I’m pretty good at getting out of tickets. I know how to talk to a police officer. I just had a stretch of being pulled over 11 times without getting one ticket. About a year ago, the officer thanked ME before getting back into his car. But highway patrolmen are a totally different thing.
Consequently, back in July I got a ticket on Highway 17 just north of Santa Cruz. Like so many other people, the first thing I did when that officer was out of range was to look over the ticket and see if he’d made a mistake anywhere. Maybe he misspelled my name or wrote down my license number wrong. I immediately looked for a way to fight this ticket.
Of course, I’m sure we’ve all heard the different ways to get out of a ticket. If you take it to court, the officer won’t show up. If there’s a mistake in the filing, you can get out of it. My first inclination was to try and find a loophole, even though I knew exactly what I was doing when I set my cruise control over the limit.
What is it about us that inherently thinks that things like speeding tickets are something we ought to fight? I was definitely driving over the limit and I clearly got caught; so why am I so quick to think this is something I can escape? Even though the mistake was mine, I wanted to find a way to make the officer at fault in order to excuse my error.
I wonder, is this something I do everywhere in my life? Do I seek to pass responsibility or blame onto others, or onto my circumstances? The problem really isn’t whether I’m doing the wrong thing, it’s that I’m so prone to trying to excuse my own behavior, even when I knew from the start that I was in the wrong. Loopholes are often my savior, and frankly, I need to unlearn how to talk my way out of tickets. So, instead of fighting this ticket, I’ve decided to pay it. And now that I’m $225 poorer, I might actually start driving slower instead of relying on my ability to talk my way out of a problem.
great thoughts dude. its an engaging concept to accept consequences for our actions....i know my nature is to try and get out of those consequences, especially relationally.....if i want to cut a relationship with a person (male or female) off, I find myself trying to compartmentalize my role in the severing to protect myself.
ReplyDeleteWow. That's really good.
ReplyDeleteTotally Dan. While I'm all about taking responsibility for my failures, I've found that if I can get out of it without passing responsibility to someone else, I do it.
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