Last Friday, I had to go to court for a ticket.

It was a really lame ticket, which I got in March for evasion of fare payment on the Lightrail. Which is kinda true. I forgot my pass one morning, and I didn’t have the cash on me to buy a ticket when I realized that my pass was on my dresser instead of my pocket.

The really sad and depressing thing about getting the ticket was that I knew I was going to get it before it happened. They don’t do fare checks everyday, and they hardly ever do them in the morning because the trains are too crowded for the officers (either two or four) to get through the car before the next stop. But, every time I forget my pass, I am guaranteed to jinx myself into a fare check and a ticket.

Anyway, I went to court, which is the first time I have ever actually gone to court for a ticket of any kind. After standing in the wrong line because the directions were unclear, I went to wait in the court room. Fare evasion is heard along with traffic tickets and illegal camping. I would suppose everything that has a fine instead of a punishment is heard there.

So, as I’m waiting, there are a lot of people called ahead of me. Illegal camping never gets a fine, since the only people ticketed with that are the homeless. Instead, they get four hours of community service at Loaves and Fishes, which isn’t a hardship, since most of them spend their time there anyway. The homeless get community service instead of a fine in almost all cases.

The traffic violations are interesting, because people seem to think that they have a good enough reason to have their ticket dismissed. For example, one guy received a ticket for driving a vehicle that wasn’t registered, and didn’t have insurance. Why did he get pulled over? Because he ran a stop sign. He pleaded guilty to running the stop sign, but argued that it the registration problem wasn’t his fault because it wasn’t his car, and he didn’t know.

Oddly enough (to him), it was his problem, because he got a ticket for operating the vehicle, not owning the vehicle. So, for reference, if you’re going to drive a car that doesn’t belong to you, double check whether it has all the important documents or not, because it’s still your fault that you’re driving it.

Moving on. Fare evasion for Lightrail is a pretty common occurrence, given that there were 10 people in a row who all had the same ticket. When you stand up in front of the judge, she asks “How do you plead?” And most plead guilty, and pay their ticket. There are a few who plead not guilty, and then they have to go about proving that they in fact weren’t evading paying the fare.

By the time I got called, the judge didn’t even ask me how I plead (which I would have plead not guilty). She asked, “Ms. Hightower, do you have a valid pass for March?” Which I did, because I have a semester pass through the college. I showed it to the bailiff, he verified it, and my ticket was dismissed. Which I knew was going to happen, because the office who gave me my ticket told me it would.

In all, it only took me an hour from when I left work to go to court to when I got back to work, so it didn’t take me very long at all. But, if I really had been evading fares, I wouldn’t have gone to court at all. I would have just payed the fine, because well, I really think going to court is a waste of time if they’re going to make you pay it anyway.

But, that’s my day at traffic court. It’s kinda interesting, but small claims is better. Occasionally you get to hear arguments there.

- “But It’s Better When We Do,” A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out: Panic! At the Disco