Posted on 06/27/2015 4:13:04 PM PDT by Hojczyk
Casey Campbell served two tours in Iraq, but the fight of his life is in California.
After driving without a seat belt and no front plate, he got a $25 traffic ticket that jumped to $300 with assessments and surcharges. Unable to pay in full, the ticket rose to $600, and then $819 when he missed a court date.
The state automatically took his driver's license and turned the ticket over to a collections agency. Police later impounded his car when he drove to work on a suspended license. Unable to make a living, Campbell ended up broke and homeless.
"It was $4,000 for two citations," Campbell said, standing on a street corner in West Los Angeles. "And once the ticket went to collections, the judge said there's nothing he could do. It just snowballed. At a certain point, there's just no way to get back on your feet."
Critics call California's traffic citation system a scam, a money-making racket that has nothing to do with justice. That’s because a typical $100 ticket – say, driving without proof of insurance -- jumps to $290 with state penalties; to $416 with court construction assessments; and to $490 with surcharges for emergency medicine and DNA collection. If you fail to pay the full fine immediately, it adds a $325 penalty, making the cost $815.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Missing license plate, unbuckled, driving while license suspended, skipping court dates ... and I’m supposed to feel sorry for this guy? Fail.
How else are they going to pay for the illegal Mexicans benefits?
It’s California. What can one say?
It’’s just part of the cost of living in the exotic liberal utopia.
Got cited for no seatbelt in Calif just last year and it was $125, wow.
should’ve taken the bullet train.
Who has to go to a court date for a 25 dollar traffic ticket…Florida you mail the money or go to the DMV and pay cash..
Another example of government being the enemy of the people.
LOL!
I was in court in Santa Cruz last year for a traffic violation.
First guy is called, judge asks what the ticket was for, the guy (via interpreter) answers, “Driving with no license”
Judge immediately addresses the whole courtroom via interpreter, “Show of hands of how many are here ONLY for that particular same infraction...?”
A sea of hands go up AND THE JUDGE SUMMARILY BULK EXCUSES **ALL** OF THEM....!!!
“These people are here for no other reason than THE WAY the law was written....”
And —presto!— they lined up to square away their paperwork, and were gone.
Know what? In many cases they do NOT have to obey the laws of California.
We have a rich coast and a dirt poor interior, and there are TWO classes of people; honkies mired in laws and regulation and Mexicans who live in this eery extension of Mexico.
Fair enough, but CA traffic law enforcement is all about raising revenue. It is a scam. A government run one.
May your chains rest lightly.
Sounds like California is going the way of the Debtor’s Prisons, as in Dicken’s Oliver Twist and David Copperfield.
I’m as much a vet as this guy is, but that is a source of pride, not an excuse for malfeasance.
For those of you who have never lived in CA, it can be frightfully expensive to live there.
NOT paying bills then refusing to be evicted is a way of life for some in LA.
Governments which spend on generous benefits to those do not work end up in the same situation. Confiscation of money from those who have some is the usual follow up.
California
Cyprus
Greece
coming soon to USA...
It was like that when the barbarians took over Rome too.
I owe thousands to the IRS for failure to file proper forms on time for business that never made a penny in profit. In fact the last time I mailed them in on time but they claim I did not. It's up to me to prove I did.
There is something wrong with this country and this story is an example.
If you live in California I strongly recommend avoiding Fullerton. Motorcycle Cops just hanging around ready to pounce. A real racket.
My one and only episode of being a landlord was with that tenant. Paid one rent check and quit. Took six months to evict him. He destroyed the house and stole most everything in it during the five months free rent, too.
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