The system works! At least it did for me yesterday, and there aren't too many times in my life I can say that and actually believe it. I had two traffic court dates yesterday. One in Marina and one in Walnut Creek. The first was because they added fines to something I would have paid if they would have done their job and notified me of it. They didn't, added $300 and I had to call them on it. The judge, who denied my original letter for an extension, more or less admitted the court's mistake and gave me an extension that I didn't ask for as well as rescinded the $300 collection fee.
The second, in Walnut Creek, was because the officer that pulled me over wrote me a ticket for being in the diamond lane, but then scoffed at my explanation for it. What happened: I was following an unsafe driver and the lane to my right was traveling at speeds 20 or mph faster than I was so it was unsafe to go into the right lane, so I passed the unsafe driver in the carpool lane. The cop was sitting there when I did, but didn't listen to me when I told him that, so I plead not guilty. I won.
So I put 300 miles on my car but saved $951 in fines. Worth it. But, at the Walnut Creek courthouse I was reminded of the disgust I have police. Their arrogance is baffling. You could just see it on their faces while they sat in the court. They were ALL thinking, "I can't believe this person would challenge something I say." Arrogance doesn't always have to be cockiness. It rears it's head most when it's something as simple as not having a willingness to look at anything other than what you already think. Police are the worst when it comes to that and that is the biggest problem that faces anyone, everyone that comes into contact with them. Everything they do from beating people up and breaking their own laws to something as small as driving the state owned vehicle to run personal errands all comes from it. And in all honesty, I have personal experience with it besides what I saw yesterday. NWA said it best...some of you know what I mean.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Aw yes, my favorite subject at times of frustration always have the name "cops". Totally awesome by the way that you won on your carpool ticket. I remember the day when the police were there to protect and to serve, not search and destroy. Just like the prison system used to contain rehabilitation as a motto which has been dropped. Funny how things are re-created. It always seems to remind me of the Stanford Experiment http://www.prisonexp.org/video.htm
ReplyDeleteIn other words, something that starts off in one direction and ends in another.
yay! im happy that you won at least!! i hate court dates.... but at least its over with
ReplyDeleteYou know I am right there with you bro. I feel that way too sometimes. Not all cops are bad though. I mean a lot of them are regular people just earning a living. I think the attitude comes when they get sick of dealing with trash all day long. It is a fact that the majority of people become police officers to "Help" people. I heard a statistic that said in a 40 hour work week police approximately spend only 28 minutes helping people. Now "helping people" can be left up to interpretation, but it still paints a sad picture of their job and our society. Congrats on your Escape of Fines and Keep on keepin' on!
ReplyDeleteSee here's the problem I have with the argument of: their attitude comes from what they have to deal with. They chose that career. We don't in iron curtain Russia where people are given their jobs and they have no choice but to work it. That's the career they chose. I hear of cops defending there failures (ie. breaking their own laws for "evidence", killing an innocent kid who had a bb gun, etc etc) by saying we deal with these people all day, our job's dangerous, people mess with us all the time, blahbity blahbity blah. Then get into another career if you can't do yours right, you made the choice to do it, so do it right.
ReplyDeleteI agree though, not all are bad, I was just venting. However, I think there are a whole lot more bad ones than there should be. You'd have to expect a few, but a lot of them act like they're making minimum wage at McDonalds, so who cares if I fuck my job off?