09.08.2009, 12:53
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 | Forum Veteran | | Join Date: May 2007 Location: Blonay
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| Re: Mom in Labor No Excuse for Speeding
| Quote: | |  | | | So I got busted driving way too quickly to the hospital...from Austria. My wife woke me up at 2.45 in the morning and we took off for our Canton of residence, Aargau. We were in a tiny Austrian village and the nearest major city, Innsbruck, would have been an hour and a half away, not including time allowed for getting lost and explaining various insurance/health/nationality issues in poor German. We decided to hightail it back to the same hospital where our first child was delivered, where our obstetrician could deliver the baby.
Even though I could document every step of the trip, from hotel departure to speeding ticket (5 AM) to delivery (7 AM...arrival was at 6 AM), I was made to pay a massive ticket. The local police guy was sheepish, but he said it was out of his hands...he was just delivering the message for another Canton. Fine, I get it: money is money and the Thurgau cops want theirs.
The local cop tells us that maybe the Strassenverkehrsamt will have pity on us because of our situation. Wrong again. I get my license pulled for three months because it "was not an emergency." We contact an attorney who tells us that she can find no record of any pregnancy serving as an excuse for speeding. She thinks a heart attack might qualify, but we heard an unverifiable anecdote of a guy who was penalized for driving himself to the hospital whilst having a heart attack.
Moral of the story: do not expect Anglo-American flexibility when it comes to traffic violations. Tax evasion, bizarrely enough, is another story entirely. | | | | | Did the baby arrive prematurely ? If not, why did you venture so far away knowing that it was due ?  |