The Garage Sale Reseller

As I’ve mentioned before in an article about your costs as a garage sale reseller, something that really sucks is that you have spend so much time on the road. Not only are you spending fuel, wearing out your car, and increasing your risk of an automobile accident, but you also must worry about legal infractions.

When you have to drive a lot, it’s easy to lapse into a habit of routinely speeding, making illegal u-turns, etc. as a means of reducing the time you spend on the road. I don’t believe that road rules always necessarily correlate with safety, so I have no ethical qualms with doing this. My only advice when breaking street laws is to stay alert for any potentially dangerous situations and, of course, police officers.

As long as you do that, the majority of the time you will get away with your freestyling, as your adventures will often take you to areas with empty or unpoliced streets. What I’m going to address today is an even more insidious threat to your pocketbook on the road: red light cameras.

The last decade has been punctuated by petty local government officials stomping their feet about public safety and getting on the soapbox about red light cameras. The idea is that red light cameras will make sure to catch those nasty people who run red lights and put everyone in danger. Unfortunately, the reality is that 90-95% of red light camera infractions involve a mere technicality: you must stop for 3 seconds before the stop bar before making a right turn on red.

I recently got a $125 infraction for stopping for 1.5 seconds instead of 3 before a turn on red. Watching the video that they show on the infraction website was hilarious: in the 11-second video, not only did one person in front of me also get an infraction, but THREE behind me also rolled the red light turn. Who would have thought that there would be five hardened criminals all lined up in a row in traffic?

The simple truth is that this is a cash grab by local governments. DON’T fall victim to this. If you think that it’s unfair, it’s because it is. And don’t assume that unfair things will not happen to you, because they will. While you won’t get any points on your license or anything of the sort, in most cases it is impossible or extremely difficult to dispute the ticket and you will be forced to pay the charge, at risk of a collection agency picking up the ticket and hurting your credit score.

So how do you avoid this kind of stuff? Naturally, your level of alertness while driving goes down as you progress throughout your tour, so make sure to develop good stopping habits at both stop signs and red lights. If you plan to turn, make sure to stop clearly before the stop bar and give it 3 seconds. Remember that garage sale hunting will take you on a tour of your state, which means lots of different townships with their own petty local governments and annoying idiosyncrasies. Google city names plus “red light camera.” Be extra cautious at major intersections, as they are more likely to both have red light cameras and police watching.

Hopefully this warning will reach you before you get your first traffic violation while on the hunt. Given the size of the fine, it can be a huge damper on your weekend. On a final note, also beware multiple infractions: in my area, a first infraction is $125, a second $250, and a third $500 – all for a mistake that is very easy to unconsciously make.