Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Court today

We had to go to court today. Seems that an officer thought he could get a quick $130 fine for giving us a ticket for something that we always do, we use our handicapped permit when we park! See, this officer was on patrol in another state, in a parking lot area at the mall where all kinds of cars park from all different states. Well, we went there to visit with our daughter at her new job at Macy’s. We took her out to lunch and came out to the parking lot and found a parking ticket for $130 for NOT SIGNING OUR HANDICAPPED PARKING PERMIT! In our state it is not required, and I truthfully don’t know if it is in the state we were visiting, but to fine us for not signing our permit is just plain DUMB! It’s not like we were in a no parking space, not like the handicapped permit wasn’t right were it was suppose to be, it is almost as if the officer saw our car, thought he would get a ‘quota’ ticket, started to write the ticket and then realized that we DID have a handicap permit in the car, hanging where it was suppose to, so he had to write it for SOMETHING as he would get in trouble if he tried to cancel it.

My husband worked from home today, started working at 4:30 AM so that he could leave our house at 1:30 PM after a full day of work and then drive the 85 miles to get to court at 4 PM. We got there around 3:30 PM; saw a clerk who was a bit surprised by our ticket after looking at both of us. She made a copy of the handicapped parking permit and took the ticket and told us to appear at court which started at 4 PM. Once we got inside, we had to sit while they (the court officials) went through all the criminals that were there today (about 40 people, some of them really scary, one of them was arrested for something that he had been arrested for before, he was appearing in court for the 64th time!) then they started reading off everyone who was there for a parking/motor vehicle tickets. The first one was someone who had been arrested for drunk driving; they get to come back and appear next week. The next one was us! Well we got up there and the judge asks how do we plead? When we said not guilty he looked up at us and my husband started to talk. Since the ticket was for not signing the permit and since we are not required to do so in our state, the judge said ‘case dismissed’.We got there at 3:30 PM and got out at 5:30 PM and still had 85 miles to go. By the time I got home I was exhausted! But, my husband plans to write letters to the state, city, the mall, even to the store that we were in and file complaints. He may even file a complaint with the federal government; I think we will be in for a lot of ‘fun’. I have a feeling that the officer who tried to get a quick $130 might live to regret it. More to come about the saga of the parking ticket!

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