Pete's Log: damn speeding foreigners

Entry #1419, (Life in General)
(posted when I was 28 years old.)

I got my first speeding ticket in Germany this morning. I was caught going 72 in a 50 zone (that's in km/h). I barely even drive, but I had Frank's car today since he's on vacation, and I wanted to do some shopping after work, so I drove.

It was a rather large radar operation, and my Colorado ID got shown around to everyone, they were getting a kick out of it. One of the more experienced police officers was explaining to the others what all the fields meant. They were quite polite and friendly.

I got lucky, though. There's a 3 km/h tolerance in measurement (under 100 km/h, above 100 it's 3%), and if you're going more than 20 km/h over the limit, you get a point. So as it was, I got punished for 19 over, and only had to pay 35 Euro with no points.

I'm not certain how the points would've counted against my CO license, but since I am angemeldet, and since I do need to convert the license to a German one within the next two months, I'd imagine the consequences of just one more km/h could've been unpleasant. As it stands, I was just late for work.

My last speeding ticket was on June 6, 2002. It was a good run while it lasted...