Cape Karen
It's been a while since I've blogged. I'd like to say it was because I'm living such an exciting life and I'm just soooo busy. . . but, (pfffft!) not! There are so many things to blog about lately that choosing just one topic is difficult. Driving trips and good friendships, speeding tickets, the sad loss of my daughter's beloved dog, the already too hot weather, and, of course, there's always the Hillary/Barack thing.
I've chosen speeding tickets ~ because they piss me off! I'm a little old lady, just driving long on cruise control minding my own business, and I got two (unfair) speeding tickets in just the last nine months! What's with that? The states must be getting desperate for money.
Was I speeding? "Not really..." and "No!"
The first ticket was on my way to Cape Cod from TN last September. It was the result of my passing a truck that had just blown one of those big mega-tires in the right-hand lane. As pieces of tire rubber began to fly all over the place, I sped up to avoid them, passing the truck. Right at the very moment I passed him, there sat a VA state trooper in the grass island with his laser gun pointed directly at me. I couldn't believe my eyes! Of course, he immediately put on his lights, zoomed up behind me, and pulled me over. I explained to him why I had been speeding temporarily, but he just laughed. He laughed at me! He didn't believe me. I told him to go back and look along the road and he'd see the rubber strips all over the place... but, nooooo... he just wrote me a ticket.... for going 80 mph in a 65 mph zone.
The second ticket was really a pisser! I was just exiting one highway and entering another on my way back from Florida. I had barely gotten onto the new highway when I saw 4-5 police cruisers lined-up along the side of the road, and 2 or 3 policemen were waving people over to stop. I thought there must be an accident up ahead, so I pulled over, even though many other people just kept going, speeding right past me. When I saw them, I had looked at my speedometer to make sure I wasn't speeding, and I was going 68 mph in a 65 mph zone (on cruise control.) And then it dawned on me... duh... this was a damn speed trap! But surely, I thought, I won't get a ticket for going just 3 mph over the speed limit... will I?
The officer who approached my car said, "Ma'am, I have you on laser going 70 mph in a 55 mph zone." As my jaw dropped, he asked for my license and registration. Never once did I ever see any 55 mph signs. I didn't even think there were any 55 mph zones on our highways anymore - except maybe in construction zones, which this was not. When stopped, I must have had my front tires in a 55 mph zone and my back tires still in a 65 mph zone. I've since learned that it was what they call a prima facie speed limit area, as opposed to a fixed maximum speed limit area. Fixed maximum limits make it unlawful to exceed the speed limit anywhere, at any time, for any reason. Prima facie speed limits are often newly posted speed limits which allow drivers to prove in certain cases that exceeding the speed limit was not unsafe and, therefore, was lawful.
So, I got one speeding ticket in VA, and another one in GA. Two in 8 months. Was I going to drive all the way back to either state to try and fight these unfair tickets? Of course not. So, I begrudgingly paid them - and now I'll paying more for car insurance, too.
That's me ~ the little ol' speed demon from TN.
Posted by Karen at June 6, 2008 12:39 PM