I know y'all have seen this thousands of times before, but I finally got nailed a little while ago. I was on my way home from downtown. A friend and I had decided to go Midnight Bowling, but then reconsidered and decided that we would save our money.
On the way home, a cop grabbed us for 66 in a 55. Eleven over. 11.
ELEVEN. 
I thought he would've said faster, honestly. I was just going with the flow of traffic, but I didn't believe that traffic was moving faster than the limit. Being in the left lane at the time didn't help much. BTW, I don't have a radar detector...yet.
He also flamed me for not having my Class C (unrestricted hours) license. By law I was out "past driving curfew" since I still have my class D license. It was 12:30 at the time and we were on our way home. The officer was stern about pointing this out. I commend him for doing his job, and I guess there really wasn't a way for him to tell if I was being truthful or not, but honestly an 18 yr old kid like me is not going to have much to do past 12:30 unless it's shooting screwdriver vodkas and chasing them with three dozen pancakes. I've never done that either.
So I had to sit there on the side of the road until my not too pleased mother arrived quite some time later. The cop said that we were to wait there until my mum came, and in that time frame, my bud and I sat there in the car and watched him tackle down three more cars, likely for speeding. However, one car did pass with one blown out light and another very dim light, perhaps a parking light, and he seemed to pay it no mind. It makes me wonder if eleven over is more dangerous than driving without my headlights. Maybe next time I'll go carouse the neighborhood without my headlights and say that our local SPD officer didn't pull me over for that, but he nailed me for 66.
I guess I'm just frustrated. It's a natural reaction though, I wouldn't expect anybody to be happy after being ticketed not once, but twice. The officer was doing his job, though I wonder why they couldn't be a little happier about writing tickets, because this is valuable Christmas money I'm spending on myself now. My insurance is going to go up now too. Again. He
did tell me to have a nice evening, however...
I had the question as to going to court or just paying the fine ($215 total). But I noticed that he wrote on both citations that my car is a '98 Ford
Mustang. Hardly. If I accomplish nothing else in court, I will be sure to point out that my citating officer can not differentiate between Mustangs and Escorts, especially considering that he had to call in my license/registration. Not to mention "ESCORT ZX2" is blatantly stamped directly in the middle of the back bumper of my car.
Does this mistake of his change anything? Can I use this as a foothold against him?
I've never been pulled over or gone to court for anything in my life before so this is a new experience to me. Advice? Tips? It's all welcome here, unless you're going to talk down on me, in which case there will be some moderators taking a walk through this thread.
Thanks again for reading. Wish it was a better story though [sigh...]
-SAV
