Your Tax Dollars at Work.....

Weesa, my step-daughter, got a red light ticket in the mail.

It showed a motorcycle sort of running a red light in a town about 70 miles from us, at 12:18 PM on a day when she was at work.

The pictures taken by the red light camera were included with the ticket.

The motorcycle rider braked suddenly, fishtailed slightly (because you can't always stop a motorcycle on a dime), then backed up. The ticket read "illegally entering the crosswalk" or something like that.

Oh, and the motorcycle rider was clearly a man.

With a different kind of motorcycle from the one Weesa has. His doesn't even have a sissy bar on the back.

The tag number was illegible, no matter how closely she zoomed in. (Apparently there is also a website where she could go to view the pictures.)

She was able to go online and fill out an appeal form, which will be shown to the judge.

But the only way she can get out of the ticket is to show up. In court.

She will have to take a day off from work and drive the 70 miles to this town where she hasn't been in recent memory and appear before the judge.

It would be cheaper for her just to pay the $90 ticket.

Here's what I think should happen:

The judge should look at her appeal form, call her personally and apologize for the trouble, and then go take the amount of the ticket out of the paycheck of whatever dolt sat down with those images and decided that particular letter/number combination MIGHT be Weesa's motorcycle license plate number.

If she HAS to show up in court, I think that government worker should have to reimburse Weesa for her day off from work.

Sheesh.