The Law.

Don't you just love the Law? I don't. Sure it's great to be able to punish people who deserve it, but the problem is, half the time people either don't get punished at all, or the sentence they get is completely ridiculous.

For example, I read in a newspaper today that a 70 year old man shot his neighbour no less than 8 times, due to a noise complaint. Despite people at the scene picking the victim up and attempting to carry him to safety, the man just kept reloading and shooting at them.

The man was given a suspended sentence, which means nothing happens to him unless he does it again. How is that justice? He got to keep the gun and everything.

Then you look at things like David Hicks, or immigrants being held in detention centres in Australia, who have lost up to ten years of their life because they wanted to leave the violence of their homelands and try for a better future. The government is very clever in finding many loopholes in laws to make sure they can hold whoever they want indefinitely.

If you look at traffic offences, there was a girl in my year at high school who was caught driving 80 in a 50 zone, with three people bonnet surfing. She got a warning. She should have recieved thousands of dollars in fines, and lost her licence for 6 to 12 months. Oh, and her Dad is a cop.

Then you look at me, I was driving at 20 along the main street of wagga, when I was pulled over by the police. Here's how it went...

(Cop begins writing a ticket), I say..
"Excuse me, am I in trouble?"
(Cop sneers and nods)
"Sorry, but what did I do?"
"Look mate, we both know what you did."
"I'm sorry but I really don't."
"Look, you were just unlucky to get caught that's all."
"What did I do?"
"It's called undue noise."
"Excuse me?"
"Undue noise. Your exhaust is way too loud."

So i find out that I just got fined $231 and lost 3 points off my licence. I looked up the fine and saw that the noise had to be above 90 decibels to be offensive, so I had the car tested. It was under. I appealed the fine but I was told that they didn't have the authority to issue just a warning or offer leniance. My question is, if the authority in charge of traffic infringements and fines doesn't have the authority in regards to traffic infringements and fines, then who does?