The time to think about all your financial obligations is BEFORE you get pulled over for a traffic violation. Some of the idiots out there on the road these days seem to have very deep pockets, if you catch my drift.
I don’t like paying fines either, and that’s why I don’t speed.
I will say that there are times when signage is somewhat confusing, and when a person is stopped for something like that, some leeway and judgment should prevail.
The St. Pete PD is a fully f****d operation that is run by a bunch of thugs with badges...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2684284/posts
The article addresses speeding in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, FL.
The article is BS -as are many of the posts-from-the-hip on this thread.
Citing one guilty case and an officer’s leniency does not explain why people are not paying their traffic fines. This is the real message of this article. People are blowing off the law, not paying fines and driving after their license is revoked. This is what is represented by the gross gaps in fine receipts. The article otoh seems to be saying “be nice and pay those fines”. It’s ridiculous.
I live here and have received 4 citations over the past year from both counties. Total cost about $1800. I had none in 3 years, then 4 within 10 months with no change in my driving route, hours or speeds. Nearly all of my tickets were speed traps. Some speed traps were recent creations, like the Veterans’ Expressway to JFK blvd and others were ones I didn’t know of.
Basically, how it goes in these counties is they do some road work, remove the old, higher speed limit signs and after the work replace them with a single lower speed limit sign placed on an entrance ramp to an elevated roadway (the Veterans Expressway trap) or far back on the road after merging in from a higher speed limit road. After several months they finally properly posted the Veterans Expressway 50mph limit (down from 65) following complaints.
They also now target the commuters when they used to mostly leave them alone. Commuters are now prey to be culled for revenue as apparently it’s deemed they will pay the fines to be able to work.
It’s about revenue and people are not paying in these counties in increasing numbers. They are ignoring the law. It’s a very bad precident essentially saying the state and LEOs are preying upon the public and, in increasing numbers, the public does not recognize the legality and or validity of the law or its judgement. But this is not an issue somehow because Ms. Smith cries and is not given a ticket.