I'll just preface this all with the fact that I know I was speeding, I know I broke the law, but still...
This morning I had to wake up at 6:20am to go to traffic school - yes, it's early. You have to be there by 7am, school starts at 7:30am, and if you get there at 7:31am, you're just out of luck. After the morning check in, you go to the classroom, fill out some paperwork and then continue to be bored out of your mind for the required time of 400 minutes. Thanks to a 15 minute break in the morning and afternoon along with an hour long lunch break, you don't really feel the urge to kill yourself that often, but just sitting there, listening to some old guy with nothing better to do on a Saturday lecture you on unsafe driving is just insanely boring.
After filling out the paperwork, we thumbed through the stupid booklet provided by NTSI, a company that appears to be sub-contracted by the courts to administer the traffic school, we then watched a video provided by Disney about road rage and the like. We then continued to do stupid exercises in the book (which found its way to the trash recepticle after class), which included questions like, "How will your life be negatively impacted by an accident?" Well, duh...there's insurance, injuries, etc. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure that out. We then proceeded to take a poll of the class, asking how you would rate yourself as a driver compared to others - 22 said excellent, 58 very good, 38 good, and 1 poor. So, on average, we think we're better drivers than we really are, which is to be expected - of course, I was in the excellent category since I've never had an accident in my car, or while driving a bus, but have been caught speeding - and, yes, I can consider myself an excellent driver while attending traffic school since I probably could have fought my ticket since I was speeding on a wide open road in perfect driving conditions - technically legal, as the speed limit is usually a "suggested" limit as you are supposed to drive the speed that is "safe."
But, be that as it may, we then continued to do more crap (though I didn't really participate much since this isn't my first time in traffic school and I know that you don't need to do anything to get the certificate at the end). We watched more stupid videos, most of which had really bad acting, or, even worse, an appearance by M.C. Hammer, and then we finally broke for lunch. Luckily, throughout the session, the teacher was quite receptive to questions and, with 8 years experience as a police officer he really did answer everything truthfully, including questions about quotas, profiling, etc. We also had the resident idiot sitting up in the front row, thinking he knew everything about everything and had to chime in on almost every topic. It got to the point where whenever he started talking, the rest of the class did also, as no one wanted to listen to him. He was consistently laughed at, especially whenever the instructor gave him a quite sarcastic, "OK," after he tried to explain something, and by the end of the class, there were actually people telling him to shut up. It provided some nice comic relief throughout.
But while it's always fun to be lectured about drugs and crosswalks and DUI's (like I don't get enough of that in the mandatory drug classes we have to take to be a commercially licensed driver at work), the most interesting part of the day was when the instructor talked about his current job as a hypnotherapist, completely straying from any topic of relevance to traffic school. He discussed how he was able to go to the dentist and completely numb his mouth where he needed a root canal and even prevent bleeding by just using hypnosis on himself and it was really quite fascinating. He described how you just imagine that your hand is in a snowbank and eventually, it will go numb if you are able to convince your mind that it is cold and in snow. Then, he was able to move that numbness up through his arm and convince his mind that this numbness could then be transferred, so he was able to touch his mouth where the dentistry work was going to be performed and numb the area. He also delved into regression techniques and other various topics - all really quite interesting.
So, while that was an interesting experience, the other 350 minutes of class were a complete waste of time, as I'm not going to change how I drive, nor did I learn anything new or vitally important. I'm sure there are people that benefited from the class (especially that one guy that considered himself a poor driver), but I am a safe driver. I am aware of what's going on around me, I've never been in an accident, or even close to one, and my tickets have been obtained while driving safely (speeding on an open road - a toll road to boot, etc.).
Oh yeah, and one more important think to remember - when you have to get up at 6:20am, don't go down to San Diego the night before to party and hang out with friends and then drive back that night, only to finally get to sleep around 3:30am. Less than three hours of sleep makes sitting in a stuffy room for 8 hours even more hellish than it would be while coherent.
And one last word to the wise. If you have a mailing address in any county other than Orange, ask for a change of venue to that other county, as they all allow for online traffic school which can take less than an hour I've been told. Only Orange County requires you to sit in a classroom for eight hours. San Diego doesn't. Riverside doesn't. San Bernadino doesn't. Los Angeles doesn't. Only Orange...
URL: Superior Court of California - County of Orange
This morning I had to wake up at 6:20am to go to traffic school - yes, it's early. You have to be there by 7am, school starts at 7:30am, and if you get there at 7:31am, you're just out of luck. After the morning check in, you go to the classroom, fill out some paperwork and then continue to be bored out of your mind for the required time of 400 minutes. Thanks to a 15 minute break in the morning and afternoon along with an hour long lunch break, you don't really feel the urge to kill yourself that often, but just sitting there, listening to some old guy with nothing better to do on a Saturday lecture you on unsafe driving is just insanely boring.
After filling out the paperwork, we thumbed through the stupid booklet provided by NTSI, a company that appears to be sub-contracted by the courts to administer the traffic school, we then watched a video provided by Disney about road rage and the like. We then continued to do stupid exercises in the book (which found its way to the trash recepticle after class), which included questions like, "How will your life be negatively impacted by an accident?" Well, duh...there's insurance, injuries, etc. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure that out. We then proceeded to take a poll of the class, asking how you would rate yourself as a driver compared to others - 22 said excellent, 58 very good, 38 good, and 1 poor. So, on average, we think we're better drivers than we really are, which is to be expected - of course, I was in the excellent category since I've never had an accident in my car, or while driving a bus, but have been caught speeding - and, yes, I can consider myself an excellent driver while attending traffic school since I probably could have fought my ticket since I was speeding on a wide open road in perfect driving conditions - technically legal, as the speed limit is usually a "suggested" limit as you are supposed to drive the speed that is "safe."
But, be that as it may, we then continued to do more crap (though I didn't really participate much since this isn't my first time in traffic school and I know that you don't need to do anything to get the certificate at the end). We watched more stupid videos, most of which had really bad acting, or, even worse, an appearance by M.C. Hammer, and then we finally broke for lunch. Luckily, throughout the session, the teacher was quite receptive to questions and, with 8 years experience as a police officer he really did answer everything truthfully, including questions about quotas, profiling, etc. We also had the resident idiot sitting up in the front row, thinking he knew everything about everything and had to chime in on almost every topic. It got to the point where whenever he started talking, the rest of the class did also, as no one wanted to listen to him. He was consistently laughed at, especially whenever the instructor gave him a quite sarcastic, "OK," after he tried to explain something, and by the end of the class, there were actually people telling him to shut up. It provided some nice comic relief throughout.
But while it's always fun to be lectured about drugs and crosswalks and DUI's (like I don't get enough of that in the mandatory drug classes we have to take to be a commercially licensed driver at work), the most interesting part of the day was when the instructor talked about his current job as a hypnotherapist, completely straying from any topic of relevance to traffic school. He discussed how he was able to go to the dentist and completely numb his mouth where he needed a root canal and even prevent bleeding by just using hypnosis on himself and it was really quite fascinating. He described how you just imagine that your hand is in a snowbank and eventually, it will go numb if you are able to convince your mind that it is cold and in snow. Then, he was able to move that numbness up through his arm and convince his mind that this numbness could then be transferred, so he was able to touch his mouth where the dentistry work was going to be performed and numb the area. He also delved into regression techniques and other various topics - all really quite interesting.
So, while that was an interesting experience, the other 350 minutes of class were a complete waste of time, as I'm not going to change how I drive, nor did I learn anything new or vitally important. I'm sure there are people that benefited from the class (especially that one guy that considered himself a poor driver), but I am a safe driver. I am aware of what's going on around me, I've never been in an accident, or even close to one, and my tickets have been obtained while driving safely (speeding on an open road - a toll road to boot, etc.).
Oh yeah, and one more important think to remember - when you have to get up at 6:20am, don't go down to San Diego the night before to party and hang out with friends and then drive back that night, only to finally get to sleep around 3:30am. Less than three hours of sleep makes sitting in a stuffy room for 8 hours even more hellish than it would be while coherent.
And one last word to the wise. If you have a mailing address in any county other than Orange, ask for a change of venue to that other county, as they all allow for online traffic school which can take less than an hour I've been told. Only Orange County requires you to sit in a classroom for eight hours. San Diego doesn't. Riverside doesn't. San Bernadino doesn't. Los Angeles doesn't. Only Orange...
URL: Superior Court of California - County of Orange
posted by Blake | 00:14
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