My Speeding Ticket

Last October, I got a traffic speeding ticket for driving 35 miles/hr at the 25 miles/hr residential area. Actually I really didn't know how fast I drove exactly. After 2 months, I didn't receive any letter from superior court. So I called the court to see what was going on. I turned out that officer wrote my drive license number wrong, so it took a while for them to figure out who should receive the ticket. (If I didn't call in, I may never receive the ticket :)

Then I checked the citation ticket copy the officer gave me and found that he not only wrote my drive license number wrong, but also my registration information and the citation date. It looked that he really in the low-maintenance mode at that day. So I suspected that he really didn't know at what speed I was driving and he just wanted to rip me off. So I decided to go to the court to fight with the officer.

So I made the appointment for the court appearance in March to ask for trial. Unfortunately, somehow I totally forgot about that. When I remembered that I was supposed to appear in the court, it was too late. So I got one more charge besides the speeding -- non-appearance in the court for $400 fine or in prison for 6 month. At that time, I was so scared that I would end up in jail because of the 35 miles per hour driving !

Fortunately, during the next court appearance, judge was so kind and he would drop any first time non-appearance charge :) But I still chose to go to the trial to fight with the cop face by face.

So on June 21, 2005, 10:30AM, I appeared at the Palo Also superior court room 86 with all the preparation, ready to accuse that the officer was lowly maintained. I was also kind of excited because I had never defended myself in front of judge. In my imagination, it would be like something in the TV that attorney will bring all the evidences to persuade judge that defendant is innocent. (Just like Michael Jackson was aquited :)

To my surprise, the officer didn't show up. Natually, the case was dismissed, so I had no any charge for this case. Faint! I didn't even have a chance to talk with judge to dispute that I was not guilty. He only said two sentences, "The plaintiff didn't appear; the case is dropped. You can go now!"

So with all the disappointment, I left the court without any charge ...

Hehe, I don't need to pay the fine. Let me enjoy the lobster this week :)