Thursday, January 15, 2009

I Would Not Have Gotten a Ticket

For those who don't know, I recently made fun of Travis Cottrell for having to attend traffic school. It was a status update he posted on his facebook page for all to see. So, I took the opportunity to take a jab. It now looks like I'll be putting my name on the roll in one of these "traffic schools" in the upcoming months. Let me explain my story:

It's funny how things work together for the final outcome. If any one of these things had been different, I would not have gotten a ticket.

I was scheduled to lead worship at MetroWest, which is a minister of music roundtable conference. I came to the church to pick up a guitar I needed. I chose to refresh my memory on the chords to the songs I was doing, so I took an extra 10 minutes to do that. Had I not, I wouldn't have gotten a ticket.

As I left the church, I began to pull through the mid-campus drive, to exit onto Baseline. Half way through, I changed my mind and turned the car around to exit onto Webster. Had I not done that, I would not have gotten a ticket.

Pulling through the parking lot, there was construction going on. As a result, I had to exit the south end of the parking lot onto Webster. Because I was going out that far down, I decided just to head south to Greenspot. Had there not been construction in the parking lot, I would have exited further up and I would not have gotten a ticket.

Heading south on Webster, I noticed that the road was closed ahead. As I approached the stop sign, the detour directed me to the right. I waited for the car ahead of me to pull through, then pulled up to the sign and stopped. Had the road not been closed, I would not have gotten a ticket.

I turned right following the detour and was immediately pulled over. As the officer approached, he told me his name and what department he was with. He asked me if I knew why he was pulling me over. I said "no sir". He then preceded to explain that I had almost stopped at the stop sign, but that my tires had not come to a complete hault. Therefore, he was charging me with #972455*%@**^$ or something. Or in other words, running a stop sign.

"But, Sir. I did stop" I replied. But, to no avail. He took my license and went back to his motorcycle. Upon returning he said "Now be careful. We've had a lot of issues at this intersection since they closed the road."

So, should I contest it in court? Isn't that just a lose/lose situation anyway? Or, should I just do traffic school and move on? What would YOU do?

I still contest that had I not been born a guy and were some pretty female that started crying when I was pulled over, I would not have gotten a ticket.

12 comments:

Heather Hekman said...

Sounds like God ordained that ticket for you!:) It is a bummer, though!

Mark Rush said...

What would I do? I would like to say that I would have come to a complete stop, liiiiiiike you did:) Unfortunately, I doubt I would have either, so I would do traffic school and forget it.

Anonymous said...

If you fight it and lose you may not be able to attend traffic school. Go to school. It's not that bad...If you want to sleep.

kim g said...

Go to traffic school and get it over with. And about the crying thing... It only works the one time and not the second time your stopped by the same cop in the same place on your way to piano juries.

Anonymous said...

You could go to court and hope the cop doesn't show up.
Regarding pretty girls getting out of tickets...unfortunately the cameras don't care what you look like.
Regarding traffic school...cheapeasyfast.com is the way to go.

Anonymous said...

"you would not have gotten a ticket?"....PLEASE! By the sound of it....there is NO way you WEREN'T going to get a ticket! By the way....You know...via Immanuel...you do have some good cop connections....i say you make a deal... "1 week of no tithing" permission slip to the first Highland cop that writes it off for you....let me know if you need some names! :)

Jeff Bumgardner said...

They all sound like great suggestions...sorta. Thanks for your input...I guess. Ha!

Anonymous said...

Like I told you if you go to traffic school take a pillow. It's that exciting.

Anonymous said...

Actually, traffic school is not all that bad. You can learn a lot of great things. Like you, I originally obtained my license from another state, and going through traffic school helped me to learn some of the specific things about California laws behind the wheel.

Unknown said...

...nobody has mentioned the part about fines being doubled in construction zones

Travis said...

Muuaaahhaahhaahhaaaaaa

Anonymous said...

I was stopped once for a "California stop" or "rolling stop", but was only given a warning. Lucky, I guess. I sure didn't cry. :-)