Last week I was driving to pick my sister-in-law up from work to take her home, I was running a bit late and was in a bit of a rush. I made a left turn and realized there was a cop car behind me, so I checked to make sure I wasn’t breaking any laws or anything (no, I wasn’t speeding), and continued on my way … about 20 seconds later he flips his lights on.
I pull over, having no idea what I did wrong. The cop comes up to the door and tells me my license plates are expired.
Now, my registration was due in May, and I sent the check in .. I never got the tags back, but this happened once before.. never had a problem.
Apparently they never got the check, and I get a $160 ticket.
It’s was a couple days from the end of September, the Appleton Police Department claims they don’t have quotas, but any time I’ve gotten a ticket has always been near the end of the month.
The ticket isn’t what I’m really upset about… The officer told me that I would need to bring proof that I sent in the registration. In other words, I’m guilty until I prove to the court that I’m really innocent.
Now, my bank was taken over by another bank a few months ago, and I’m not sure what kind of state my financial records are in. I’m not sure that I can prove the registration was sent in at all.
On the other hand, shouldn’t it be the their job to prove that I didn’t send it in? Granted the proof is that they never recieved it, but shouldn’t they fine the mail service, or whatever it was that manged to lose the registration?
So, I’m going to get stuck with $160 fine, AND I have to pay for my registration, which now that it’s late, is like $80.
Innocent until proven guilty … my ass.
Comment by John
1 10/5/2005, 8:47 am o'clock |
That’s why you steal stickers off other people’s cars to put them on yours.
$160.00 is pretty cheap dude. Come to communist california and you will see fines that just don’t make sense. Our state government is so screwed up it’s not even funny. I had to go before a judge once, and a I had numerous fines I was facing. I talked him out of ever fine except “failure to appear” because I had skipped a court date. He says it was 20 bucks so I was so stoked (this is like when I was 18 years old). I go to the clerk and she says “that will be $250.00 sir”. I was shocked, and she explained that our state tax’s any local government fine by some ridiculous amount of 150%. Can you imagine that? A 150% TAX?
Plus before we fired Gray Davis (pig) he had hiked our registration fees up by almost 100%. Our registration fees in california DOUBLED in most cases. So instead of 200.00 or so for a newer car you had to pay 400!! If you get caught here without registration or insurance you can end up paying almost a thousand dollars. That is no joke.
And, our DMV is the same - if they don’t get the check they don’t care. I have been caught before with my pants down, but I was able to show that I had mailed my payment, and they had recieved it, and I got a ticket when I was in limbo waiting for the stickers.