I experienced a similar 'shit!' moment in Wellington years ago. I was driving along Aotea Quay and as I approached the lights at the intersection by the central police station (Harris Street?) they turned orange. I was doing 50kph and the guy behind me was right on my tail so I carried on through. The light was still orange when I got through the intersection so I wasn't worried when I cop car pulled out of that street and into the traffic behind me. Amazingly, he didn't do anything about the guy who had been behind me, who had braked when he saw the cop car, and ended up 10 feet into the intersection, but he pulled me up around by the museum and gave me a ticket for going through an orange light! I took it to court and fought it, but still got done - so count yourself lucky! The prosecuting sergeant basically rubished my evidence, asking if I believed I had more experience than a police officer of 20 years service. They even tried to get the charge changed to running a red light half-way through the court appearance, but the JP (gotta love those morons!) hearing the case said they had proved I had run an orange light - but he halved my fine! I still had to pay court costs and lost a morning's pay, all for bloody nothing in my opinion. I had written letters to the police about people running red lights in Wellington (especially at the Haywards Hill lights) and yet I wasn't allowed to mention that because they didn't feel it was relevant to the case - whereas I believed it proved I was not the type of person to run a light, orange or red!
Yes, I am pedantic about spelling and grammar so get used to it!
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