CLICK IT OR TICKET
Students experience speeding tickets, repercussions
by |Emily Turpin
S
eeing flashing police lights in his rear-view mirror, senior Cavan Stanaway pulled his car over to the side of a Michigan highway. He was on his way to visit his cousin in Grand Rapids and had a car full of other family members. The officer had sneaked up on Stanaway. He didn’t see him until it was too late to slow down. According to “Traffic Ticket Secrets,” more than 100,000 Americans get caught speeding every day. Each year, 41,000,000 speeding tickets are issued to drivers. One in six drivers will get a speeding ticket in his or her lifetime. This also means that each year one in every six drivers will get a speeding ticket. The most common age group to receive a ticket includes those between 17 and 24 years of age. “I was going 85 in a 70 (zone). Most of the cars around me were going 80, but I was in the outer lane going 85,” Stanaway said. “It was evening, about 7 o’clock, so it was still pretty light out.” Stanaway said he was not in a hurry, but he was driving well over the speed limit on the interstate. “My insurance really didn’t go up much because it
was 85 in a 70, which is 15 over, but it’s 15 on a highway,” Stanaway said. “So it did go up a little, but not as much as we expected. And the ticket was only $110. We just paid for it and it was fine.” Speeding not only increases one’s chance of getting a citation, but it also puts the driver’s life in danger — not to mention the lives of passengers and other drivers. Each year 5,000 drivers between the ages of 16 and 20 die from car accidents, and 38 percent of the males in this number were speeding at the time of their accident. According to “Speeding Ticket Central: Teenage Drivers,” speeding is a factor in 37 percent of car accidents involving 16-year-old drivers. Not all drivers are as calm as Stanaway about receiving a speeding ticket. Senior Ashley Goss received a ticket while driving a friend to work in the early morning. “Mine was on South Rugby, and the road is a straight away. I started to pull over, and it was raining that day. I was like, ‘I don’t really know what to do because I don’t want him to think I’m running away from him,’” Goss said. “So I pulled over, and he came up to my window and asked me to pull up to the little side off, so I did.” The $200 ticket Goss was given was eventually dropped since it was her first offense. Since the ticket was
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dropped, there were no repercussions. Goss did say her driving habits have changed since the incident. “I don’t find it necessary to speed anymore because I realized how much the tickets are, and they’re actually really expensive,” she said. “I was really scared, and I never want that to happen again. You literally feel your whole stomach drop. You don’t want to do anything wrong because they can give you a ticket for anything.” According to “Traffic Ticket Secrets,” the average cost of a speeding ticket is $150. With about 41,000,000 tickets being given out every year at an average of $150 each, that is more than $6 billion in fines. Another student took a different option rather than pay a speeding ticket fine. Senior Ulisses Diaz decided to go to driving school to avoid points on his insurance and his license. “I got my speeding ticket about two weeks ago. I was just driving down where the Mills River Ingles is and a cop just pulled up behind me,” Diaz said. “I thought he was chasing someone else, so I went to the side and he kept on following me. I had no reason to be speeding. I was just speeding.” Diaz had to pay court costs, but the fee for the ticket was dropped because he attended traffic school.