The Traffic Court

I have my day in court tomorrow morning. I have to admit, I am a bit apprehensive about it. I have never been to court before, and the only time I have ever been in front of a judge was when I got married. How did this happen? Well, I was on my way to BWI (Baltimore Washing International Airport), from work. I was on the BW (Baltimore Washington) parkway, which has a speed limit of 55 MPH. The neighboring I95N has a speed limit of 65 MPH. I normally drive on I95N, but I was on the BW parkway that day because that was the most direct way to get to the airport from work. I had stopped off for lunch at Chick Filet, and I was cruising up north. Suddenly, I saw a kafuffle in front of me, then a state trooper risked life and limb to step in front of my speeding minivan to pull me over. I was going 71MPH in a 55 MPH zone. Grrrrr. Does that even count? Stupid parkway. I felt all hot and cold and prickly all over. I could just see my car insurance going through the roof, not to mention the ribbing I would be getting from Jason. I asked the trooped about traffic school. You see, I have a clean driving record and I am pretty happy about that. Since I have had the two kids, I drive almost like the proverbial old lady now. Except for this one day when I was barreling up the BW parkway, that is. Anyway, the trooper looked at me and asked if I had a lot of violations. Well, no, I blinked, I don’t have any. He said, well if you haven’t had any tickets, you can go to court and while you’ll still have to pay the fine, you won’t get the points on your license. Well, that seemed all right then, I thought. I would pay my penance and be done with it. This happened, must have been, back in October 2005. My original court date was for the week after Emma was born, so I got a continuance and now I am going tomorrow. Just the thought of having to go is making me all hot and cold and prickly all over. Made worse by the fact that I just did a Google search for “going to traffic court” and “going to traffic court to avoid points”. It seems like everyone wants to go just to bust the chops of the cop. I don’t want to bust his chops; I just don’t want the points. And what is this pleading not-guilty nonsense? Of course I was speeding, hence I am guilty. Gosh. I did read in one of those pages it is a good idea to arrive early so you can check things out. I think I will do that, just to see. I guess I just hoped I could go there, and just explain that I was wrong that day, and to beg leniency and be allowed to pay the fine without the points going on my license, but there wasn’t a checkbox for that. So, I’ll check back in tomorrow and let you know how my day in court went.