Motodisiac

After my pleading not guilty fiasco I absolutely had to go to the traffic court as soon as I could. In my mind I wanted to get this over with, have my new trial date and move along with the process. With that school of thought I arrived to the Los Angeles Metropolitan Court house at 8:10 this morning.

The line was as big as when I had been there earlier this year to beat my speeding ticket. The court house opens at 8. So apparently a lot of people come early trying to be the first ones at the door. I went to the end of the line and 20 minutes later I was inside. 20 minutes later I looked outside and there was no line to be found. Note to self - next time arrive at 9. Refreshingly enough one of the police officers at the security gate was nice enough to pass my helmet gently through the X-Ray machine. Per him helmets tend to roll out of it and scratch against the outlet of the machine.

There were only 4 windows opened out of the total of 10. And the line looked enormous. However this side of the court house building was designated to take care of all cases that had nothing to do with payments. And the line was moving fairly fast. 25 minutes later I was at the window.

The not so nice female clerk had suggested 2 available dates for my trial. The first option was less than 3 weeks from today. That would totally defeat my purpose of going to trial in the first place. My informal discovery request would not have been processed in a timely  fashion. And I can’t just mail the request now. As far as everyone is concerned the case is closed. No one would lift a finger to provide any information I would request. The second date was December 24th. I am scheduled to be out of town on that date with tickets already in my possession. “How can we make this happen?” - I asked the clerk. She told me she was going to go see what else she had available and disappeared from my limited line of site into her world - the other side of the glass. She returned shortly with a really beat up looking ledger book. There handwritten times and cases were filled in for each of the days. “Unfortunately”,  she said, “the book does not go further than the end of December. And the two days I suggested were not good for you. So come back in a couple of weeks or so when we have the January schedule in here”.

You are kidding me, right? It is 2008, the new millenium, I am in the Metropolitan court house of one of the largest cities in the country that prides itself on being the only remaining super power in the world. And they are using hand written ledgers to maintain the court dates availability? Frustrated I left the court house only to come back in the next couple of weeks. Apparently I have one month to reopen my case. However no one could give me the exact time frame within which I am eligible to do so. The clerk told me I have to do that by November and would not give me a specific date. I will be back in a couple of weeks though just to be on the safe side.

I walked back to where I had parked my bike. To my surprise I saw the following:

That is some asshat parking right there. He could not have possibly parked his piece of shit 15 year old Mazda closer to my bike. After a thorough inspection no sign of even a remote touch between the car’s bumper and the foot peg or any other part of my bike was found. Otherwise I would or would not have done something to his car in retaliation :). Still, what a tool bag.

Apart from anger, frustration and overwhelming feeling of futility the whole morning at the Los Angeles Metropolitan Court house experience was mildly entertaining. I counted at least 3 people in line who were high. And not just a little high but high off their asses. Constant giggles could be heard frequently from the two girls standing in line behind me :). Hey, it is Southern California after all. Also at least 3 or 4 people were intermittently chatting to themselves out loud. Some 10 minutes into my wait to get to the clerk’s window one lady tried to exit through the door that had a huge sign that read “NO EXIT HERE”. How stupid should you be, lady? Alarm went off scaring the woman away from the door. An armed security guard appeared. The guy must have been 80 years old. I am not sure how anyone would allow him to carry a fire arm. A recoil would knock him off his feet. After 5 minutes of fruitless attempts to switch off the alarm the second armed security guard came to the rescue.

Lessons learned:

• obviously do things right from the start, otherwise face the consequences.
• don’t give the traffic court system too much credit, it is old, bureaucratic, very low tech and absurd
• don’t arrive to the court house right before or after it opens
• park your bike at an angle, not strictly perpendicular to the pavement
• never underestimate human stupidity - “no exit here” signs aren’t for everyone after all