Driving Record

I just sent in my bar application--that required self-reporting confession of past acts that must be revealed to the bar before they will let you sit for a two and one-half day exam. The hardest part was trying to remember all of the addresses where I have lived for the past 5 years. I have moved four times during law school! I also had to least all past crimes including traffic infractions and parking tickets.

I noticed some interesting things in listing out all of my confrontations with the law (you can assume that haven't been all that many since I passed a background check to work at a prosecutors office.) I must have been afflicted with the all-too-common testosterone fueled need for speed for a couple of years in my late teens and early twenties. I had a string of speeding tickets throughout my college years and also enough unpaid parking tickets from the university parking enforcement that I once had my vehicle towed, but for the most part I mostly had a lead foot.

IN the years after graduating college, I pretty much stopped getting speeding tickets, but I had several tickets for expired tabs. I see a lot of people in court who are in court on a suspended license from not paying speeding or other tickets. Most of them are poor and choose to pay for food or new clothes for their kids than pay for speeding tickets and often they are pulled over because they didn't have valid tabs on their car. The reason people do not have valid tabs can be nefarious (stolen car, stolen plates, etc) but they can also be economical (can't afford the emissions test, the licensing fees, etc) or because you are lazy and forgetful. The latter was the case with me. The latter was true for me. I can remember putting off going down to the licensing place until I got the no tab ticket.

But in the last three I haven't had a thing, not so much as a parking ticket. Part of that is the result of not owning a car for a year and one-half. There was no speeding then. The other part has been working in a personal injury firm and a prosecutors officer transforming me into a defensive driver and strict follower of the traffic code. When you read about thousands of car accidents, DUIs, reckless driving cases you realize what a dangerous place the roads are and how important it is to be a careful driver. The other added benefit of not speeding and keeping your tabs up to date is even though you may get places a bit later and you have to make sure you check your mail, you sure do save a ton of money. $112 speeding ticket? No thanks.