save your loose change

Has anyone ever seen someone throw away pennies? I HAVE! And I don't mean that in the sense of simply wasting extra money. I mean that I have seen people physically throwing pennies in the trash. Granted, I've heard the arguments that pennies should be done away with already, but while they're still here, why not save them?

The smartest thing to do is to invest in paper penny rolls, but at the very least, keep a loose change jar. I have a bag of paper coin rolls for every denomination, and I save up all of my change until it's ample enough to warrant a bank deposit (and no, it's not weird or embarrassing to hand a bank teller multiple rolls of coins). Right now, I have almost $50 of loose change all rolled up. One side perk is that when I have to do laundry, I've already got a roll of quarters on hand. And I have my "worthless" pennies neatly stacked into 50 cent rolls, ready to become "real" money.

If coin rolls are too much work, the loose change jar suffices. Some banks have free coin deposit machines for their customers, but if yours doesn't, there's always Coinstar (although the cost of this convenience is 9% of your coins). If all else fails and you are too lazy to do any of the aforementioned things, just drop your loose change on the sidewalk. Someone will pick it up.

contest all speed camera tickets

I've been a car owner for a little more than a year now. In that time, I've had the pleasure of receiving seven speed camera tickets in the mail, five of which were $100 and two which were $40. That's $580 that the average person would have just paid, or even ignored (which leads to even more absurd consequences, like license suspension). I contested six, and five were dismissed (the seventh was recent, and I have yet to respond).

It is important to note that the five dismissed tickets were the $100 tickets, received in Washington, D.C., which explicitly provide you with the option of mailing in an appeal letter—something explaining why you are not at fault or why your fine should be lessened. By the fourth or fifth ticket, I had come across this article, written by a guy who composed a great speed camera ticket appeal letter and got his tickets dismissed. Essentially, it is the burden of the state to prove that you broke a law (i.e. speeding), and a photo of your car speeding isn't enough. It's not your responsibility to incriminate yourself (i.e. "I was speeding but I was in a rush to get to work") or anyone else ("My brother John Smith was driving my car at the time"). Read the article, his letter pretty much covers all legal bases. Truthfully, for my first few tickets that were dismissed, I said something to the likes of "$100 is a lot, and I was on my way to work where I only earned $80 that day." It seems to me that D.C. will cut you a break if you just put some effort into seeking one. At the very least, if your ticket is not dismissed, you can at least delay having to pay it for a few months (because $100 is a pretty big burden for many people to pay on short notice!).

The one ticket that wasn't immediately dismissed (and by "immediately" I mean after 4-6 months of waiting for a plain white postcard in the mail) was issued to me from Prince George's County (Maryland). On these tickets, your options are to 1) pay the fine (thus admitting guilt) or 2) request a court date. After sending in an appeal letter similar to the one from the article above, kindly requesting that a court date be avoided and that the matter be dismissed (I really did ask nicely), I was sent a letter telling me what day and time to show up in court (they replied FAST). After Googling the issue, I found enough evidence showing that I didn't have a great shot of convincing the judge that my ticket should be dismissed. I wasn't interested in taking time off from work to go to a court date with dozens of other stubborn speeders in a pissed-off assembly line. So, I paid it. But at least I tried. Lesson learned: P.G. County—less forgiving than the District. Another person might simply stop speeding. But me, I don't find that always practical.

In my opinion, there is no crime where there is no victim. I understand that speeding can be dangerous. But I doubt my $40 or $100 is a fair trade for going 42 in a barren 30 mph zone. It seems to me that having 4 or 5 cars slam on their breaks to avoid getting a ticket is a bit more dangerous than those same cars coolly and alertly riding around at 45 mph. You know, there's enough proof to show that the speed camera business is crooked to begin with—I would say it's our responsibility to challenge systems like this one when possible. If we end up losing, at least we tried.