Dear City of Portland Circuit Court,
I’m a big fan. Not of the Circuit Court in particular, but I’ve never had cause to interact with you before today, so who knows? I am a fan of your city. I have been for decades. But I must say, I’m terribly disappointed in you. If you wanted to give me a speeding ticket (and you obviously did), you could have proceeded like a “man,” as they, sexistly, say, and done it to my face, rather than the legal equivalent of texting me a Dear John letter. Etiquette aside, neither of us now has any idea why I was allegedly speeding at that particular moment. Maybe I was trying to escape the crazed driving of a deranged, stoned hippie. (I mean, this is Portland; that's as likely as not, right?) Maybe I was veering out of the path of a homeless dog. Maybe I was being pursued by an evil villain while trying to save the world. I don’t remember at what exact time those events took place, and since you chose to take a photo of me instead of pulling me over, neither do you.
My city of Minneapolis no longer allows traffic cameras. They have been ruled illegal by the courts. Perhaps, being the other top cycling city in the country (Yes, I know you’re ranked #1 and we’re #2, but we get to jump 2 spots because it gets really cold here), you are trying to discourage the use of cars by handing out tickets willy-nilly. But I needed my car to travel across the country and serve as an ambassador to your fair city, as flying would have made too large a carbon footprint, and while in Portland I was escorting a friend who did not have a bike with him, having also come to visit your fair city from somewhere else. (Bikeless?! Yes. He’s from Los Angeles. It’s kind of a disability.)
So here’s the deal. I love Portland. I know we’re all in a recession and that Portland’s unemployment rate is ridiculously high. But I think it is patently, across-the-board, unfair to issue traffic tickets which are not only terribly expensive, but will also affect my insurance rate (and my otherwise spotless record), while I am too far away to redress the accusation in court (not financially or environmentally wise to drive back, really), and cannot address the specific accusation because I do not have a photographic memory and therefore have no idea whether your reading was right nor whether, if it was, I had some excusable reason for temporarily accelerating.
As such, I am pleading “no contest”, though I may in fact be “not guilty”. You know what? If you really need it you can even keep the money as my (albeit currently unemployed) donation to your beautiful, if misguided, city. Just keep this ticket off my record, because I am a good driver and I deserve good driver insurance rates.
I leave the rest in your hands.
Thank you for your time.
ZB, Minneapolis, MN
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