My son has been away at camp all week. Today I had to make the 260 mile trip to pick him up. I left out at 5 this morning and returned home at 3 this afternoon… a long drive to say the least. Anyhow on the way there I got myself into some legal trouble… nothing too serious though. I was pretending to be Maria Andretti and got caught.

I was doing 68 in a 55… (at least that is what the officer said. But I say I’m innocent until proven guilty.) I asked the cop if she could give me a verbal warning instead of a ticket. But she was not up for negotiating. She wrote me the ticket and told me to have a great day.

A speeding ticket? That’s just great. I haven’t gotten a ticket in years. And in two months I have to renew my auto insurance policy. If they realize that they are insuring a Mario Andretti wannabe, my premium will go through the roof. So I have to do my best to prevent that from happening.

There are two things I plan to do.

First of all, I won’t just mail a check to pay for the ticket. Past experience has taught me that appearing for court is better choice. Some people like to fight tickets in court. But I will not fight it. I’ll concede to the judge that maybe I was going a little bit over the limit. And more then likely, the judge will reduce the ticket to a lesser violation. Then with all the remorse I can muster up, I’ll ask if it’s possible that this minor infraction not be reported to the DMV. And that judge will likely say ok. No report to the DMV means that my insurance company will not hear about this… Or at least this is how I hope the story will play out.

Second, I need to take precautions to make sure this does not happen again. The most logical solution is that I never speed again. And while I can promise ya’ll that I won’t, chances are that I will. I don’t try to be Little Mrs. Speed Racer… it is just that sometimes I can lose perception of speed. So I’m going to get a radar detector. And this way, when it beeps, I’ll be reminded check the odometer to make sure I am in compliance with the posted speed limit.

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