<p>This c rap about walking to school 5 miles uphill in the snow (and back- still uphill) is Abraham Lincoln lore.</p>
<p>I have to say I agree with you mowc</p>
<p>When I was in high school, I walked about 3 or so miles to school ( hilly route, not many sidewalks) walked about a mile from there to my after school job that finished @ 9pm or so,( I worked in the kitchen of a nursing home, ) then I home, I occasionally was home after 10 pm. I slept well, but too exhausted to do homework.( I worked for spending money and for school clothes- I was the only one of my family who worked while in high school and I was the only one who didn’t graduate)</p>
<p>I wouldn’t want my kids to do that. I wouldn’t want them riding their bike in the street even though I did it, I wouldn’t want them running across the freeway for a short cut even though I did it, and I would help them find alternate means of transportation if necessary.</p>
<p>Mom of Wild Child:
Question: What were the consequences you imposed? Was your child allowed to drive?<br>
I had a stretch of two speeding tickets in less than a year, one 20 over. Both were because I was late in picking my kids up from activities. The first I rationalized away because it was a 25 mph zone in a small suburb where the police had nothing better to do.
The second I was cruising a 50 in a 30 zone in a residential area.
Many of my friends encouraged me to go to court with the second as I faced having my licence suspended if I got one more ticket within 6 months.
I took it as a wake up call that maybe I needed to change my driving habits.
For the next six months I NEVER was over the speed limit. I was very careful and cautious. Low and behold those new habits stuck. While I will now occasionally go 5 over on the freeway, I never speed on the city streets.
I am a better driver for it.</p>
<p>I won’t say my child would never have done what Wild Child did, as I have my own Wild Child coming up to driving age soon, but I will say that I wouldn’t use connections and wealth to get it off his record if he did.
That just teaches the wrong lesson.</p>
<p>The last time I got a speeding ticket, I showed up on the court date and explained my case (not that there was much of an excuse), and the judge reduced the points/fine. Seemed standard operating procedure to do that if you actually bothered showing up for the court date. I didn’t need a lawyer, either. Springfield Mom, I think if your D tells the judge in her own words how she was intimidated by the semis blowing past her, she may get some understanding from the judge. I almost think having a lawyer there to represent her would backfire.</p>
<p>"When I was in high school, I walked about 3 or so miles to school ( hilly route, not many sidewalks) walked about a mile from there to my after school job that finished @ 9pm or so,( I worked in the kitchen of a nursing home, ) then I home, I occasionally was home after 10 pm. I slept well, but too exhausted to do homework.( I worked for spending money and for school clothes- I was the only one of my family who worked while in high school and I was the only one who didn’t graduate)</p>
<p>I wouldn’t want my kids to do that. I wouldn’t want them riding their bike in the street even though I did it, I wouldn’t want them running across the freeway for a short cut even though I did it, and I would help them find alternate means of transportation if necessary."</p>
<p>I think that all parents here would agree that we wouldn’t want our kids to have to work during the school year while in high school.</p>
<p>However, that’s very different than a kid’s having to walk to work several miles over the summer including in the summer heat. If our kids decide to train for marathons, most of us would cheer them on. If a kid got a summer job as a lifeguard or playground supervisor, most of us wouldn’t be concerned that the heat would harm them. I don’t see the big problem if a kid loses driving privileges and then has to walk to work or take public transportation or car pool or take a cab.</p>
<p>As I mentioned before, I either walked or took public transportation until I was about 24 and bought my first car. I don’t see what I did as some kind of horrendous hardship nor did I view it as a big deal then.</p>
<p>If my kid lost driving privileges due to speeding, I would view that as his problem to solve just as it would be my problem to solve if the same thing happened to me.</p>
<p>The reason why that ticket would have tanked your family’s insurance is because going 110 mph in a 55 mph zone put some people (including your own son) in EXTREMELY grave danger of dying. Your insurance company would have been liable for untold damages had he wrecked the vehicle and possibly killed some people while driving at that speed. Do you mind my asking, was alcohol involved as well? </p>
<p>My oldest son and my middle daughter have both gotten minor speeding tickets, so I would never make the claim that they “would never do that.” That said, my daughter came in and spent a sleepless night before she got up the nerve to tell us about hers (and of course, she offered to cover all fines which we declined as she has no source of income right now), and my son also offered to to reimburse us and was exceedingly remorseful. </p>
<p>That said, neither of mine would drive 110 in a 55 zone and thus put innocent people in grave danger. And if they ever DID, I wouldn’t wait for the courts to suspend the license. I’d do it myself.</p>
<p>If kids never receive consequences for their actions, they will not learn from them. </p>
<p>I understand there are differences between tickets
( was 110 mph on the freeway I hope? I don’t think I have driven 110 in my life- I don’t think my husband can say that though- must be a boy thing)
and if she already has a physical job, she is probably in good shape and three miles is nothing.
But it also depends on the safety of the road and the time factor-
I would suggest that she appeal the ticket- but if needed figure out some other way of getting to work rather than having her parents drive her except occasionally.</p>
<p>i have no problem her appealing the ticket, whatever, but if her license is suspended, fair or not, she will survive a bit of walking, carpooling, biking and waiting around this summer</p>
<p>my point is that in the grand scheme of things, having to walk, bike, get there early because of rides, etc is not that bad a thing to have to put up with</p>
<p>if her job starts at ten, and dad can only drop her at 830, she waits, or she can walk it</p>
<p>110mph was on I95 in CT- no alcohol. Empty stretch of road (so he says) If there is ever alcohol involved in anything involving a car with either of our kids, the car goes. No second chance. Daytime. Stupid boy thing.
I did not use “connections” and wealth, but if I did, so what? The lawyer I found knew the DA staff really well. There was a legal bill. I didn’t feel like penalizing the rest of my family by higher insurance rates. I was livid and extremely upset. I don’t mean to suggest otherwise. However, I can not tell you how many dads and boys have come forward with similar stories (never females, it seems). I truly don’t get it.<br>
As I said, he got to spend some frightening time in jail, got to go to court, got to pay back a lot of money and got my full wrath. He did continue to drive due to some medical needs at the time. Tickets since then have consisted of having a headlight out in the daytime and not slowing down enough approaching an interstate tollroad tollbooth.</p>
<p>It’s hard when kids can’t drive. I’m driving my almost 17 yr old son to his part time job in a neighboring town because he isn’t driving yet. He took the class and has the learners permit but after a couple trial runs in an empty parking lot it’s clear he isn’t ready and the idea of driving scares him to death at this point. I don’t mind him waiting awhile longer since a good driver has to be comfortable and confident. Hopefully with some more practice runs he will start feeling better about it all but in the meantime I will continue to play taxi, as I have for the last 20 years. Fortunately I am a SAHM and have been able to do this for not only my kids but many of their friends over the years as well.</p>
<p>MOCW, My S claims the reason he was pulled over on the interstate while others flew past him was that he had a sofa (just purchased from a habitat store) in the back of his truck and the Patrolman had obviously never seen a sofa doing 80 and wanted it have an up close look. LOL.</p>
<p>He did feel bad about it and paid all the costs himself. On his behalf, I will say that he had always driven a really old clunker that had spasms if it went over 50. That vehicle had just died and we had replaced it with a much newer ,bigger engine truck. The ticket trip was only his second time driving the truck on the interstate and I think the “horses” got away from him before he realized it. He has learned to use the Cruise control now.</p>
<p>Several calls to the township municipal court later, I found out that the “court date” the writing officer puts on the ticket is not always correct–it’s actually a ruse to get you to pay the fine sooner! I guess they figure if the put a court date that’s coming up soon, you might decide you can’t go and just give up and pay the fine!</p>
<p>DD has decided to fight the ticket, and she has a Aug. 7th court date. It’s a 1 1/2 hour drive, but she thinks paying the extra $33 court costs to fight a $200.00 ticket is worth it. The court clerk said if she changes her mind, she can pay it at any time. (The clerk was very nice!)</p>
<p>So she’s not driving anywhere (including work) for the next month–perhaps time off for good behavior. The only exception is to take her mentally disabled aunt (who lives with us) to the Dr. next week. Today her boss came and picked her up (it was too hot to bike it) and she has a ride home from a friend. Tomorrow she will ride to and from work with a different friend and Wednesday, since the weather should be better, she’ll bike it, which means I’ll probably have to pick her and the bike up at 9:00 when the pool closes (too dangerous to ride in the dark). She’s already getting used to having her wings clipped.</p>
<p>I apologize for not having the time to read the entire thread…</p>
<p>That being said, some states do allow drivers to take “driving improvement” class, which earns “positive” driving points that are posted at DMV. They can be used to offset the bad points a driver might accumulate.</p>
<p>It had better have been the eastern part of the state. I cannot imagine anyone being able to go that fast anywhere near the eternal traffic jam of Fairfield County.</p>
<p>Court date was last night, I just thought I’d bring everyone up to date. This should be a lesson for all.</p>
<p>DD got off without any points. She’s really lucky, in my opinion. We got to court (the DUIs came before the speeders, so we got to see some of the DUI proceedings;very informative!). I was surprised; for a backwater hicktown in NJ this is a big operation. These Staties must have ticket quotas. There were probably 150 people there in court for speeding.</p>
<p>After the Prosecutor took roll, he said if he called your name, you were to report to a Conference Room down the hall. DD’s name was called first.</p>
<p>In all there were 12 people called into the Conference Room. Basically, the Prosecutor was just trying to move their cases along by offering them deals. They were all charged with 35 miles or less over the speed limit. DD’s offense was the least amount of all of them (all of the rest were over 30 but under 35–she was under 25). The Prosecutor basically offered to lower the penalties of everyone to 9 miles over the speed limit, which for DD meant no points. He also reduced her fine by $50.00. For everyone else, it meant at least 2 points and he dismissed all of the seat belt and registration violations.</p>
<p>While I do think it was worth going to court, I don’t think that by pleading down she learned anything! The fine basically was a slap on the wrist. I’m not sure she actually learned anything, other than how the court system works! I think that the driving limitations placed on her by her own parents were much worse than this. I’m just glad she’s not going to be driving at school so I won’t have to worry about her until she comes home for Thanksgiving!</p>
In addition many people need to use a day of vacation or waste an off day to go to court … it’s far from free even if the official penalty is reduced. Allowing reductions in penalties if someone has spent a day in court or in traffic school ONCE is OK in my book for things below reckless driving/DUI type offenses.</p>
<p>SpringfieldMom,
We all agree that driving safely is important, but you are totally correct in saying that these speed traps are big business for many of these NJ towns. After reading your update on your daughter’s court experience, I feel like I had a crystal ball when I reread my earlier post at the beginning of this thread.</p>
<p>
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<p>Our family has had similar experiences in NJ traffic court. I agree with you that the way these courts are run teaches the offender little or nothing about safe driving, and it is basically a big money-maker for the municipality.</p>
<p>Cangel, I definately think listening to the DUI proceedings was a big eye-opener for her. Makes me think that every 16 and 17 year old new driver should spend a day in DUI court!</p>
<p>Also, listening to some of the other speeding charges was very interesting. There was one girl, 20 years old, who hadn’t yet told her parents she was caught doing 92 in a 45. She was there alone in court and she was so upset! I told her she definately should have told her parents (it was their car and insurance, after all) and that they were going to find out anyway. She was in deep doo-doo. There was another boy who was caught in a speed trap doing over 100 mph and the fines and points were doubled because it was in a 65 mph zone. Yikes!</p>