Saturday, February 21, 2009

doin 55 in a 54

i did some research on the $181.50 speeding ticket we got on the 10 freeway in middleofnowhere, arizona last month. the one that was the result of a hidden camera on a freeway overpass. the one that we got for going 76 mph in the middle of the night in, again, the absolute middle of nowhere. the one that came up all of a sudden, with no visible signage or notice except an odd flash of light catching some other driver ahead of us.

so first i looked a little bit into the lawfulness (is that a word?) of the law. bummer, of course it checked out clean. i was about to pay it and get back to work but i thought i'd prolong my break a bit and google for some arizona speeding trap camaraderie. i found plenty of that. i also found out more about the inception of the law. it turns out that janet napolitano pushed this through in arizona while she was still governor, and admitted that she purposely created the law in such a way that would "discourage" people from contesting the tickets. she made it so that when you get the ticket, your insurance company isn't notified and you don't get points on your record. voila, easy revenue for the state. probably to go toward more border patrol. ugh.

i HATE it when laws are written so subjectively to screw over citizens, and i couldn't believe napolitano was so bold as to admit it. oh, and then i realized that there's another reason the law is written in the law's favor - most people who get caught speeding on arizona highways are probably out-of-staters who can't easily contest the stupid law. and that made me so annoyed. so i called whichever agency it was in arizona and asked how i could contest the ticket from the other side of the country, even though i already knew the answer. i like to get background info, so i also asked, "you probably see this a lot, huh? out-of-staters getting these tickets and not being able to show up in court?" yep. UGH.

i totally could've given that $181.50 to michael kors.

p.s. the title of this entry is from 99 problems. jay-z, 'acourse. :)

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