why I drive like an old lady now

I don't have much of a lead foot but enough to get myself 2 speeding tickets in the past year. There are way better things that my money and time could be spent on than court dates and speeding tickets.

I've realized that raging against the proverbial machine doesn't do too much good in situations like these, and also that my court date involved much less stress than everyone else's in the room.

Out of the 30 or so people in the courtroom, I'm one of three white people who've gotten tickets and for those people that say that profiling doesn't exist, I wonder if they've ever been down here.

And I know that I've got much less hassle than everyone else in the room, negotiating getting the points off my license rather than choosing between house arrest, 180 days in jail or a fine of a thousand dollars for screwing up and then screwing up again and again.

I look at these lawyers who look like they spend loads of money on their hair doing a terrible job of defending their clients. We defendants sit next to each other in the benches clutching our paperwork, not saying anything and feeling awkward.

I think about how much money the city's making, how even though my fine was halved, I still ended up owing $261.

I walked out feeling liberated, but thinking about how screwed how many other people were that day and every weekday in this world.