Well, yesterday I paid a traffic ticket online that was issued to me by the state of Virginia (Carroll County to be exact). Those f@#&ers hit me with radar by hiding behind a f@#&ing hill in the middle of ... err, sorry, where was I ... right, paid a ticket online.
While the issuing officer was a friendly enough sort, I think it's complete bull$#!& that you have to go BACK to the state in which the ticket was issued just to plead not-guilty. This is a serious inconvenience in a day and age where teleconferencing can be done on even the lowliest desktop PC.
Call me a crazy conspiracy theorist but I think they do it banking on the fact that if your license plate is from three states away, there's a better than even chance that you'd never come back to plead your innocence. Hell, I guess I can't even blame them for it.
It's a flaw in the system and while I'm happy that certain counties in the state of Virginia are advanced enough to actually accept credit card payments online, I'd MUCH rather see their technological advances in the form of teleconferencing in order to ease the adjudication process NOT the payment process.
Of course it's all a moot point if you were, in fact, guilty of a violation; which I'm willing to bet you were. ;-)
Posted by: Gar at March 2, 2005 06:34 PMGreat, there goes the "innocent until proven guilty" notion ... you will NOT be chosen for a jury of my peers, thank you very much :-)
Posted by: languorous at March 2, 2005 10:11 PMFunny, I agree with Gar, I had a hunch you might have been guilty :) Also, clearly, they are not going to make it easier for the person in violation....
Posted by: Lori at March 8, 2005 02:18 PMALLEGED violation ... see, what happened to innocent until PROVEN guilty??
Posted by: languorous at March 9, 2005 01:48 PMI dont think tickets work that same way. Sure, had you been arrested for say, arson...they would have to prove you guilty. However, had they found you standing in a pile of burnt rubble with a gas can and a match in your hand, yelling, haha, I did it, I did it! Well, that would be another story. My point being, they stopped you for speeding, not because someone told them they saw you speeding.
Posted by: Lori at March 9, 2005 02:14 PMYes, but how did they KNOW I was speeding? Did I merely LOOK like I was going a bit fast? Was it relative to the elderly couple in the right lane? Was it a faulty radar? You don't know. Judicially, all the same rules apply. Traffic tickets (or "citations") DO work the same way. Gimme a little credit here ... I think I should know :-)
Posted by: languorous at March 9, 2005 04:51 PMI guess you should know ;)
I got a ticket here in CA, for being parked in the bus lane....mind you, I was not, I was very near it, and only there for less than two minutes, while Joe dropped a video off at Blockbuster. That ticket, $250. I guess I agree with you, because I did fight the ticket. It's still pending ;)
Posted by: Lori at March 9, 2005 05:34 PM