Speeding Ticket

Speeding tickets are dumb.

I can’t be alone here.

I figure there was a time when a speed limit of 55 mph on the highway made sense. Before the onset of power steering or anti-lock breaks, before the advancements in aero-dynamics or traction control, before aluminum frames, before highway designers got smart and angled curves or improved the quality of the asphalt, I can imagine that 55 was about as fast as people could go while still feeling safe and in control.

But that’s not the case any more. I drive a crappy Mazda hatchback, and I can see speeds upwards of 90 mph before I start feeling like I’m pushing the edge of being unsafe. So a measly 73 mph surely shouldn’t warrant a ticket, right?

But that makes two in as many months for me. I still haven’t even paid the first one ‘cause, well, I’m broke. So now I owe the state $240.00 for driving safely over some made up, antiquated limit that hasn’t been re-examined since the Carter Administration.

So there I was, sitting in my car for eleven precious minutes while the peace officer was, presumably, felling the lumber with which to pulp the paper he would eventually use to write my ticket on. Those eleven minutes gave me ample time to envision what I was going to do after I got fired for coming in late to work one more time and also to entertain some ridiculous fantasies of civil disobedience.

Am I the only one that has these sorts of fantasies? You know the ones where you end up as the savior of all humanity because you were the first person to point out that gas costs too much? Like the guy that drives up to the end of eight miles of stopped traffic and honks his horn – like he was simply the first to remind us that we could all just move forward. I wonder if in his head he sees a newspaper headline in big bold print Alert Driver Saves Many. Underneath there would be testimonials from the other drivers. “Oh thank God for that man. I had been sitting there for hours. I had ice cream melting in the back seat! Luckily, someone had the presence of mind to remind us all that we could simply apply pressure to the gas pedal and remove ourselves from our self-induced automotive prisons.”

So in my mind I was sitting before a federal grand jury with a team of sharply dressed lawyers displaying a mountain of physical evidence that prove that 55 is dumb. The judge would be nodding solemnly because he, too, understands that roads and cars have evolved beyond the need for such restrictive limits. Of course, then it would go in to effect, and people like my ex-girlfriend (who once admitted to me that she never changes lanes to allow traffic to merge in from the onramps because she has “enough trouble paying attention to her own lane” and that she “doesn’t feel comfortable trying to watch the other lanes”) would get out there and kill 18 people in a multi-car pile up. Sigh.

Cris, if you’re reading this by the way STAY OFF THE ROADS. You’re a danger to yourself and others.

But I won’t do any of that. I’ll eventually pay the $240.00 and continue to speed just like everyone else. I think, in the end, speeding tickets really exist as a form of income to our state governments cause it’s easier to sell that than it is increased taxes. I wonder if the nice gentlemen in our Police forces know that, however, that they are just glorified IRS agents?