I was forc’d by haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate, your honor

Feb 22, 2005 01:01 PM

An amusing piece in today’s New York Times reports:

Anyone with flagging faith in the resourcefulness of New Yorkers need only pay a visit to any of the eight buildings in five boroughs that make up the traffic court system. Started in the 1970’s to help unclog the city’s criminal courts, traffic court is one of New York’s best free shows. It is stand-up improv at its most creative with an occasional James Bond-like tale or even a violent plot, all in search of that one shimmering, often elusive dream, the dismissed ticket.
The show, which includes a total of 50 judges, plays weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., and later on Thursdays. Each trial takes about 10 minutes, and judges hear from 50 to 100 cases a day. In all, the courts process about 1.3 million traffic tickets a year. Police officers who testify talk as fast as auctioneers.

Meanwhile, a reader writes in:

Saw your blog referenced on PowerLine and was taken by the name of your blog. Yes, I studied Latin in high school, private (Jesuit) school of course. I and a friend actually used the first few lines of the Aeneid to get out of a traffic ticket in high school! The judge was an old curmudgeon who asked if they still made us study Latin, so we immediately launched into the Aeneid. This obviously impressed the judge that we were good students and maybe OK kids, so he let us off with an slap on the wrist.

If that Times piece is to be believed, this "Aeneid gambit" was one of under a half-dozen strategies that have ever worked in traffic court history. And still they ask, "Why study Classics?"