Let's see how fiery I can be on a Monday morning. You know, not every state is as generous with their traffic ticket policy as is Missouri. This comes as a surprise to many people. Missouri allows tickets to be "fixed", i.e. an attorney enters an appearance and asks for a "recommendation", you pay a fine amount and don't get points on your license. In other states, when you get a ticket, you have to suck it up and deal with the points. Now, I have gotten a speeding ticket in my life that I had fixed, and I recognize that this is a source of revenue for Missouri cities. However, the policy does annoy me a bit. A) I pretty much handle the recommendation-getting process in my firm, and it's annoying. B) People seem to think this non-point getting-ness is an entitlement and get really annoyed if they get tickets in other states that can't be fixed. Illinois doesn't fix tickets, people. At least not as easily as Missouri. You can't get ten tickets in a month in Illinois and not get any points on your license. C) This policy may be part of the reason people in Missouri Drive. So. Badly. And we do. But when you know the consequences may be "only" a $200 fine, and not having your license taken away, it tends to make people a little more...daring (stupid). And D) (which is my biggest issue I think) OK, yes, pretty much everyone I know speeds ALL the time. Among other things. But here's what--we know we are speeding, and we are aware that we are breaking the law. If you have a driver's license, you are (in theory) agreeing to obey traffic laws. If you break them in a non-emergency situation or something, part of me (a large part) thinks you should be a grown-up and deal with the ramifications. This may mean getting points on your license. If this causes you to have to slow down and obey the law in order to keep your license, too bad. It aggrivates me to NO END how people use the recommendation policy in this state, because as I said I handle the tickets at my firm, and believe you me, I see the same names coming across my desk getting tickets all the time. ALL THE TIME. I really want to tell these people, you know what, you are an adult. Suck it up, get the points, and slow the hell down. If I kept doing something wrong, repeatadly, when I was a kid, I couldn't get a "recommendation" from my parents--I got punished, and I learned to stop doing it, or I'd get punished again.
* I recognize that there are other issues---bad cops, traffic "flow", having your plates stolen and so not having them on your car but still needing to drive to work (that was me for a while) etc., but hey, this is a Monday morning rant. Don't bitch to me if you get a ticket because you were doing 90 in a 55. For the third time in two months.
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