🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <jdecarlo.137.711141073@mitre.org> jdecarlo@mitre.org (John DeCarlo) writes:
>In article <1992Jul14.170104.9554@eliot.uucp> cmb@eliot.uucp (Chris) writes:
>
>>In article <1992Jul13.134851.5792@wam.umd.edu>, dmb@wam.umd.edu 
>> (David M. Baggett) writes:
>>> For some reason judges don't seem to appreciate any arguing in traffic
>>> court.
>
>>I have noticed this.

  So did I.

  It happened in Frederick, MD.
  My wife was ticketed for the failure to obey traffic signs in December, 1990.
The signs said "No left turn on Shookstown Road. Mon-Fri 3pm-6pm." It 
does not make any sense for those who don't know where Shookstown Road is.
It was not surprising that my wife who came from Japan with me only a several
months ago did not know the name of some tiny local road. Although there was
a small guide sign which shows the name of the road, it was not visible
enough in the December evening. In addition, there should be no legal 
requirement for a driver to find all the "guide" singns. According to
the local newspaper, there were totally about 600 people who were charged
for the same reason within a month or two.
  I wrote a letter to the mayor of the city pointing out the logical deficit
of the signs. However, his reply said that once a sign is put, that shall be
enforced whether it makes sense or not. Another person in the highway
administration office told me that the mayor could post a sign syaing,
"Get off the car, and turn around three times," and make it have a legal
effectiveness. 
  Mayor's reply also said that the final decision regarding my wife's case
should be made by the judge at the court, so I prepared some simple statement 
for her to read at the court. However, when she tried to read the first
sentence, "The traffic sign was not self-explanatory because ...", the judge
inturrupted her before she stated the reason and said, "Wait a minute.
It IS self-explanatory." He didn't look happy to hear more words from my wife, 
and the case was dissmissed after a couple of minutes.

  We really appreciated American democracy ;-). 

Michiaki Masuda
Laboratory of Molecular Oncology
National Cancer Institute
Frederick, MD 21702

P.S. The city changed the signs to symbolic ones, which are more legible and
     more informative in terms of the place where the left turn prohibition
     is enforced only after they collected enough money and only after 
     most locals (including my wife) became able to tell where they cannot
     make a left turn even without looking at a traffic sign.