By Ryan Wardle
Many police traffic stops are not about safety or protecting the public. They are about siphoning cash from motorists to state and local governments.
A rule of writing is that when the title is a question the answer is "no".
I got a ticket from a speed camera a couple years ago. I was so pissed. Feels like cheating. Haha.
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Many places have removed them and red light cameras, because they worked so well that ticket revenue dried up.
A fun hack I learned from a friend is that EZ Pass cameras assume you're going about 10mph over the speed limit, so if you drive under the speed limit they just get a picture of the roof of your car. No more tolls for you.
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What??? Have you tested this theory?
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I've used it successfully in Chicago on several occasions. That's also specifically where he claimed it would work.
I also did get charged the one previous time I had driven through Chicago, when I was going about 10mph over the speed limit.
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I spent one night in Chicago when I had a connection there and the flight got cancelled. I would like to visit sometime. I want to check out Wrigley Field.
Funny story about that connecting flight. When they cancelled the flight the airline was frantically trying to get people situated on other flights. When I spoke with the agent she said there was nothing until the next day and I protested a bit because I was supposed to be back at work the next day and she said I have nothing to Toronto the rest of today that isn't fully booked but I can put you on a flight to Vancouver if you would like. Still to this day I don't know if she was trolling me because I was complaining or if she actually had no idea that Toronto and Vancouver were on opposite ends of Canada.
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Ah, the proud American tradition of being completely geographically ignorant.
We got stuck in Chicago, because of a winter storm once. It's part of our deep eternal hatred of Illinois in general and Chicago in particular. They gave us something like $45 worth of meal vouchers, but by the time all the taxes and fees and various other gratuities were tallied up, it barely covered one small hotel pizza.
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Despite your deep eternal hatred for Illinois, I would still like to go to Wrigley Field. Haha.
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I bet you won’t go back, though. Enjoy the $30 hot dog.
Not sure if I've told this story before but I know a guy got a speeding ticket in a small town in the south. He had to report to a school gym where they handle all the cases each month. They sell hotdogs and the judge is on the stage burning through traffic cases. Friend told me it was the biggest joke he'd ever seen. Town is tiny and pretty sure this is how they fund their police dept.
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This sounds much more interesting than spending two hours on a conference call with 30 other people waiting to resolve their tickets who don't know how to mute their phones and at least 1/3 of them don't speak much English. Nothing against non native English speakers but when the judge is asking them a basic question and they can't understand him, and he can't understand them it doesn't make things speedy.
I ended up negotiating 75 bucks off my ticket in the end so I guess it wasn't a total waste, but the hotdog judge sounds more fun.
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I'm well acquainted with the speed trap town. It's an ugly side of small town America.
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True, in my country most of the fines are traffic fines.
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