Back on April 6, as you may remember, I was given a citation for "driving with an improper tag" which I was told by the officer was a felony misdemeanor. Turns out it is a 2nd degree misdemeanor and I had my court date yesterday.
My sister-in-law, a judge in N.C., recommended I dress well because she's always impressed by people showing respect, so I wore a coat and tie. I was the best dressed person at traffic court yesterday, with the possible exception of the translator. The whole room was filled with people wearing t-shirts and baggy blue-jeans.
They had about 100 people in the courtroom, but the judge announced that they were going to go through 261 cases in the afternoon. So, starting pretty promptly at 1:45, they did all the cases that required interpreters first. Mostly driving without a license, but there were a couple leaving the scene of an accident and dui's. One kid was handcuffed and sent to jail.
After the Spanish iteration of traffic court, my turn came up, I plead guilty and got a chance to explain my situation briefly, showed that I had obtained the proper documentation and I was out of there with court costs. $265.
It's a whole 'nother world out there. Takes a real hit to your relative self worth.