My fault vs. Their fault

     Some of this story may have been covered in earlier entries. But I want to tell this story in the most factual way that I can. Everything in this story is going to be a fact. I’d like to add my own assumptions, but I’m going to try to refrain from that. I also realize that in order to believe the whole story you may have to assume that what I say is true. Using your logic, you will have to discover whether I could be telling the truth. I am not a liar, I promise that I will not say anything that did not actually happen. But again, I guess it is up for you to decide. I will point out the parts of this story that was my mistake.

     It all started with a rock. This rock was thrown at my windshield by a truck on the highway. It was not attempt to break my windshield, it was merely a circumstance where a truck kicked up a rock that cracked my windshield. This happened shortly before I was to take a cross country trip with my friends. So when the windshield cracked, I decided it would be more beneficial to go on the trip before I put a claim into my insurance company to fix the windshield. That way, the damage that thousands of miles do to a windshield would only hurt the soon to be replaced windshield.

    I went on this trip, and all went well. Unfortunately for me, I had just started a new business. Unlike working for a job that pays weekly, or bi-weekly, I had to depend on customers to make my money. In the past, when I went on vacation, I was able to spend all of my money because I knew I would return to a job that would pay me money. But in this situation, I needed money to buy the supplies necessary to complete my work. So after the vacation, after I had stupidly spent all my money, it was very hard to make more money. Meanwhile, I did not use my insurance to fix my window before my insurance was cancelled because I didn’t pay the bill.

     I did manage to survive, I applied for a hackney license which allowed me to drive a taxi. That helped me make enough money to start making money with my electrical business. That helped, but while I was driving a taxi to supplement my income, I stumbled upon another problem.

     One night I was driving a taxi, and I was behind two cars. The car in front was driving 15 miles an hour in a 30 MPH zone. It was about midnight, and I wondered if the driverof that car was drunk. The second car was swerving wildly behind the first car. I could not tell if the two drivers knew each other, or if the second car was angry at being behind the slow first car. As we approached a stop light, I pulled into the right turn only lane. My intentions were to get in front of, and away from these dangerous cars. In the state of Massachusetts, this is a common practice. It is illegal, but people do it very often. The light turned green, and I used the power of the V8 engine in the taxi to slip in front of the two cars. As soon as I did, I saw police flashing lights in my rearview mirror. The peculiar thing was, the law says to pull to the right and stop when an emergency vehicle is behind you with its emergency lights on. Yet, the officer driving the police vehicle tried to get by the two cars by pulling into the right turn only lane. The cop was about to commit the same violation he was going to pull me over for. But the two cars followed the law and began to pull towards the right side of the street. At this point, the police officer was forced to swerve to the left to get around these cars. Looking in my rearview, I thought he was going to roll his police van over. Keep in mind, I was driving a bright yellow taxi (the only yellow taxi in town) with a phone number written in many places on the car. It would have been easy for the police to find me, but they created a dangerous situation to try to pull me over. When he caught up to me, I had already pulled to the side of the road because I knew he was trying to pull me over. Who was more alert about the situation? He screamed and yelled, and eventually wrote me a ticket for a “marked lane violation.” I went to court to appeal the ticket, obviously having committed the violation in question, but questioning whether I or the police officer created a more dangerous situation. The police officer didn’t even tell the story as it happened. He claimed to have seen me in his rearview mirror (impossible, since he was never in front of me.) I asked him what the procedure was for a driver who sees emergency lights in his rearview…he said, “Go back to traffic school if you don’t know…” and eventually I told the judge what I thought, and received a notice in the mail a few weeks later claiming I was responsible for the ticket.

     Getting back to the insurance, in Massachusetts failing to keep up with your insurance causes insurance companies todeny you an installment plan. But there are a few companies that will “finance” your entire insurance bill and then let you pay them back. So I did that. It was all I could do. Of course they would not replace my windshield because the damage had occurred before they were responsible for my car. My inspection sticker expired because nobody would give me a sticker with a broken windshield…obviously. I’ll come back to the insurance again, but I’m trying to keep this in somewhat of a chronological order.

     Before my driver's license expired on my birthday in 2004, I got a letter from the Registry of Motor Vehicles notifying me of the issues that I needed to take care of in order to renew my license. They listed two items. One was the “marked lane violation” ticket that I didn’t pay. So I went to the Registry and paid that ticket, plus the late fee. The other item was an unpaid parking ticket in the Town of Waltham. I had never been to Waltham. I certainly wasn’t there at 2:00AM in the neighborhood the town considers, “the projects.” But this was the time and place on the parking ticket. So I drove to Waltham. I had to look at a map to find it, but I made it and found the Town Hall. I talked to a man there who said that he could look into the situation and find out whether the ticket was accurate. Meanwhile, my license was going to expire before he would have any answers for me. At the time, I tried everything I could to conform to this system…so I asked him, “If I pay this ticket, plus the late fees, and you find out the ticket was inaccurate, will I get my money back?” He almost laughed. He said, “No.” I paid the ticket anyway. At the time $45 wasn’t really a lot of money to me.

      So I solved the two issues, and went to the Registry to renew my license. When I got there, I was told that they couldn’t renew my license. They said I owed the Town of Holbrook excise tax for the year 2002. Mind you, this is all happening in the year 2004. I got a letter telling me the problems that would need to be solved in order to renew my license. It didn’t mention this excise tax. Furthermore, earlier in the year when I went to pay my 2004 excise tax, the Town Hall told me that I owed them money from 2002. So I asked them how much money I owed the town to take care of everything, and get me paid up. They told me, I wrote the check…done deal, right?

      The Registry had 2 years to make sure they told me that I owed the Town of Holbrook. They sent me a letter telling me the obstacles in my way to renew my license. Yet this excise tax situation was not included.

     Before I could settle this problem, my license expired. Does that mean I forgot how to drive? Apparently so, because I was in a good mood one day and ended up speeding, and being pulled over. I wasn’t driving unsafely, I was watching the road, but I was driving faster than the speed limit. My fault. The officer impounded my car, and gave me a ticket for speeding, driving with an expired inspection sticker, and driving with a cracked windshield. He didn’t even give me a ticket for driving with an expired license. Cops do tend to go easier on you if you accept responsibility for your mistakes. The curious thing is that when he added up the fines on the ticket, he accidentally added an extra $50. So I mailed that in to appeal it in court.

     Back to the insurance. I don’t tend to pay too much attention to due dates. My fault. But I noticed that I had an unopened insurance bill. It said that they would be canceling my insurance if I didn’t pay the bill by a certain date. It was already a week or two past the date. I went to the company, played ignorance and asked what the status of my insurance was, and how much I needed to pay. I had the money to bring my account to current. They said I was canceled, and I would need to pay $1800 to reinstate my insurance. First of all, supposedly my insurance was paid up by the finance company. So if I didn’t pay the finance company that should go on my credit report as a delinquent account. Second of all, I was behind $130 (two months of installments at $65 a month), yet a week later I received a check in the mail from my insurance company for $180 for the difference in what I paid, and the amount of coverage I received. I would have told them to swallow the $50 and use the rest to bring my policy up to date.

      I went to the Deputy Collector of Taxes to settle my excise problem. I presented my cancelled checks, and asked if he could look up how much money total I was supposed to pay during my five years in Holbrook, and how much I had paid. He said he couldn’t. There was another lady in there with the same problem as me. Again, I tried to conform, I went to an ATM and returned to pay my bill, which was $68 with late fees and all. When I returned, yet another lady had the same problem as me. I mentioned this to the tax collector and he said, and I quote, “Just give me your $68 and hit the road pal.” How’s that for public service?

     Meanwhile I get a letter in the mail telling me I must go to driver re-training classes because I have 5 traffic violations. Two of them were inspection stickers and another was the speeding ticket I was waiting to appeal. Am I a bad driver because my inspection sticker was expired? Both tickets came when I was driving vehicles in good condition. The second one had a cracked windshield, but does that make me a driver in need of re-training? In the last 9 years, I’ve been in one accident. And I was admittedly not paying attention that night. I went to driving class anyway, to avoid my license being suspended. The class surprised me, the lessons the guy taught me have helped me in everyday life, not just driving. Not bad for the $90 I paid for the class.  Again, I tried to conform.

      And of course the registration on my vehicle has expired because I was not allowed to renew it without an insurance policy. Believe me, I tried. Based on this story, if you are to take my word, can you see how I did everything I could to conform, to pay for my mistakes. I even paid for mistakes I didn’t make. I have to take responsibility for my actions, but apparently the Town of Holbrook, the Town of Waltham, the Deputy Tax Collector, the police officer who didn't know the rules of the road, and the officer who didn’t know how to add didn't have to pay for their mistakes. In fact, I haven’t even received a court date for that ticket with the math problems. Why should I have to accept responsibility, when the government won’t accept responsibility? I made a lot of attempts to clear this up, even when I knew they were in the wrong, but I’m still forced to drive my truck illegally. If I didn't, I couldn't make the money to pay for the rest of my mistakes.  Is there anymore backwards system than this?

      My final point. I wish everybody had to drive under the conditions that I have recently. The care and caution that I have to put into every journey that I make helps the roads be safer. If everybody knew that they personally would have to pay for their mistakes maybe we could quell this road rage that is rising today. Am I a criminal? Am I the one who shouldbear the burden here? The government is supposed to be controlled by the people, so you let me know if they are doing their job for you. If so, maybe it is YOU that is my enemy. If you know me personally, you know that I don’t consider you my enemy.  I don't even consider my enemies, enemies.