I was sitting on the people mover at San Francisco airport and happen to overhear two business guys talking. The one guy was talking about how he had been pulling out of the gas station on the way to the airport and the Red Light Camera flashed in his back mirror. He admitted that he had run the red light and that he had not really paid attention to the light, since he was in a hurry to the airport. His buddy started to get pissed off since he realized that the rental car he had was in his name and he figured he was going to get the ticket and would have to come back to San Francisco to go to court. The driver guy smirked and said that he probably would be the one that got into trouble since his face was in the camera, though he earlier had said that the camera took a shot of the back of the car.
Anyway, they went on to talk about how they could get out of this ticket. The one guy came up with this brilliant idea that they could say the rental car they had was already returned much earlier in the day and it must have been someone else that had rented the car. They also suggested they should go to Hertz and see if they could get a post dated receipt that showed they had returned the car many hours earlier.
They worked many schemes, including one idea that the car had been stolen and that they had no idea who might have been driving it. The best idea I heard was they had been dropped off by the rental car company at the airport 'We Pick You Up', and that it was one of the rental car employees that must have been driving through the red-light.
I found it amusing, but it does make you realize that most people will do anything they can to get out of paying a ticket or paying taxes. It seems that many people would rather pay a lot more money or go way out of their way rather than just pay the fines or taxes that they owe. I think this mentality is a major problem and groups like the Tea Party are dangerous.
I am sure at the end of the day these guys will just pay the fine, they actually seemed like pretty smart business guys, but it was interesting to hear their ideas and all the crazy concepts they were working through.
It actually does make you understand why judges and police officers don't trust anyone.
