Vacation Disruption

So my happy vacation was just tainted as I got my very first ever speeding ticket.  I am beyond upset. It will cost me $145 and add three points to my driving record.  Until now, I was extremely proud of my driving record.  I love to drive and am generally a very safe and courteous driver.  The roads up here though are not only dark but confusing.  The speed limits fluctuate more often than I could count varying from 50 mph to 25mph.   Most the the commute I found myself driving under the posted speed limit alerted by other drivers crossing the lane to speed around me.  Only then would I realize that I was driving 40 in a 50 mile per hour zone.

As Dave said, I think I might have found myself caught in a "speed trap."  One almost specifically designed to get non locals caught going over the speed limit.  With the majority of the road being 40-50 miles per hour, I was caught doing 40 in a 25 mile per hour zone.  As much as I wanted to plead my case and tell the officer that I didn't see the posted sign and I'd been passed by other drivers due to my overly cautious nature on these unknown roads, I thought better of it.  I've heard that nothing good comes from arguing with the officer while you are in the car.  Knowing there was little I could do to convince him otherwise, my only hope was that he'd look at my clean driving record over the last ten or so years and determine that I am not a hazard to the community.  I was disappointed.

Driving the rest of the way back, Dave and I had a discussion about how we wished we had taken one of the Mercedes Benz vehicles our hotel offers.  Yeah, our hotel offers a huge range of Mercedes vehicles that we can "test drive" around town as one of its many ridiculous perks.  Those would have had Vermont plates and I doubt I would have been pulled over if he had thought I was a native Vermonter.  Of course, I have no proof of that but there was something about the way it all happened that made me think that this was a bored cop who saw a Mass plate driving too fast and decided to attain some extra revenue for the town/state.  I want to be angry but I'm more just bummed out about it.

I now have 3 options.  I can accept the ticket or plead no contest (where I neither accept or deny the charges) where I just pay the fine and move on.  Or I can deny the charge and force the officer to prove that I was driving over the speed limit during a civil hearing.  After doing some research, I determined that we should drive by out there tomorrow and take note of the surroundings.  Maybe I wasn't paying as much attention as I thought and missed the signs indicating the speed limit changing or maybe I can make a case for myself.   Depending on the number of signs before I was stopped, the signs prior to it, and the location of the sign I may have a decent case.  If for example there was only one sign on a bend in the road and the sign prior to that was 40 miles per hour, I could take some photos, bring Dave as a witness and argue that due to the lack of street lights I was concentrating on the road itself and not the signs while driving the speed limit posted a few miles back.

The biggest downside is that if the court rules me at fault then I not only have to pay the ticket but an extra $50 in court fines and possibly more in surcharges.  So tomorrow, I'll have to see if I can possibly build a stronger case than the officer himself.  If I don't feel like I can, then I just need to suck it up and pay the consequences for my lack of attention.  Technically I was in the wrong; however, did the officer uphold the "spirit of law" by fining me under such circumstances when I have such a decent driving record?  Apparently, according to one of my groomsmen who went into law enforcement, he had to take a course regarding the "spirit of the law."

Other than that hiccup and the rain, the day away went well but I think I want to get back to my vacation and stop worrying about this.