Beating a Ticket

With G-d's help, my daughter in law beat a parking ticket today. In New York, you always go down to deal with it in person. Never just pay on line. At the Parking violations place, they will offer you a reduced fine. What is even better, they will look for mistakes in the ticket before you go to see the judge. My daughter in law was fortunate. The judge himself found a technicality. She didn't even have to present her evidence. That almost never happens.

I got two tickets a few weeks ago. One was for an expired inspection sticker. The other was for parking my motorcycle on the sidewalk. I came out as the cops were writing the ticket. We got into a friendly conversation. I expressed sympathy for their position. Philosophically, I felt they were performing a needed role, even though I stood to lose about $200.00. I wished them a good day and promised to be more careful.

My daughter was fighting another ticket for her work, so she brought my two tickets with her. The expired inspection was correctly written. They reduced it to $45.00. My other ticket got thrown out. It was mistakenly written out as being for a school bus. So with G-d's help I saved $40.00.

There was one time I was riding my motorcycle. It was about 6:00 in the morning. The intersection was deserted. I slowly rode through it. The cops pulled me over. One asked me "Do you know why I pulled you over?"

I never volunteer an answer. "Perhaps you can tell me."

"What colour was that light back there when you went through it"? he asked.

"I don't imagine you would have stopped me if it were green." I answered.

He smiled. It was a lawyer's answer. I wasn't admitting anything. And I wasn't lying. We chatted a bit about motorcycle s and he let me go.

The police are doing a job. I respect that. Even if i get pulled over, I realise that fear of a ticket keeps me safe, even if I get one myself. I am grateful for the police, and I show it. I like to believe that putting positive emotions into my interactions with police is of help to me. Every day, I try to at least once look at myself in the third person. It helps my peace of mind.