It’s been sixteen years since I did this last. I got old, I don’t blatantly break traffic laws as much.
Today was second generation “Muttrox Goes to Court”. My son did an illegal U-turn. No one was around, it was perfectly safe. But a cop was right there and got him.
The logistics of his court appearance were tricky. He is in college. He had to come back home (a five hour drive) for his court date last month. When he went to court they said one of his parents had to be present. He had to reschedule and come back today with me. Why did I need to be there? At least we go Muttrox goes to court, second generation.
Court is less interesting these days. All kinds of cases used to be thrown together, now they bring all the traffic incidents in on the same day. Efficient. Boring. I mostly get diverted to the solicitor these days, and so I don’t sit and watch others as much.
Every other court date I’ve had in Georgia has been at DeKalb Country Municipal Court. This one was in Dunwoody, one mile away from the house. The suburbs. Nice new court space, relaxed citizens and officers, much calmer. When we sat down a nice court officer came over and showed us how to fill out the forms. My son had the same clipboard as last time. He recognized the graffiti.
Like usual, we just wanted to avoid the points on our insurance. AI estimated a 25% increase in our premiums from this illegal U-turn, yikes! We wanted to pay the fine and move on with life. We asked for a pre-trial negotiation with the solicitor. Fortunately, Dunwoody’s goal was the same as ours. They don’t want to hold trials, they don’t want the case (and revenue) moved to the county, they want to take their cut and move on.
Our solicitor was a yapper. I mentioned something about the nice facilities they had here and ended up in a 15-minute conversation about municipal buildings. It was sort of interesting. This building was a converted bank. They had a secured room for prisoners in manacles and belt chains, most courts don’t have that. The generous space meant less stress on people (some with mental issues) in a stressful situation. The discussion kept going. I recently read Talk: The Science of Conversation, I was well-armed to go as long as she wanted. You want small talk, I got small talk. The more we talked, the more likely she’d let us off easy.
An illegal U-turn is an astonishing 3 points. It only takes 4 points in a year to have your license suspended! Dunwoody knew that the penalty in points and insurance was huge, that’s why they mandated a parent be present. Ah I see. She gave us a sob story about someone who made a small traffic violation and killed two people, she looked deep into my son’s soul to make sure he was a good kid, then let us off easy. He takes 4 hours of an online course, we pay the fine afterwards, all done. Nothing even goes on the record. We left under an hour.