[Marilyn]

Oh, ladies, if you haven't had tickets, you must be novice drivers or just don't drive very much. I have no idea how many tickets I've had. Tickets here are very expensive, however, you can request to take defensive driving to keep the ticket from appearing on your driving record, if you haven't taken defensive driving within the past 12 months for ticket dismissal. If you have, you can request deferred adjudication . With both options, you pay the full price for your ticket and in addition to that, you pay to take defensive driving or to apply for deferred adjudication and for a copy of your driving record to be sent from Austin to the judge. With deferred adjudication, the judge will put you on probation for a specific period of time, like 90 days, and if you do not get another ticket within the probation period, he/she will dismiss the ticket. I've taken defensive driving so many times, I can almost teach the class. I take it online so I don't have to go attend a class somewhere. I've also gotten deferred adjudication before. Currently, I have no tickets on my driving record at all.

Also, I've been stopped twice in the past month for speeding and have gotten warnings both times. Oh, and I do have a radar detector, and try to drive within the 5 miles over that is allowed and still have lapses. I drive over 30,000 miles a year though, so my exposure is pretty high.

So that's my story, officer, and I'm sticking to it!!!!