Tips to Avoid a Speeding Ticket

One week ago, I got to make the lovely trip across the high deserts of Oregon and Idaho on my way to school at BYU-I. Well, at good ole' mile post 95, east of Boise, on I-84 I received a speeding ticket for $75. It was about 10p.m., not much traffic on the road and I was clocked doing 89 in a 75. This is my second speeding ticket and it sure beats the $420 first ticket three years ago. Now, of course, this could have been prevented so here is a list of things you ought not to do if you want to avoid a speeding ticket

• First of all, don't talk on the phone. It is a bad distraction and that's when it all started to go downhill. I had been going a good fairly legal speed until I started chattin' on the phone.


• While driving and talking on the phone, never say "man I'm going too fast but I haven't seen a single cop since I got into Idaho and they wouldn't pull me over anyways." At that very moment, the state trooper had pulled out behind me without his lights on. I thought it was just another car coming up behind me.


• When the officer asks you "How fast do you think you were going?", don't respond by saying "well, my speedometer only goes to 84 and I was quite a ways past that so I know I was going to fast." I don't know how it sounded to him but I knew right after I had said that, that it didn't come out too well.


• Lastly, buy a car with cruise control. Let me tell you, this makes a big difference. Both of my two tickets were because I was on the freeway and didn't have cruise control. With this bad boy you can set your speed at 5 or 6 mph over the speed limit and you won't ever get pulled over but instead, I had Ray Jr. flunctuating speed.

It was still a fun trip even though I didn't have the guts to get my car back over 70mph the rest of the way. The conclusion of the trip was the best because I couldn't find Evan's apartment at 2 in the morning and he was out of town so I ended up sleeping in my car for 3 hours. Fun times!