Since it's a slow news day, and I could care less about the Occupy Wall Street evictees and Penn State's drama; today, I'm choosing to gripe about a problem that I had just this morning! You see, a few weeks ago, my girlfriend got a traffic ticket for wrongfully making a left turn onto a local street. She was on her way to a new office within her company, which was closer to our house, but she was unfamiliar with the street signs on the main road and accidentally made the left, where there were actually 'no left turn' signs posted. Unfortunately, instead of paying attention to the street signs, she chose to pay attention to her GPS, and as we all know, steered her the wrong way and she got pulled over by an extremely nice police officer (sarcasm), who gave her the moving violation, which would include 3-points on her license. The points didn't sit well with my girlfriend, so she decided that she wanted to fight the ticket, to maybe lessen the charge and erase the points.
Growing up in North Jersey, I had plenty of traffic tickets and a plethora of points, which I worked back down to zero, I might add, but my point is that it's not secret that if you go to your appointed court date, you speak to the prosecutor, he works out a deal, gets you a lesser charge with no points, and you walk out just paying a hefty fine with no points on your license. Well, let's make our way to South Jersey, where my girlfriend's offense took place, and let's take a look at the summons above. Take a look at the "notice to appear" court date, which says "11-16-11, 8:30 AM". Mind you, I've been through this many times myself, and you just show up at the court, sit with the rest of the cattle, and wait for them to call your name. No phone calls! Nothing!
Well, today is 11-16-11, and at 8:30 AM, we walked into the Municipal Building only to find out that there was no judge there, nor was there court today. WHAT?????? Did anyone else see the "Notice to Appear" court date above??? Why would the nice cop (sarcasm) set a court date that he knew the judge wouldn't be at? It didn't make sense! The clerk told us that if we were pleading guilty, we had to call 7 days in advance to set a court date. WHAT????? Does anyone else see the "Notice to Appear" court date above??? That is the court date! You don't call 7 days in advance to schedule a court date when the court date is on the front of the ticket. She claimed that was only the date to pay the ticket by, and at this point, I'm pissed now, so I politely pushed my girlfriend to the side, and asked the lady, then why does it say 'court date' instead of 'pay the ticket' by this day? She said, "I'm sorry, those are the rules!" It took a lot to bite my tongue because I didn't want my girlfriends court date to go sour when it actually does come, so we left the municipal building, but what a crock of shit!
What is the reason of the phone call 7 days in advance to set a court date? So, that the judge gets notified that he actually has to work? And if the date that is inserted where it says "Notice to Appear" court date is the date the ticket is to be paid, then it should say so. I have to tell you, my experience living in South Jersey hasn't been a good one yet between this and their Unemployment Office, it seems nobody wants to work, yet I'm the one unemployed! Everything seems ass-backwards down here and so lackadaisical. We're really starting to second think our move down here! If it weren't for our lovely home and the peace and quiet around us, I think we would've been out of here already! Wake the "F" up, South Jersey!
