Way back in June I was with my mom coming home from a birthday party and we decided to stop at Wal-Mart. When we left Wal-Mart we were driving west on 21st street and all of a sudden there were a huge truck right behind us that started honking. He was so close that all we could see was the grill of his truck and the headlights. We thought that it might be an emergency vehicle and there was someone in the other lane so we couldn't change lanes so my mom just pulling into the median. As the truck came flying by we noticed that it wasn't an emergency vehicle and this mad my mom really mad because he was driving very recklessly and if he hit us could have done some major damage especially since Addisyn was in the back seat. My mom followed the truck trying to get his license plate number so that she could call and report him and he ended up going on the road by the Outlaw Saloon which is a dead end so I was freaking out because the truck was going to have to turn around and come back towards us. My mom quickly turned around and pulled into a parking lot so that we could still see the truck which eventually pulled into the parking lot of the Outlaw. A car pulled up next to us and asked if we were OK they explained that they had been the car in the other lane and had witnessed the whole thing. They also said that the truck has been driving recklessly since Harrison Blvd. My mom called the police and they came out and talked to us and asked if we wanted to press charges. We decided that we would press charges because if they had hit us all of us could have been killed since the truck was so large. They had us write up our statements including the car that had witnessed the whole thing and the officer (who looked like he was 12 years old) let us know that we may have to go to trial if since we pressed charges but they are usually a couple of months behind so we wouldn't hear anything for a couple of month if we ever heard anything at all.
7 months later I got a call from Robyn who told me that my mom had gotten a subpoena for the trial. The next day was my day off and I got my subpoena and we were set to go to court the next Tuesday. I was able to stay pretty calm going to court because I clearly remembered what happened. I was actually kind of intrigued by the idea of going to court since I have seen it on TV so often. The only thing I wasn't excited about is having to get up early on my day off to go to court. When I arrived they just had us sit in the court room until it was our turn. We got to listen to all of the cases the were before ours and it was very interesting. I definitely don't ever want to be on the other side if I ever have to go to court again. If you are being accused of something you basically have to air your dirty laundry in front of everyone. After about an hour of waiting the city attorney called our names and he talked to us about what was going to happen and asked us to tell our stories for him. When our trial started my mom got called first and was sworn in as a witness (it was very official) and I could tell that she was nervous. I got called next and made sure that I answered the questions without rambling and I was done quickly. Good thing I took that dreaded public speaking class last semester so I was prepared to speak in front of people. The guy who had been driving the truck basically sealed his own fate when he said that he was following only one car length behind us. The judge found him guilty of following too close and he has to pay a fine. It was definitely an interesting experience but probably not something that I would want to do again. I didn't take any pictures because I had my phone out at one point and the guy sitting next to us told us that the judge had taken someone's phone away earlier so I decided to just keep my phone in my purse.
