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The Cost Of Speeding

First of all I am not trying to make any excuses for my reluctance to obey the posted speed limit. I accept that I was driving faster than I should have. However, this $30 ticket cost me, in real cash paid, $203. That's right you math wizards, $188 in court costs. You REAL math wizards will see there is a problem there, more on that later. Maybe we should look at the other costs associated with my infraction.

Here are just a few things that come to mind:


  1. I got about a dozen letters from law firms wanting to represent me in court. Each firm had to print and send the letter to me which costs them money. Since I decided to hire none of them, this is overhead. Does this get added to their fees to cover the expense?
  2. I spent a total of 20 minutes inside the courthouse. I went through a very efficient line only to get to, what I assume was, an assistant DA that asked what I would like to do about the ticket. I asked for it to be "reduced." This is what those lawyers wanted to do, so why can't I ask the same thing. So it got reduced, which also reduced the fine to $15 (see math wizards, here is the missing money from above.) I am not sure what goes on behind the scenes, but $564/hour for court costs seems exorbitant.  This comes to about 45 minutes total away from work for parking and walking to and from the courthouse.
  3. I had to pay for parking, $2, which is money the city and the parking company would not have had. So really, I paid $205 to take care of a $15 ticket. 

What are other costs I may be missing?
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