So someone sent me the link to the tax amnesty website and mostly out of curiosity I checked my drivers licence. I have no outstanding tickets on there so why should I worry? I am an upstanding citizen of Jamaica who believes in doing the responsible thing of going to court and pleading guilty with explanation and hoping the judge will fine me less than the amount that is on the ticket. Imagine my shock and utter dismay when I looked at the list and saw every ticket I have ever gotten on there! OMG! The government is evil! (This you already know, right?)
I felt like a perp! like I should be hiding from the coppers. I thought to myself, “Be silent dude, before someone calls down Babylon on you”. I soon heard other persons hollering about the same issue and the government’s admission that the system was a pile of horse manure and that it was full of errors was comforting. I soon put the issue to the back of my mind because I know I don’t have any outstanding tickets so once the government cleans up the list I would not be on there. Boy was I wrong…
After seeing that scary ad on TV with the guy behind bars looking like he was about to be molested I decided to take another look at the tax amnesty website. Would you believe that it still showed that I have outstanding tickets? Your shocked right? I know your not because we know how incompetent our government is and this incompetence is bipartisan!
I got the first ticket on Norman Manly Blvd in Negril in 2006. I was on my way to work one morning when I got this 5 grand ticket for speeding (another story). I went to court and pleaded guilty with explanation and was fined 2 grand. I thought I was rather lucky actually so I payed the fine and dashed back to work.
For the second ticket I was pulled over on my way to Kingston somewhere in Trelawny. I was driving a rented car and I did not have a valid fitness in the car. The owner of the car told me he had the fitness in the office. I had to drive to Falmouth to produce the fitness in court. I waited half the morning for my name to be called. I showed the fitness and the case was dismissed. The government sure knows how to waste our time.
The last ticket I got I was on my way back from Kingston via the South Coast. Got pulled over for speeding in Lacovia and I was driving like a bat out of hell! For reasons I can’t recall I forgot the date to pay the ticket at the tax office. I had to go to court. I drove all the way to Black River for court. Took my niece with me and we made a road trip out of it. When I got to Black River I was told that court was in Santa Cruz. I hauled my ass to Santa and I missed my name because the universe decided to piss on me that day as the judge thought it would be funny to start calling names from Z-A. I missed my name! I have to now get a new court date!! What’s worst I am told that I can only get the date in Black River. So back I went to Black River to get me a new court date and then made my way back to Montego Bay. On the new court date I went to Santa Cruz and got there so early. Waited on my name to be called, pleaded guilty, paid my fine and dashed back to Montego Bay. At this point I’d have enough of St. Elizabeth anyways.
So as you can see all three tickets where dealt with correctly. At this point what are my options to make this go away other than to just pay the $14,500.00 to make this go away? I know someone that actually did this. Seriously I got the impression based on that ad that the government was promising us a jail rape if we are caught with outstanding tickets. Fun and joke aside because this is a serious matter and I’m a serious guy, the process to resolve this involves lots of lines and bucking heads with bureaucratic paper pushers. Let us just hope that my friends will have some bail money for me when Babylon hauls my ass to jail!