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Forest Gump Says

Traffic Ticket Rip Offs

After recently receiving a speeding ticket I thought I would post my experiences with the process so that it may help one other person with this rip off. I live in Tallahassee Florida. I was out on a Sunday afternoon driving on a 4 lane divided road going 50 Mph. The posted limit is 35 however. Nobody goes 35. Most travel at about 45 and I just happened to get caught by a police officer sitting in a parking lot with a radar gun. She was kind enough to write me a basic speeding ticket and not 15 over.

Ok they tell you that you can take the driving course online and not get any points on your record.  Let me explain the whole experience. Your name is now listed on public record. So you will receive several offers in the mail. One if is for Lowestpricetrafficeschool.com They are an official school they also say they will reduce your ticket. Well its a complete rip off and some fat cat who made a deal with the state government is getting rich. They charge you $39 or so to take the 4 hour online test. They do reduce your ticket by $3. So generous! However then they turn around and charge you $2.50 for paying via the internet. Gee thanks guys!!!

The test is on a timer. So if you are a fast reader then you will have to wait until the time is done for each section. The website is nice because you can log in and out as many times as you need. I did get caught stepping away from the computer and it logged me off and made me answer a security questions to get back in. The site will ask you a security question with every chapter, if you do not answer the question within 2 minutes the site will kick you off. This was a bit annoying. Anyway the material takes 4 hours and then they give you 1 hour to take the final test. Its an open  

Ok you have 30 days to pay your ticket. You can pay it online. After you pay your ticket you have up to 60 days to take the drivers course. Well I did not know the procedure at the time so I rushed to take the test and paid and extra $9 to have them email me the test certificate all before the 30 day expiration on the ticket. Don't do this, just pay the ticket and then take the test and they will mail it to you for free in two weeks. Then you have to fax it in to the county office. Done.

 

 

Comments

 

mike said:

That's awful, Forest. Sometimes the law enforcement system is the best way for people to legally rob people. I remember the most perfect speed trap for some serious "Fund Raising" for the police.

I worked for a summer in Boca Raton and the police force down there was apparently feeling the need for some extra revenue. They had a speed trap set up on a 4 lane highway that would normally be a 75 MPH zone. They had bumped the speed limit down to 35 MPH just to tempt people to speed. There was a very steep bridge that got your car going at least 45-50 MPH just from the momentum and you had to ride your brakes to keep from speeding. At the very bottom of the bridge was an officer behind a tree with a radar gun. Just behind him was a street with literally about 10 police cars lined up waiting to pull people over. All along the street you could see people pulled over getting tickets. To make it even more perfect, they had a little construction by the sides so they could double the speeding fines. My friend warned me about it before I took that road, which is the only reason I knew to ride my brakes like that. They did still manage to get me in the end .

I went to the beach with friends and I parked in a metered spot. Because we got there after 5 PM, I thought it was safe to park because no one ever takes meters after 5... as far as I knew. At about 8 PM, they gave me a parking ticket. I immediately mailed it in to pay it. After a couple weeks they sent me another ticket with a late fee attached to it and asked me to pay the higher fee. I had to spend hours on the phone to finally get them to track down the ticked I had paid and they finally admitted that they had it all along. Thankfully they waived the fee and accepted my first ticket.

It's a lot easier to protect yourself when the legal system is on your side, but what do you do when those who are sworn to protect you are the ones robbing you?

March 17, 2008 3:09 PM
 

willburns1 said:

I just pay my tickets. I don't have time to take driving school but other than that I don't need to be schooled on how to drive. I am a really good driver thats why i go fast. I think there should be a classification of driver that if your a really good driver you can driver faster. That would be really cool. That and I have a off road vehicle so I think that I should be able to park on top of things like hills and medians.

September 16, 2008 4:47 PM

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