Sorry, it wasn't clear to me that you were not aware of the suspended license.
I still think that you can't complain about getting the initial fine, regardless of the size of the town where you broke the law. I also don't see how this is really connected with being poor.
If you're arguing that many speed limits are set to low I'm totally with you, but that's a separate question.
I'm not even arguing that they're too low, I'm arguing that they should not be used as a fund-raiser.
The particular section of highway I'm talking about is about a half-mile long, on a downhill grade, and changes down 10mph.
The cops sit in the middle and ticket people as they're decelerating. It's a racket, plain and simple.
Exactly. It's not like I even made a choice to drive with a suspended license. This was nearly 20 years ago now, and it happened in a tiny no-red-light town with no computer system. The ticket was for 61 in a 55 on a downhill grade. The dead-tree paperwork that confirmed that I had paid got lost, they had the wrong address on file, and I never found out my license was suspended. Cut to 2 years later and a different blink-and-you-miss it town that happens to be on a border bottleneck is running their weekly roadblock while I happen to pass through, and next thing I know it's "Step out of the car and put your hands behind your back."