Carpool
Recently I got nailed for driving in carpool when I wasn’t suppose to. Now mind you, I’ve been driving the carpool lane for over a year before anyone caught me. But how I got caught was stupid and could have been easily avoided.
There I was cruising down 580 minding my own business until I saw Highway Patrol in the right lane up ahead.
Crap!
So I tried to hurry and get in the appropriate lane. But where do I get in? Right behind the CHP. My thinking was “oh maybe he didn’t see me”, I carefully watch him in my rear view mirror and sure enough he changes lanes so he could get behind me and signal for me to get over.
“Bla bla you were in the HOV lane bla bla bla”
*nod nod hand over paper work*
“Bla bla be careful bla bla”
I head out. Ugh. I get home and check out my ticket. Its a minimum of $371, so I knew I’d be paying that much. But here’s the thing, I’d GLADLY pay that. The amount of time I saved accumulatively over the past year is definitely worth the $400+ I’m going to have to pay after traffic school. Its ridiculous really, to have that extra lane wide open, I’m sitting in traffic where my commute turns into an hour compared to the normal 20 minutes. My time is more valuable than that, so yes I’d gladly hand over the moola.
But about traffic school. I haven’t taken it, but I know its a crock. First off, if you want to take it, you have to pay the courts another $30. (My ticket came out to $381, $410 if I want to take traffic school), and then you have to pay the traffic school fees. Seriously though, traffic school, what it run $50? And you get to take the test over and over again until you pass? So the traffic school gets to toss retarded questions for me to answer, get their $50 and the courts gets their $30. Its definitely a win-win situation for them. They are probably in cahoots with each other.
Though my complaints don’t stop there. Why should I even bother taking traffic school to avoid the points on my record for a violation where I didn’t put anyone in harm?! It’s a carpool violation, not a speeding ticket. Oh, yeah, thats right, insurance companies are assholes and a moving violation is a moving violation.
Bastards.
After all the complaining though, its $500 well spent. My time is worth way more fucking much than to sit in that parking lot of a commute. Have I learned my lesson? Ha! I just passed you again in the carpool lane yesterday.
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