It's happened to me twice. I'm glad that the red light cams that littered the City of San Diego have finally been determined to provide inadmissible "evidence" in court. The judgment came too late for me, but I feel better knowing that the City of San Diego will no longer be funding its police activities through commissioning ticket quotas from its traffic officers (though this is, in greatest likelihood, still practiced, because police departments in all U.S. cities are notoriously corrupt and therefore forever in want of cash).
I think the worst part of the red light cam scam is that the photos are sent to the driver weeks before the actual summons arrives in the mail, giving the driver time to stew in their misery. These police departments are practicing psychological torture. Rather than make the accusation right away by sending a ticket with the photos, the photos are sent first, so as to intimidate the driver into believing that they've got no recourse. Well, I'm glad that the red light cams are gone. They were never a method of increasing safety on the streets, no matter how much the police departments might claim. They are (were) a means of pure revenue production for the police departments that use(d) them. While I value the peacekeeping function of a functional police department, more often than not, I'm witness to the high-handedness and self-righteousness police officers often express in both actions and words.
The most recent time I was pulled over by a cop for a supposed traffic violation, Peter was with me, and he remembered the entire encounter, word for word. Afterwards, he asked me if I remembered how the cop reacted when I responded to his query, and I said I wasn't looking at the guy. Peter leaned back and told me the cop appeared flabbergasted that I should have made a judgment call while driving, rather than just blindly obeying the word of the law...
I obey the word of the law when it makes logical sense. When it makes no rational, reasonable sense, I ignore the word and go for the spirit of the law, which, in my mind, is public safety (and shouldn't that always be the focus of police departments?).
So if public safety is the goal of all police departments, and I believe it ought to be, why are so many resources put into collecting traffic fines? Traffic fines help to pay for the operation of the police department, and therefore has become a necessary evil. In all seriousness, who really gives a flying f*ck how fast someone's driving on a major thoroughfare as long as they're managing the car well enough to avoid a wreck? In my book: no harm, no foul. No accident, no blame. If there's an accident, then there is typically some assignment of blame (it might come out equally among participants, or might come out to lay at the feet of one driver). Outside of adjudicating court cases where one party is suing another for their part in causing a traffic accident, why does the law even care?
It really shouldn't, is my conclusion. It seems to have become the role of police departments around the country (this country, at least) to be society's busybodies, minding everybody's business, regardless of the righteousness of that inquisitiveness. It reminds me of miscegenation laws and "marriage inequality" laws. Who cares what gender(s) of person(s) one enjoys, sexually or otherwise?
I remember spending time in college (and I did attend college) figuring out my sexuality, and came to the conclusion that the kind of persons I found attractive were those who were wholly themselves and comfortable occupying their own skin. Sure, I had physical preferences, just as most, if not all, people do. But in terms of the person inside that body, I was kind of an equal opportunity lover of sorts, though I realized over time that I really did have preferences for certain personality types, and that those preferences were acceptable, both to myself and to the society in which I lived.
Nowadays, I spend less time thinking about why I find someone attractive, and just revel in the joy of being in love, which happens all too infrequently to the likes of me...
I've been in love three times in my life.
The first young man I'd fallen for was, the words of my friend, Deb Pastner, "an Adonis." What she'd actually said was, "I walked into the bathroom, and there, brushing his teeth, was an Adonis. I figured he must belong to you." (We had a coed bathroom on our floor of the dorm.)
The second time I fell in love was with my (second) husband. If I gave you a physical description of these first two men, you'd think I had a thing for tall blonds, which, perhaps, I do, to a certain extent...
The third man, with whom I'm very much in love, is, unlike the first two, actually my senior by about a dozen or so years. Like the first two, though, he has a great head of hair through which I so do enjoy running my fingers! And, like the first two, he is a creator; an artful engineer, if you will. A musician, as well as a great intellectual, and a thoughtful, affectionate person to boot!
Alas, I digress a bit too far even for my taste. Good night. I will find some other topic about which to rant, I'm sure, soon enough.
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