class came to about $40-$60 less than the cost of the tickets. Not to mention saving us money on our insurance. My favorite part was the traffic school itself. Oh yeah, the teacher made sure to keep us until the very last possible second he was allowed to. No getting out early for us. I left at precisely 10:15 that night. Love love love traffic school. Super awesome.
Wow that sucks! We had a cop give us a ticket b/c our car was parked 'against the flow of traffic.' 300 DOLLARS!
what happened to dinner? That is what really matters right?
I think it's lame that he said, "I THINK you didn't stop..." Super lame. It's not like he has proof or anything. Grrrr. I don't mind tickets if I am truly in the wrong, but cops don't completely stop at signs either, I might add. Power hungry...grrr.
That is totally lame. I'm sorry. One time a Provo cop pulled me over because my I didn't fully scrape the ice off my rear SIDE windows. Stupid stupid stupid.
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