Gary W. Graley
“Imagination is more important than knowledge"
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
- Joined
- Mar 2, 1999
- Messages
- 27,472
Just a heads up folks, if you happen to drive in or around southern NJ, take care to be sure you have nothing hanging from your mirror, it's a good rule no matter where you are driving, but, it seems they get a bit ticket happy when they stop someone after midnight, still not sure of the reason they stopped one of my guys working there, but they did and after not finding anything else, gave him a ticket for having his National Car Rental Agreement still hanging from his mirror...wow...
Short background on my guy, he is from Morocco, moved and now lives in Madrid Spain, and works around the world for the same company as me. We're on site at Bridgeton NJ at the Leone Glass plant, his shift was from 4pm to midnight. So as he was driving back to Vineland to the hotel, he was pulled over by the State Police.
My 'guess' is they were checking to see if he may have been drinking, which is not a bad thing to help keep drunks off the road, but, when they didn't find anything else, they noticed the Rental agreement still hanging from the mirror, where National people had hung it. The fellow, his first time in the USA, thought that since National put it there, it was there for a reason and didn't take it down, thinking it was a visible sign that he was driving a rented mini-van, yeah, it was a Chrysler mini-van, so from behind, there wouldn't be a way to view that hanging from the mirror prior to pulling him over....
Now his first language is Arabic, second is Spanish and third is English, which is not very good, so he was having a very hard time understanding why he was getting a ticket, let alone being stopped in the dead of the night when he had done nothing wrong? And the two Troopers gave him a very strong warning that he had BETTER pay the ticket, which is $54 for that offense, OR the next time when he passes through Customs he will be taken away! On the ticket they gave him, I didn't see any passport # so I doubt that it would really be tied in that closely to Customs scanning, but he was visibly upset at the threat.
I went to a couple courthouses to see if I could get some reasonable help with this, I mean, where is the Protect and Serve portion, or in the case of the NJ Troopers, Honor, Duty, Fidelity...at worse I would think they would see this was a new visitor to our country and obviously he did not PUT that on the mirror as a decoration, and I would have expected them to instruct him to remove it with the warning that he should not hang anything from the mirror and here's the reason why...but nope, nothing of the sort.
So the courthouses were a bust, one that was tied to the number they had on the back of the ticket told me nope, have to go to the other courthouse, and there, they said you want to pay the fine now? UH, no, just want to discuss it, of course, once a ticket is been issued, it's IN THE SYSTEM which I guess is probably the best way to process things properly, the only recourse would be to try and get a court date for him to go and present it to a Judge. SO, I went to the State Troopers Barracks in Bridgeton, the badge number was not clear on there but the one Trooper figured it out and gave me the name and badge number of the person that issued the ticket, unfortunately they were not in at that time. The Trooper 'kinda' indicated that he might not have issued such a ticket but of course he could not answer for the reason the other Troopers deemed it necessary, good answer and understandable.
So long story just a tad longer, the fellow heads home soon and wouldn't be able to make any court date, so he's decided to just pay and forget it, while to some people, $54 isn't a lot of money, these guys are not paid a lot to begin with and it's a sizeable bite, especially in view that he really did no wrong. Oh, and I also called National Car Rental and asked if they've ever had anyone get a ticket for that and they were VERY surprised to hear of this...lesson learned for him for sure now.
Rant over, I just wished I was able to intercede on his behalf but my names not on the ticket,
G2
Short background on my guy, he is from Morocco, moved and now lives in Madrid Spain, and works around the world for the same company as me. We're on site at Bridgeton NJ at the Leone Glass plant, his shift was from 4pm to midnight. So as he was driving back to Vineland to the hotel, he was pulled over by the State Police.
My 'guess' is they were checking to see if he may have been drinking, which is not a bad thing to help keep drunks off the road, but, when they didn't find anything else, they noticed the Rental agreement still hanging from the mirror, where National people had hung it. The fellow, his first time in the USA, thought that since National put it there, it was there for a reason and didn't take it down, thinking it was a visible sign that he was driving a rented mini-van, yeah, it was a Chrysler mini-van, so from behind, there wouldn't be a way to view that hanging from the mirror prior to pulling him over....
Now his first language is Arabic, second is Spanish and third is English, which is not very good, so he was having a very hard time understanding why he was getting a ticket, let alone being stopped in the dead of the night when he had done nothing wrong? And the two Troopers gave him a very strong warning that he had BETTER pay the ticket, which is $54 for that offense, OR the next time when he passes through Customs he will be taken away! On the ticket they gave him, I didn't see any passport # so I doubt that it would really be tied in that closely to Customs scanning, but he was visibly upset at the threat.
I went to a couple courthouses to see if I could get some reasonable help with this, I mean, where is the Protect and Serve portion, or in the case of the NJ Troopers, Honor, Duty, Fidelity...at worse I would think they would see this was a new visitor to our country and obviously he did not PUT that on the mirror as a decoration, and I would have expected them to instruct him to remove it with the warning that he should not hang anything from the mirror and here's the reason why...but nope, nothing of the sort.
So the courthouses were a bust, one that was tied to the number they had on the back of the ticket told me nope, have to go to the other courthouse, and there, they said you want to pay the fine now? UH, no, just want to discuss it, of course, once a ticket is been issued, it's IN THE SYSTEM which I guess is probably the best way to process things properly, the only recourse would be to try and get a court date for him to go and present it to a Judge. SO, I went to the State Troopers Barracks in Bridgeton, the badge number was not clear on there but the one Trooper figured it out and gave me the name and badge number of the person that issued the ticket, unfortunately they were not in at that time. The Trooper 'kinda' indicated that he might not have issued such a ticket but of course he could not answer for the reason the other Troopers deemed it necessary, good answer and understandable.
So long story just a tad longer, the fellow heads home soon and wouldn't be able to make any court date, so he's decided to just pay and forget it, while to some people, $54 isn't a lot of money, these guys are not paid a lot to begin with and it's a sizeable bite, especially in view that he really did no wrong. Oh, and I also called National Car Rental and asked if they've ever had anyone get a ticket for that and they were VERY surprised to hear of this...lesson learned for him for sure now.
Rant over, I just wished I was able to intercede on his behalf but my names not on the ticket,
G2
Last edited:
