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Old 09-14-10 | 06:55 PM
  #53  
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GriddleCakes
Tawp Dawg
 
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 1,221
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From: Anchorage, AK

Bikes: '06 Surly Pugsley, '14 Surly Straggler, '88 Kuwahara Xtracycle, '10 Motobecane Outcast 29er, '?? Surly Cross Check (wife's), '00 Trek 4500 (wife's), '12 Windsor Oxford 3-speed (dogs')

Originally Posted by wiredfoxterror
Go to court - you don't need a lawyer. It will either get abjudicated and dismissed as it is a first offense, or it will be reduced to a lesser ticket (non-moving violation - say missing a taillight), or the fine will be greatly reduced. Sometimes the DA talks to everybody before they see the judge and just does it himself. Courts are overcrowded. This is all from my own personal experience in New York and in Florida. Remember - these tickets you get on your bike go against your drivers license and can raise your insurance premiums.
You are recommending that the OP, who has already admitted fault, avoid personal responsibility for his/her actions. The OP's premiums should go up, as the OP has been engaging in risky behavior. If the OP learns from this experience and corrects his/her bad traffic habits, his/her premiums will go back down over time in reflection of this. By sidestepping the personal feedback part of the system (paying the ticket, paying an elevated insurance rate for a small period of time), the OP is less likely learn to stop riding recklessly and/or antagonistically, and weakens the system as a whole. As we all (all motorists, anyway) pay into the same system, it is within all of our interests that the OP accept an increased rate until the OP can prove that s/he can negotiate traffic responsibly.

In my personal experience, an increase in insurance rates after a traffic violation is good thing for the driver. I used to be a terrible motorist, always speeding and driving aggressively. I was young and selfish, and didn't give much thought of my duty to other users of the public roadway, or of the consequences of my actions. In my first four years of driving, I got tickets from time to time, but didn't give it much thought until my last speeding ticket. Suddenly I was with 2 points of losing my driver's license, and my insurance rate went from $190/month up to $240/month. It was only the astronomical increase in my insurance rate after my last speeding ticket that finally got me to slow down and drive nicely for a while. Then, as I grew older, I began to view operating a vehicle in the light of public duty and personal responsibility. It's been 11 years since my last ticket, and I don't think that I would be the driver I am today if I had been able to weasel out my tickets.
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