As I left the driveway this morning, I felt my pockets and quickly realized that I had left my wallet at home. So, I turned the car around and heading back to fetch it from my room. It really was a blessing that I had the sense to notice that it wasn’t in my pockets. Seriously. That’s because I was nailed for speeding today.

So, I’m driving down McNicoll as I do whenever I have the car. It’s a fairly clear route, and despite the low speed limit, it still moves at a decent pace. So, here I am in the right lane when this police officer steps out into the road and motions for me to turn into a side street. My first thought was, “what’s all this about?” My imagination was acting up, and I thought that perhaps there was some big drug bust going on (or something) that required people to keep thw road clear. However, those thoughts quickly dissipated as soon as I saw the camera/radar thing.

I stayed calm and answered everything clearly. I didn’t engage in chit chat or tried to feign innocence. He told me I was going 65 km/h in a 50 zone. Fair enough. While I was waiting for him to write my ticket, I noticed that the police got two other cars stopped at the side. There were a total of three police officers, so I can imagine they caught a lot of people this morning. He handed me my ticket, and I was off again.

Man, there’s nothing like a traffic ticket to make you feel absolutely emasculated. I was compelled to go the speed limit, thinking that I didn’t want to risk getting a second one in one morning. No, that would not be good at all. As I drove, I felt extremely slow. There were a few cars whizzing past, making me gripe, “man, why don’t they get caught?” To my surprise though, there were a good number of cars also following the limit. Ha! People following the law? That’s just crazy! Seriously though, I guess going at a particular speed has just become a habit of sorts. People routinely go 10-20 over the limit. Perhaps it was just my bad luck.

The ticket lists the fine sa $52.50, which includes a “victim fine surcharge”. The hell? I guess that’s a cheap ticket. As soon as I got to work, I did some research. It turns out that getting a ticket for going 15 km/h or less over the speed limit means that I get no demerit points, which is a bit of a relief for me. Although, I have to wonder (and worry) how this is going to affect my insurance rates.

All in all, I just want to pay the damn thing and get it over with. Perhaps next week, I should change my route and find another route that’s either quicker, or go back to another standby route that has many stop lights (there’s no opportunity to speed in such cases).

Blah. Thanks, Officer Wallace.