*Yawn* - more fame, more fortune....

.....well, at least the fame part. Infamy? Okay, so I got my name in the paper again, how's that? AND (drum roll please), my first by-line in a major newspaper, the Chicago Sun-Times!

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Traffic victim perseveres and sees justice

March 22, 2010

BY TASHA HUEBNER

Last week's column was about accident victims not showing up in Traffic Court. If victims don't show up, the tickets against the person who caused the accident get dismissed, leaving bad drivers with clean records.

The column prompted several letters from people who said they went to court multiple times to make sure charges stuck against drivers who caused accidents. Here's one:

"I was in an 'accident' a couple of summers ago, when I was driving on I-55 when traffic slowed down, and an a--clown (sorry, but that's his official name as far as I'm concerned) behind me was obviously not looking at the road, so he slammed into me, spun my car around, I was then hit by another car, THAT car flipped over and landed on the far side of the highway upside down, my car slammed into the concrete barricade. ... It looked like Armageddon on the highway. ...

"And it turned out this guy had no license, no insurance, and was a convicted felon..... who went to court and pled not guilty. And even though my insurance company paid for my car, I and the three Hispanic men from the overturned car kept going to court. Continuance after continuance -- he didn't have a lawyer, this wasn't ready, etc. I think we showed up 4 or 5 times -- it was the principle of the thing. I think all he got for all that destruction was a $500 fine, and maybe probation. But it was interesting that he eventually decided to plead guilty -- I guess because he saw that we would keep going to court so he couldn't get out of it that way!

"There are some of us stubborn people out here who believe in helping justice along! I'd do the exact same thing again, even though he got a slap on the wrist."

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Okay, so I guess I should set the record straight - I didn't actually write the article, though that is exactly how it came across, as noted above. I just wrote to the woman who writes this weekly column, and she used my story about the assclown formerly known as "Eric Strickland" who demolished my car and several others, because he couldn't bother to keep his damn eyes on the road.

I'm not sure what impressed my friends more though - the fake by-line, or the fact that yet again I managed to get some "salty language" in the newspaper. First going on record as saying "screw you" to Mayor Daley, and now referring to someone as the proverbial assclown? Hmm, it almost makes me wonder who or what I should tackle next.....