More Orange County Traffic Division stuff...

Well, in the spirit of ranting about those annoying situations which sometimes arise concerning the Orange County Traffic Division...aka the Clerk of the Court, I decided to make today's entry a recap of my events for the day. Pam Johnson gave me the bright idea to write about my own circumstance simply by writing about her own personal experience recently. For those of you who don't know a little about my recent "run-ins" with the law, I was in a minor rear-end accident back in May. I was the rear-ender, so the accident was my fault. I was on my way to my son's preschool graduation, in fact, I was only a block down the road from his preschool where the ceremony was being held when traffic became bottle-necked and came to a sudden halt in the lane I was traveling in. I disregarded the number one rule of driving for a brief moment...I took my eyes off the road for a split second to look down into my purse for my watch, when before I knew it, I was looking at the rear end of the vehicle in front of me and "kaboom"! I rear-ended the little black SUV. No one was hurt, but I will never forgive myself for missing my son's preschool graduation. I was more upset about that than anything else. Since the accident was my fault, of course, I received a ticket. They only give you 30 days to pay the ticket, no matter whatever your present circumstances. So, of course, this $100+ ticket couldn't have come at a more difficult time for us financially. It was the end of the school year with summer camps to pay in advance for, not to mention all the year-end festivities and other expenses such as year-end gifts for teachers of each of my three children. Simply put, I knew I wouldn't have the money in 30 days. No problem, I thought! I will just pay the fee when it is convenient for my budget. After all, I was already out $250 for the deductible to cover the repairs to my vehicle. So, I paid the ticket about 2-3 weeks after the 30 days due date. The ticket voucher never indicated anywhere on the form what to do in case you can't pay the ticket within 30 days. Surely, I am not the only person who has ever encountered this predicament? As my long, hot, drought-like summer came to a close (and I am not talking about weather, here...I am referring to a severe lack of funds), I was unpleasantly surprised to open my mailbox one day in August to find a letter from Orange County warning me that my driver's license was about to be suspended! For what...I thought? After all, I DID pay that prior ticket. After a phone call to the Clerk of the Court, I was informed that it was due to an $18 late fee that had been tacked onto my ticket since it was paid after the 30 days due date. Of course, I was never informed that I had incurred this $18 late fee, much less that it was about to cause me a suspended license! I went down in person to the Clerk of Court on my next day off and paid the $18 fee, only to be told then that I would now need to stand in yet, another line right next to the one I had just gone through. This new line was for the DMV office and I needed to show proof that this payment had been received in order for them to NOT suspend my license. OK, so I did this. Problem solved!

Fast forward to today...I had elected on my original ticket to take the Driver Improvement/Traffic School course in order to prevent points being assessed on my license from that ticket. The deadline for taking this course and providing proof of completion of an approved course is Tuesday, Oct. 17th. Procrastination is my new middle name and so, I had put this off for many weeks. I finally signed up online last week to take an online version of this Traffic School course. I finally finished the last chapter last night and completed all quizzes and finally, passed the Final Exam, as well. I requested that the certificate of completion be e-mailed to me, so that I could print it out directly and take it down in person to the Clerk of the Court before Oct. 17th. I got home from work today and found out that the certificate had NOT been e-mailed to me as I had expected. So, I called the company and a helpful representative e-mailed me directly the certificate once again as we spoke over the phone. She was even nice enough to wait on the phone line with me to verify that I did receive it. I printed it out and raced down to the local Clerk of Court office in Winter Park at about 4:15pm, knowing that the office closes at 5pm. I still had one more day to get the certificate in the hands of the Clerk of the Court's office, but, I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight if I didn't know for certain that I could successfully cross this errand off my list of duties for the day. Fortunately, as I walked into the building this afternoon, a friendly security office/police officer asked me what I needed. I simply told him that I was here to see the Clerk of Court and showed him my certificate. He asked me if the certificate was late and I promptly responded, "No...it is not due until tomorrow". He smiled and while looking at my three kids in tow, pleasantly told me that I didn't need to wait an hour in line and all I needed to do was to put my certificate in one of the labeled envelopes located on the outside of the entry door and to place it in the blue overnight drop-off box located right outside in the parking lot. It seemed too good to be true! He assured me that it was all I needed to do! So, I wrote a brief note on the form and carefully folded it and put it in one of the envelopes and dropped it into the drop box, just as he told me to do! It was nice to know that I can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that someone should process my certificate by tomorrow and hopefully, I can FINALLY put that annoying fender-bender and all the strings that came attached to that mishap behind me once and for all! Let's hope I don't get another unexpected letter in the mail soon informing me that my license is about to be suspended for them not having ever received my proof of completion of the driving course!