Posted On: Wednesday - April 23rd 2025 3:26PM MST
In Topics: Humor US Police State Cars
Continued from our post Good luck streak in Traffic School of 6 years back, only because, yeah, our streak of good luck has been broken. (The titles come from the great title of a music album by the late Warren Zevon, to be honest.)
Who coulda' seen this coming? I've been doing any speed I felt comfortable with, rolling through stop signs with open views, whatever, for 15 years now and no blue lights ever appeared in the rear view mirror. I was under the impression that sort of thing didn't happen anymore. It didn't used to be like that, I can tell you! (Got pulled 3 times in one week one summer in the 1990's - 2 tickets out of that, and one time in traffic court the judge who I well recognized asked me first "Hey, where do I know you from?" Somehow, we couldn't figure it out...)
We've got this one 3-way intersection nearby for which there's really no point in stopping completely. You can see the other 2 ways. If someone were coming cross-ways, he'd better slow or he'd barrel though parked cars and into a house.
Because the one vehicle has very accurate real-time and cumulative gas mileage readouts, it's a game for me to bring this number up and up vs. my wife's driving. It's wasteful to stop completely and then accelerate, so I don't. I care about the planet, you know? And another thing I could bring up to the judge besides the fate of the planet is that if someone else is stopped dead in front of me (we're in a neighborhood of Grannies, traffic-wise, some of them 40 y/o guys in big pickup trucks, but, yeah, grannies!), and I've already got the view, I should be legal to follow through. (Rarely is anyone coming on the vertical leg of the T.) This would be an interesting question for a lawyer, in fact.
Well, my wife kinda learns by example. She got pulled over on the way to work at that 3-way, first time ever for her. Per her words, the cop said she sped right through it. I believe him. She got the full 4 points.
The jurisdiction has a "diversionary" policy - wait, we're not Black!! - in which one can go one time to this program. That means you're in for $150 for the ticket and the same for that program. But wait, there's MORE! You still gotta pay $25 to the guy who "teaches" the class. It's on-line and NOT in real time, just web forms, so this guy may be making thousands each "class".
So, instead of some at least minor learning experience, as I'd had 1) enjoying the work of a comedian who wasn't yet ready for the clubs, 2) Watching sportsball due to muh playoff and talking about how to deal with cops once pulled over so you don't get tickets in the future, or 3) having a guy tell me that 1 in 3 of us will die in traffic accidents, she had to answer page after page of web tediousness and WRITE ESSAYS! Yikes!
The worst part was actually the multiple choice questions as this "instructor" must have used this very same test for all kinds of diversionary programs. I kid you not, there was a long series of "When did you stop beating your wife?" (I guess husband, in this case) questions about my wife's alleged substance abuse. I mean that it's inherently alleged by questions such as:
How did your substance abuse affect your family's finances?
Do you think this class will help you with your substance abuse?There were about a dozen of them. How do you answer these, as there was no "N/A" option?
To me, it'd be a great way for The State to have some "dirt" on her saved for future use. "Suspect admitted to abusing substances during her traffic school class." (Oh, was this a traffic school class?) "That is inadmissible, Your Honor. Anything answered during a diversionary program for allegedly driving like a maniac is not allowed." "You're out of order, councilor." I'm out of order?! You're out of order! This traffic school is out of order, and this whole society is out of order!" [/Al Pacino or Robert D'Niro, one of 'em]
This required a text message to the instructor who wrote back telling her to ignore these questions. Yeah, he wasn't about to straighten this out by going all out making up a separate automatic web-based test... just for thousands of $$ a day - that's not a Black! Middle Class thang. This website has its name for a reason. I hope our readers do see that by now.
Now, eventually there were questions not about actual driving, but ones like:
Explain how your bad driving affected your family?My wife showed me that. "Oh, let me do this one. Put down My husband is very upset that I didn't look uphill for the cops. She refused to write that in. I get it - you wanna get those 4 points back...
As I described what my wife had to go through for modern traffic school to a friend of mine who gets speeding tickets like $Million-donating alumni get tickets to basketball games, I ... got pulled over for 55 in a 40... yes, while I was on the phone. The cop was pretty nice, but I didn't get the golden opportunity to answer the usual question "Do you know how fast you were going?" The speedometer hasn't worked for 8 years, so I had so looked forward to answering "Not really. I mean, right now the needle's curled around pointing to 105 mph. That CAN'T be right!" He wrote it up for 49. I think the reader may have figured that I won't be going to traffic school. It's not the same...
Comments:
Moderator
Wednesday - April 23rd 2025 3:50PM MST
PS: I'm guessing the on-line instructor who can't possibly read all the essay question answers would not get the Hemingway reference, Alarmist. This is ... a different crowd... ;-}
The Alarmist
Wednesday - April 23rd 2025 3:48PM MST
PS
Q: "How did your substance abuse affect your family's finances?"
Only way to answer that is from the dialogue for Mike in the Sun Also Rises (Hemmingway) when asked how he went bankrupt:
"Two ways, Gradually and then suddenly."
Then watch the instructor sputter while you continue:
"“Friends. I had a lot of friends. False friends. Then I had creditors, too. Probably had more creditors than anybody in England.”
🕉️
Q: "How did your substance abuse affect your family's finances?"
Only way to answer that is from the dialogue for Mike in the Sun Also Rises (Hemmingway) when asked how he went bankrupt:
"Two ways, Gradually and then suddenly."
Then watch the instructor sputter while you continue:
"“Friends. I had a lot of friends. False friends. Then I had creditors, too. Probably had more creditors than anybody in England.”
🕉️