I had a big eye-opening experience a few months ago. I was pulled over because my license plates read that the driver (me) was under suspension (news to me). Turns out that a $15 parking ticket I thought I had paid online about a year previously had not gone through and because I forgot to change my address on my license when I moved, I wasn't getting the notifications. All my fault, I know, so theres no need to point it out. So I show up for court as driving under suspension is a mandatory court-date, can't pay. The judge pulls me up with like 5 other people for the same thing and tells us to come back in 2 weeks, but that if we didn't have our tickets paid that we'd face possible jail time and huge fines, etc. So I go across the hall and pay my various tickets and hitch rides with roommate, etc for the next couple weeks. Show up for court again, get pulled up to talk to the resident DOT person and show her that I had paid my tickets. She's freaking ecstatic. Says "Good for you!" and I move on to the prosecutor. The guy sees that I paid the tickets, and drops all the other charges that the cop that pulled me over for driving while under suspension gave me and turned the driving while suspended into a simple driving without a license for like $150 instead of the $1200+ they had racked up against me for random crap. Go up to the judge, she says "good for you" and "can you pay that ticket within 30 days?" (yes) and lets me go. So I walk across the hall again and pay the ticket.

At this point I'm home free, have nothing but that driving without a license on my record, and am thoroughly AMAZED at how many people actually DON'T pay their tickets and keep driving illegally and getting jail time and huge fines. Just paying off the small things saved me so much in the end I just can't believe other people don't do it. I was the only person that day that had paid within the 2 hour time I was in the court room (and it was all traffic stuff) and we're talking probably a hundred people going through. From being there that long I saw what kind of people the courts and the cops deal with every day that are nothing but deadbeat rednecks, and largely poor white trash.

During the time I was getting rides from people we stopped in at a bar near where I live and a guy we were playing pool with told us all about how he hates cops because they pulled him over 6 times in the same area for driving without insurance and while under suspension and how he owes a lot in fines now. I just wanted to shout at him "DUH! You idiot!"

The moral of the story: Most of the laws are there for a reason and if you just keep up on them when you break them, you save yourself a crapload of misery and money and the police and courts will actually probably treat you with respect and high regard if you do. Oh, and pay your friggin parking tickets.

Life: Sexually transmitted and always fatal.