Don...the judge addressing the officer by her first name doesn't exactly fill me with faith in the legal system, either.
I was always grateful for my car at stop signs. I drove a clutch, a '79 VW Rabbit Diesel no less, and I had to come to a complete stop or I couldn't put the thing in first without a hideous grinding noise. Speeding in it was a tad unlikely, too.
I remember the days of taxiing kids around...I used to have to stack them in the backseat...then offload a bunch whenever I had to go up a hill to take one particular kid home because the car wouldn't go up the hill with that big a load. I'd pick the rest up on the way back down.
(That probably broke a bunch of laws.)
My husband now drives that car back and forth to work. It cut his fuel costs in *half* by driving it. It may be old, but it gets outrageous mileage and just keeps on chugging along.