![\"\"](\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/bus_rules.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Today, I got a ticket it in the mail.\u00a0 When I saw the words \u201ctraffic violation enclosed\u201d I winced because I knew that there was an extremely high chance that it was not me that was the driver at the time of the violation, seeing as how I barely get to drive my own registered vehicle these days, as my au pair uses it to do all of hauling of my kids to school and extracurriculars.\u00a0 However, I was not upset with them because I\u2019m sure it was an honest mistake, and it was more than likely to have occurred in the process of while they were taking my kids somewhere they needed to be.<\/span><\/p>\n Bringing the envelope into the house, my mind raced at what the possible fine was going to be, the last time I got a traffic camera violation, it was like $55, and when I got a school zone camera violation that was overturned on account of it not being a school day, I still saw that it was somewhere in the neighborhood of $125~ish.\u00a0 I hoped it was closer to the traffic camera, and not the school zone.<\/span><\/p>\n Turns out that the violation was that of passing a stopped school bus on a multi-lane road with a center turning lane, which I\u2019ll admit that I had to stop and think about the rules on that one, but I probably would\u2019ve stopped out of doubt.\u00a0 And the time stamp confirmed that it was at a time in which it was the au pair taking my kids to extracurriculars, so it wasn\u2019t my own doing; but seeing as how the car is registered to me, that\u2019s who the ticket is directed at.<\/span><\/p>\n As for the violation, I imagine my face looking as close to possible<\/a> as Jim Carrey\u2019s The Mask<\/em> as humanly possible when I saw the comma in the number: $1,000.\u00a0 One thousand<\/em> (fucking) dollars.<\/span><\/p>\n My knee-jerk reaction was that, this most definitely had to be a fake, a scam.\u00a0 Even with the accompanying photo evidence of my car before and after the bus, this fine of a thousand dollars couldn\u2019t possibly be right, especially seeing as how I\u2019ve never had a violation of this nature in my record before.<\/span><\/p>\n So searching for it on my own on the internet, I find the city municipal site pretty quickly, and sure as shit, it\u2019s no fake.\u00a0 It\u2019s an actual program, that\u2019s been softly rolling out since like 2022, and any semblance of lower first violations all flew out the window as of July 2024, where the program rolled into the territory where all first violations are one thousand fucking dollars.<\/span><\/p>\n $1,000 for a school bus is absolutely draconian.\u00a0 This is some Commonwealth of Virginia-levels of extreme punishment.\u00a0 I\u2019m fortunate enough to be in a position to where I can figure this out, but it doesn\u2019t change the fact that the timing of it, and the flagrant intention of it is going to really ruin my life a little bit right now.\u00a0 I\u2019ve spent all of 2025 in some of the worst financial standing that I\u2019ve ever been in my adult life, and I\u2019ve been digging and fighting and persevering all year long, and just as I\u2019ve been able to clear some debts right in time for the holidays, getting this ridiculously large fine just feels like I\u2019m being kicked while I\u2019m already down.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This just reinforces the feeling I\u2019ve had most of the year that I\u2019m just this gigantic fucking punching bag for life\u2019s cruel scenarios sometimes.<\/span><\/p>\n I get the whole idea of the program, and I am all about increasing safety for children.\u00a0 I\u2019m not butt-hurt over the notion of buses having cameras equipped to catch and penalize those who don\u2019t follow the laws of bus safety, I\u2019m just in a state of being flabbergasted that the fines are just so astronomically high.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n While venting my shock at the high violation cost, I came across this news<\/a> story that echoes my general concern, and this quote is the best\/worst\/most ironic part of the whole thing:<\/span><\/p>\n A fine needs to get people\u2019s attention, yes \u2014 but it shouldn\u2019t be so high it\u2019s impossible to pay,” (State Rep and who helped write the law Don) Parson said.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Additionally, this same person was quoted saying:<\/span><\/p>\n What we\u2019re doing here is trying to protect children \u2014and it is very important \u2014 but I also think $1,000 is too high,” he said.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n I\u2019m just in a state of disbelief, honestly.\u00a0 This $1,000 fine is going to absolutely kill me.\u00a0 No, I\u2019m not going to lose my home or anything, but it\u2019s not something I can just shrug off.\u00a0 In all likelihood, it\u2019s just going to be put on my credit card, adding to the debt that has been going in the wrong direction over the last two years, and it\u2019s going to live rent-free in my head for a little bit.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m not going to shirk off the accountability and put it onto my au pair, because she got it while in service of my family, so beyond a cursory discussion to be careful of stopped school buses, I\u2019m going to eat the burden, because the last thing I want is this to lead to her visa getting revoked because America sucks and I\u2019m sure there have been foreigners deported for less.<\/span><\/p>\n But a $1,000 fine, this time of year, due by Christmas, absolutely blows.\u00a0 I already stress over the obligation to buy gifts, but this basically consumes the vast majority of my gift buying budget.\u00a0 Nobody is going to feel sorry for me, and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s really going to be accepted if I just nope the fuck out of gift giving outright because of this, and I\u2019m trying really, really hard to keep my composure in light of this, and not let it ruin absolutely everything in spite of its extreme efforts.<\/span><\/p>\n I want to ask the rhetorical question on when will life start to get any easier, but the real question is if it ever really will at all?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today, I got a ticket it in the mail.\u00a0 When I saw the words \u201ctraffic violation enclosed\u201d I winced because I knew that there was an extremely high chance that it was not me that was the driver at the time of the violation, seeing as how I barely get to drive my own registered … Continue reading Well this is going to make a real lean Christmas<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,201,104,45,72,191,83,8,146,49],"class_list":["post-50968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-angst","tag-cash-money","tag-depression","tag-fail","tag-government","tag-greed","tag-observations","tag-ohgeorgia","tag-triggered","tag-wtf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50970,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50968\/revisions\/50970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![close to possible<\/a> as Jim Carrey\u2019s The Mask<\/em> as humanly possible when I saw the comma in the number: $1,000.\u00a0 One thousand<\/em> (fucking) dollars.<\/span><\/p>\nMy knee-jerk reaction was that, this most definitely had to be a fake, a scam.\u00a0 Even with the accompanying photo evidence of my car before and after the bus, this fine of a thousand dollars couldn\u2019t possibly be right, especially seeing as how I\u2019ve never had a violation of this nature in my record before.<\/span><\/p>\nSo searching for it on my own on the internet, I find the city municipal site pretty quickly, and sure as shit, it\u2019s no fake.\u00a0 It\u2019s an actual program, that\u2019s been softly rolling out since like 2022, and any semblance of lower first violations all flew out the window as of July 2024, where the program rolled into the territory where all first violations are one thousand fucking dollars.<\/span><\/p>\n$1,000 for a school bus is absolutely draconian.\u00a0 This is some Commonwealth of Virginia-levels of extreme punishment.\u00a0 I\u2019m fortunate enough to be in a position to where I can figure this out, but it doesn\u2019t change the fact that the timing of it, and the flagrant intention of it is going to really ruin my life a little bit right now.\u00a0 I\u2019ve spent all of 2025 in some of the worst financial standing that I\u2019ve ever been in my adult life, and I\u2019ve been digging and fighting and persevering all year long, and just as I\u2019ve been able to clear some debts right in time for the holidays, getting this ridiculously large fine just feels like I\u2019m being kicked while I\u2019m already down.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThis just reinforces the feeling I\u2019ve had most of the year that I\u2019m just this gigantic fucking punching bag for life\u2019s cruel scenarios sometimes.<\/span><\/p>\nI get the whole idea of the program, and I am all about increasing safety for children.\u00a0 I\u2019m not butt-hurt over the notion of buses having cameras equipped to catch and penalize those who don\u2019t follow the laws of bus safety, I\u2019m just in a state of being flabbergasted that the fines are just so astronomically high.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\nWhile venting my shock at the high violation cost, I came across this news<\/a> story that echoes my general concern, and this quote is the best\/worst\/most ironic part of the whole thing:<\/span><\/p>\nA fine needs to get people\u2019s attention, yes \u2014 but it shouldn\u2019t be so high it\u2019s impossible to pay,” (State Rep and who helped write the law Don) Parson said.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nAdditionally, this same person was quoted saying:<\/span><\/p>\nWhat we\u2019re doing here is trying to protect children \u2014and it is very important \u2014 but I also think $1,000 is too high,” he said.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nI\u2019m just in a state of disbelief, honestly.\u00a0 This $1,000 fine is going to absolutely kill me.\u00a0 No, I\u2019m not going to lose my home or anything, but it\u2019s not something I can just shrug off.\u00a0 In all likelihood, it\u2019s just going to be put on my credit card, adding to the debt that has been going in the wrong direction over the last two years, and it\u2019s going to live rent-free in my head for a little bit.<\/span><\/p>\nI\u2019m not going to shirk off the accountability and put it onto my au pair, because she got it while in service of my family, so beyond a cursory discussion to be careful of stopped school buses, I\u2019m going to eat the burden, because the last thing I want is this to lead to her visa getting revoked because America sucks and I\u2019m sure there have been foreigners deported for less.<\/span><\/p>\nBut a $1,000 fine, this time of year, due by Christmas, absolutely blows.\u00a0 I already stress over the obligation to buy gifts, but this basically consumes the vast majority of my gift buying budget.\u00a0 Nobody is going to feel sorry for me, and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s really going to be accepted if I just nope the fuck out of gift giving outright because of this, and I\u2019m trying really, really hard to keep my composure in light of this, and not let it ruin absolutely everything in spite of its extreme efforts.<\/span><\/p>\nI want to ask the rhetorical question on when will life start to get any easier, but the real question is if it ever really will at all?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today, I got a ticket it in the mail.\u00a0 When I saw the words \u201ctraffic violation enclosed\u201d I winced because I knew that there was an extremely high chance that it was not me that was the driver at the time of the violation, seeing as how I barely get to drive my own registered … Continue reading Well this is going to make a real lean Christmas<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,201,104,45,72,191,83,8,146,49],"class_list":["post-50968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-angst","tag-cash-money","tag-depression","tag-fail","tag-government","tag-greed","tag-observations","tag-ohgeorgia","tag-triggered","tag-wtf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50970,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50968\/revisions\/50970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/nEK2duZmO_E\/hq720.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEhCK4FEIIDSFryq4qpAxMIARUAAAAAGAElAADIQj0AgKJD&rs=AOn4CLAcD0Vsms0JB5s6Px3rUdVOTs9wBw\"){kind=link}