Traffic Court

Today at 9am, I had the distinct honor to go to Alachua County Traffic Court to testify against the kid that crashed his car into the car behind mine, which then crashed into me and made me crash into the car in front of me. Florida has weird laws where traffic violations are not criminal matters, but are civil cases. (The cop who wrote the kid a ticket explained this to me after court) Cops who write tickets for wrecks are not able to testify in the case outside of the tickets they wrote because they did not witness the accident first hand. They subpeona all those involved in the case but, since it is a civil matter, there is no legal compulsion for a witness to attend and many choose not to. Since most people know this, a cottage industry of traffic attorneys have risen up where they represent the people who have been cited. The people who are cited don't show up (because their lawyer is there) and, if no witness shows up and the cop is not allowed to testify, the lawyer calls for a dismissal and the citation goes away. Because I have a high level of civil responsibility, I showed up and the kid that hit me had to pay his citation AND pay the lawyer fees.

I gotta say, it was a good day.