Umm...stop speeding?

There’s an article in the Seattle Times today about how there has been an increasing trend in speeding ticket dismissals due to the relatively new practice of actually hiring lawyers to fight the tickets.

My first reaction to the headline was “good for us drivers,” because I think a lot of the time, speeding tickets are a bit bullshit. BUT, the article opens like so:

Joseph Ayala got the first speeding ticket seven years ago. Instead of paying it, Ayala took the advice of his boss and hired a lawyer.

The lawyer, Jeannie Mucklestone, got the ticket dismissed. And Ayala has turned to her ever since.

“Jeannie’s probably gotten me out of five tickets,” said Ayala, a software developer who lives in Sammamish. “The last thing that I would want is five speeding tickets on my record.”

To which my reaction is “FIVE speeding tickets?”

At this point, Ayala probably deserves a speeding ticket. Everyone speeds a little bit now and then, intentionally or otherwise, and I think a large part of getting a ticket is learning that you can’t just go around speeding. Believe it or not, it can be dangerous.

Buy Ayala isn’t getting tickets, and he clearly isn’t becoming a better driver. What’s the sense in that?