I found out I couldn’t get out of a speeding ticket the way I hoped. Apparently the law concerning delaying a trial has changed in favor of the courts.
The plan was to keep delaying the court date until both officers involved in clocking and catching me didn’t show up. I asked several employees of the court, a lawyer and a judge how the process worked, and I got the same conclusion.
What makes it hard now is:
1.) You may ask for a continuance of the trial on a later date, but it’s at the discretion of the judge to grant it. I was told by the judge herself that she RARELY grants continuances on the same day unless for a VERY VERY good reason, which I most likely didn’t have.
2.) If the officer(s) provide an excuse for now showing up (basically they just have to say they’re on duty), the trial may still proceed even without them. This is probably better for society as a whole, because while I’m just trying to circumvent a ticket, I’m effectively taking a law enforcer off the street.
The court clerk told me they’ve basically shut down that particular loophole in the system.
So $160 later, I’m taking deferred adjudication. Now I must take defensive driving again and avoid a ticket for the next three months.
These days I’m pretty selective of what I read on a daily basis. I used to read a lot of personal finance blogs, but quickly lost interest after the same stuff gets repeated hundreds of times.
For the remainder of this year my goal is to increase the income of my existing small businesses, create a few new ones and by years end have them making a combined total of at least $7,500/month on a consistent basis.