- 3:07 PM, Sunday,
December 18th, 2005:
-
- One of my strange
personality quirks (and quite valuable I might add) is
my obsession with making positives out of negatives. I
go WAY out of my way to have a negative moment - push
me to do something that eventually ends up being
positive. For example if my car broke down and my cell
phone was broken, I would be walking along the
highway...looking for money on the side of the street.
Or perusing the landscape for ANY opportunity, person,
something...that was only possible because of my car
breaking down. I actually enjoy those curveballs in
life. It's kinda "Adam Fuel" when strange shit
happens.
-
- Unfortunately,
this will get me nothing more than a funny song as
it's so goddamn frustrating that I just want to pay it
and be done with it. Merry Christmas Adam, here's a
ticket.
-
|
That would
be me on the way to camp out for the 360
(Santa hat and all) turning right on red.
Legally. What they took a picture of somehow
was the fact that my stop before turning
right wasn't "complete". I remember the stop
well, and no doubt, my car didn't completely
stop (late at night, no cars - right on
red)...but that's not the purpose for this
entry. The problem here is that "right on
red" is $351. ? Then $39 for traffic school
to keep it off your record which if you don't
pay means another $1000 a year on your
insurance. So for all intents and purposes -
$400.
|
|
-
- I immediately went
online and found that there is quite the community
uproar about this specific intersection which (get
this) garners 1,000 tickets a MONTH. ?!?! One
intersection. The majority people that are turning
right on red and just rolling a little too much. Now
many of the sites say that camera intersections are
illegal to begin with, and especially ones for right
turns as the only way they can tell is by gauging
speed, that's entrapment. People who simply run the
light however, well there's your car, there's the
light - you've run it. For mine however:
-
|
|
They see
that my speed is 16 mph here, and even though
I slowed down more, it occured past the
stop mark - so voila, I rolled a right
on red. Listen, I have no problem paying the
ticket... I almost see tickets like this
as paying the "Driving Gods" for all the
goofy little infractions we all do day to
day. $400 however, is wrong. It starts to
cross the line into an infringement on your
rights a bit. If they can charge $400, why
can't they charge $1000? I mean who judges
the appropriate amount? With the current
ticket price it means this city garners,
whew, $350,000 a MONTH from ONE
intersection.
|
-
|
I could of
course fight it, but I really have no course
of action here other than to fight the entire
process by which it was obtained. Not like I
can say that's not me in the picture. They
rate camera pictures online from 1-7 and mine
might as well be a 32. Funny thing though on
how tickets are selected, as people are
screaming racial profiling quite often and
I guess that could be a TURBAN on my
head. Joe cop is looking through that days
"captures" and says - well we're certainly
sending the ticket off Adam Bin Laden over
here.
|
|
-
- I either want to
pay it and never think about it again - or start a
movement and a life long quest to get these things
abolished. The problem however is I think they're
a pretty good idea for the straight up running a red
light. However on right and left turns, it's absolute
horseshit. Out of roughly 25,000 intersections in LA,
I believe ther are 9 left turn signals. You are pretty
much forced to turn left AFTER it turns red. So you
could issue tickets, well probably about 1,000 a month
- LOL.
-
- Ironically as I
was doing some research on the city of Hawthorne and
how to contest the ticket, I came across a page
done by "The
Geek Squad"
- which I am now forever enshrined in. LOL. They're
the peeps at Best Buy that do all the computer stuff.
Of course they also have a blog too and documented the
night:
-
-
- Tensions
are high as the release of the XBox 360
nears at Hawthorne Best Buy.
-
 -
- The
wounded now rise, tickets in hand, showing
pride in their accomplishment. Soon, they
will be amongst the few and proud owners
of the Xbox 360.
-
- Inside,
waiting just for them are their babies, we
give you what you've all been looking for,
a chance to see, what most may not see in
person for some time to come.
-
 -
- Even
Santa Clause himself showed up at 9:30 PM
on 11/20/2005, though he is going by his
code name Adam Kontras; but having code
names ourselves us agents are not fooled.
-
 -
- "Adam"
aka Santa is most excited about the media
center extender features in the X-box 360;
though he also expressed interest in the
amount of real life geographical detail in
Project Gotham III -- Perhaps to aid in
planning his route this
Christmas.
|
-
-
- Certainly puts a
damper on the whole festivities of that night. That
Xbox now cost me $800, and although it is a lot of
fun, it's not worth... honestly... weird - if given
the choice of having the 360, the launch line
experience, and all the time I've had with it so
far... and not having one at all until February or
March? I think I'd take it even though it cost me
$800. Crazy huh? The system is really that good. And
as you can see, my "gamerscore" is approaching
the 4,000 mark. :-) Damn these things are
fun.
-
 -
- For future
reference, that says 3855 now, who knows what it will
end up being as that pic will get updated
automatically.
-
- Anyway, if I'm
still gainfully unemployed I may go contest the ticket
(just for the entry - lol), but I read that you run
the risk of not being allowed traffic school
then...and that just ain't worth it. Christ, even THAT
seems like an infringement of your rights. The only
way to contest a ticket means sacrificing the ability
to go to traffic school for it? Grrrrr.
Oh
Camera
Cop.. eat
shit.
-
- Adam
-
- ENTRY
FEEDBACK -
SONG
FEEDBACK
|
