MoCo Safe Speed is a Big, Giant, F'ing SCAM

Had a wonderful time getting my teeth drilled at the dentist a few weeks ago.  Jumped in the car and drove north on Georgia Ave toward 495 to get to work--it was about 11am'ish and there was no traffic, so I was moving at a nice steady pace, no faster or slower than the rest of the few cars on the road.  Little did I know I was posing a direct threat to the lives of those around me, and probably my own as well.

Or at least that's what I'm lead to believe having since received a $40 speeding ticket.  Not from a human being, mind you, but from a speed trap camera posted at the 9000 block of Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring, MD.  I was going 48 in a 35.  YES, I know that's over the limit.  But...COME. ON.  I wasn't street racing.  I wasn't weaving in and out of traffic.  I was driving WITH the flow of those around me...isn't that the safest kind of driving?  Isn't that what we're taught to do???

If I was driving four measly miles per hour slower, the camera wouldn't have tripped; they are designed to take a picture not at every car that exceeds the speed limit, but every car that exceeds the posted speed limit by 10+mph.  Now, I realize this is actually to the benefit of Average Joe Driver.  However, if you're trying to promote law-abidance...why not promote abidance of the ACTUAL LAW!!!  "So, the LAW is 35...but I can drive 44 and that's cool...BUT I can't drive 45 or I'm gettin' my picture taken??"  It seems to me that if the people behind these Big Brother machines are so concerned with our safety (which, btw, they aren't, as evidenced by the fact that these tickets don't ever result in points on your record...so really anyone with a little bit of expendable cash doesn't have to give a steaming donkey turd about burning down the road at whatever speed they feel like on that given day), they would have designed these machines to...I don't know...keep us focused on obeying the speed limit imposed by our lawmakers that, we are lead to believe, is based upon criteria meant to ensure maximum safety for those on and around that road???

....sigh....

OPTIONS

• Fight it: Spend a wasted PTO day in court only to have a judge slam his gavel down on my guilty-before-innocent ass, forcing me to pay the $40 AND court costs.
• Pay it: Pay the fee and feel the pit in my stomach harden into stone knowing there's no damn recourse that will satisfy my frustration with this whole ridiculous mess.

Fight the power, my friends! http://www.stopbigbrothermd.org/