I finally got around to calling the court about my ticket… Unfortunately, what I originally heard about having to pay court costs turned out to be true.  Total bill, $107 for court costs + $25 for class + $?? to request driving record from DMV.  I was on track to lay the smack down to Barnes And Noble’s Credit Card on the 4th’s payday, but looks like my snowball is going to have to eat this debt first.  Oh well, my lead foot, my problem.

I don’t think I mentioned it, but I also got cited for no insurance and a warning for failure to change my address on my driver’s license.  The “no insurance” is simple, I got flustered trying to find my insurance card while Youngest was in the back seat crying screaming that she didn’t want Daddy to go to jail.  The officer didn’t want to believe that I wouldn’t NOT have insurance on my baby Charger, but oh well again.  I do have insurance, and I found the card right after he left.

The other charge, the “warning” for failure to change my address.  That’s just bogus.  Want to know why it’s bogus?  Keep reading, otherwise, click off… [rant ahead]

I PAID for my license.  I jumped through all their regulatory hoops, and all their fees to get a license to operate a motor vehicle on public roadways.  Fine.  Roadways that I pay for everyday with my gas purchases.  Fine.

But if YOU want to keep tabs on me, where I live, what I’m doing, who I’m with, etc., then you need to make it a little easier for me to INFORM YOU of where I live.  “A little easier” is specifically referring to the $10 fee you want me to pay to TELL YOU where I now reside.

No, sir!

I cannot believe that I can go down there to the DMV office, fill out the change of address form,

Wait…. wait…. wait….

NUMBER 2785!  NUMBER 2785!

Bout time!

Go to the counter, hand you the slip, and spend the next 5 minutes having you explain to me why you CAN’T change my address because I didn’t bring the “required” $10 fee, plus explain to me all the ways you will accept payment, excluding the method of payment that I have readily available to me, my debit card.  Not that I would have paid it anyways.

In that 5 minutes time, you could have turned your head to your terminal, brought up my record, and typed in my new address, and probably had a couple minutes to spare to take a sip from your Diet-Rite soda.

But in any case, what do I get for my $10?  A sticker that you’ll print up and paste to the back of my driver’s license with my new address on it?  That’s silly, I’ll print my own for 1/1000 of the cost.

Or are you going to send me a new license with my new address on it?  That even crazier, you could have printed a sticker for $0.01.  You’re too damn wasteful to handle my money and therefore don’t deserve it.

This fee tax is just as, if not more so, retarded than that jacked up “sticker” fee for people who have to put a “registration” sticker on their window.  Do you ever wonder why you need that?  You don’t!  If you’re doing something wrong and they’re going to pull you over, they’ll run your plates, which will tell them if you’re registration is valid.  I can’t think of ANY reason that you’d need a sticker there telling everyone passing by that your car is registered and when it expires, EXCEPT to give cops another reason to pull you over!  For this, I pay what… $45, on top of the registration costs?

Registration costs… there’s another one.  I pay, EVERY YEAR, for the right to tell you I own my car?  To “register” my vehicle with you?  My car was registered with you last year, it’s still mine, nothings changed, why do I pay again?  I can understand initially, for my plates, but no, I paid extra for those, and I’ve had the same plates now for over a year… you don’t give me new plates, so why a new bill?

And finally, with the ticket, I have to pay the DMV for a copy of my driving record.  Why?  Are you telling me you don’t have access to my driving record?  Why do I need to pay for a hard copy, to get certified, to send to the court, when you have a copy right there, on your computer, that is just as perfect as the copy I’m going to get?

Bloodsuckers.

Note: I don’t blame the cops that enforce these stupid laws, so don’t get that impression.

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