My Day in Court

Back on March 13, Micah and I picked up Thea from school and we were driving home along Prospect Street. As I turned from Prospect onto Rivereside Drive East there was a police car behind me, and as I turned onto Route 27, he put on his lights and pulled me over.

This was the first time I really had no clue as to what I could have done; my first thought was did I not come to a complete stop at that first stop sign, but I did not feel particularly inclined to self-incriminate.

The officer's reason was that I was going 38 mph in a 25 mph zone, which I really and truly doubt. The stretch of Prospect I was on was between two stop signs, I would almost have had to put the gas pedal to the floor to get to that speed before having to put the brakes on to stop again. As the children don't seem to be suffering from whiplash-type injuries, I don't think that's what happened.

What really and truly got me aggravated was that he followed me for more than 1/2 mile before pulling me over, so instead of the nice, safe, not very busy Riverside Drive East, I am sitting on the tiny shoulder of Route 27 at the beginning of rush hour. No way was I going to ask to get out of the car to see the radar device, I prefer not to be squashed like a bug on a windshield in front of my children.

Before he pulled out into traffic to allow me to get back on to Route 27 safely without someone barrelling out of Princeton at 45+ mph parking up my tailpipe, he said "you don't have to go to court. . . ." I don't know why that would have made any difference to him, but that statement bothered me as well.

So today I went to the Princeton Municipal Building at 9 am for the court date. It was a bit of drama and social engineering, attornies representing clients were the first to be able to speak with the prosecuter, then those of us representing ourselves were dealt with - all of this was irrespective of the order in which we signed in earlier that morning. Attornies first, unrepresented peons next, some people just are a bit higher on the pecking order obviously.

The drama was watching a man who had numerous speeding tickets, citations for illegal turns, etc. AND who had also been cited three times for not having children in proper child car seats. He got verbally drubbed, picked up and thumped a few more times by the judge (as well he should.) I think part of her 'creative solution' of having him arrange with the township police department to be taught how to properly install child safety seats would have been to make him got to St. Peter's Children's Hospital's neuro-intensive care to see the consequences of head injuries in children. But he just got walloped with an enormous monetary fine, 15 days license suspension and the requirement to show the court proof of having gone to the police department for the child safety seat lesson.

There was one deaf person appearing before the court with a sign language interpreter, and since the guy spoke very clearly in response to some of the questions being signed to him, I was curious as to the cause of his hearing impairment. I also happy that Micah is in an auditory-oral program. If he is ever in court, he won't be waiting for an interpreter (who got lost on the way to this appearance), he'll be able to speak for himself.

The bottom line for me is that the violation was reduced to no points, which can be done twice in one's lifetime, so I paid the fine and went home. My butt was only slightly numb from sitting for two hours or more even though I was the sixth person to sign in that morning.

And I still don't think I was doing 38 in a 25 zone.