When I was a young pup, I watched Disneyland on Sunday nights, and I recall one such show that was entitled “SUPERHIGHWAY USA”. In this show, Walt Disney himself, and his henchmen, layed out what was to become our nationwide Interstate highway system. This was, of course, before Cloverleaf Industries could act on their nefarious plan to close down the Red Line and replace it with highways. (oops sorry, getting Disney mixed up with Roger Rabbitt, please disregard from “Cloverleaf Industries” on.) Anyway, back to SuperHighway USA; everything was laid out there: the banked and crowned roadbeds, the acceleration lane and freeway approaches and exits, the gentle curves. Traffic always moved quickly as we watched the model cars moving on and off the demonstration model that was used to instruct us in this new driving method. This was, of course, before freeways turned into parking lots, and commutes turned into multi-hour outings. They didn’t tell us about that in SuperHighway USA. It wasn’t supposed to be like that! Did Walt Disney lie to me? And he was such a nice man…he and that little rodent.

One of the things that was talked about in Super Highway USA, is how all highways of the future, would have multiple lanes and how the right lane was for regular traffic, and the left lane, was for people who were passing or were otherwise moving faster than people in the right lane(s). This became ingrained in my brain through Super Highway USA, through driver’s education and training, and through music. The Eagles even wrote a song called “Life In The Fast Lane.” Were they singing about the lane that has the exit lanes coming off of it, and the approaches emptying into it? No, they were singing about that lane that is farthest away from safety, closest to the approach of opposing traffic at break neck speed, far away from the entries and exits, the dangerous fast lane. So my question is: what happened to the fast lane?

Interestingly, it appears that the fast lane of today, is more often than not, something other than the left lane. Have you noticed this? I guess everyone thinks that the left lane is theirs and that when they are there, that they can go whatever speed they want, even if it’s below the speed limit. WRONG! The left lane is for those of us who can survive out there with the other fast drivers. It is not for the faint of heart. It is certainly no place to be if you’re talking on your cell phone. For more on my cell phone rant, click HERE. The left lane is the place where the law of the jungle prevails, and the law of the Highway Patrol. But today, it is no longer the fast lane. In fact, in my driving, it seems as though the lane that is open most often, where you can pick up some speed and not have many drivers to contend with is now…the right lane. What happened?

So for the foreseeable future, I’m going to be traveling and passing all of you, in the right lane. Perhaps at some future time, the fad will die and it will be cool to be in the right lane again, in which case, I’ll be back where I’m supposed to be, the place Walt Disney told me about, and the Eagles sang to me about, the place of legend and intrigue, the famed real fast lane, the left lane.

 At least back in the day, Vegas mobsters didn’t hide their transgressions- in 1947 we knew gangsters like “Bugsy” Siegel ran Las Vegas. If these wiseguys were crossed, they planted a bomb in your car, set you house on fire, or whacked you execution style if a handshake was made bad. 

 Nowadays, these Clark County wiseguys are in disguise – they are our hero’s in uniform who come out to a scene where they know they are not needed just to show a high volume of calls –in order to justify their budget.

 Well…after making over $250,000 a year, what Gambino wouldn’t take their fire truck out for a spin?

 I think we’ve watched the movie Backdraft one to many times because if many of us saw Fireproof, Firefighters would be out on their butt- making a bass pay of $60,000, just because of Kirk Cameron’s horrible comeback. But, I digress…

 How about when Clark County Commissioner, Steve Sisolak questioned the county Firefighter’s contract and soon after received a threatening call by one of the bosses warning him that “he’d better hope his house doesn’t catch on fire.”

 Didn’t Sisolak know the rules of the neighborhood:

Never rat on your friends (firefighters get candidates elected and they intimidate opponents), and always keep your mouth shut-especially about the GoodFellas’ overtime scheme- a firefighter who is called in to cover someone who is sick or on vacation is paid the callback rate, which is time and a half.

 Just like the good ol’ boys from the neighborhood, these firefighters cover each other by cutting deals – one calls in, the other covers and then it’s reversed the next week.

 These modern day Goodfellas might be heading straight to the Witness Protection Program after last night’s I-team investigation exposed their heist.

 But, I hope these mafia union members don’t even think about putting a hit out on a Boss like George Knapp, he’s got ties and can make these gangsters live the rest of their lives like a schnook.

 Footnotes or cliff notes would really come in handy for those who do not work in the legal field. Nowadays, Wikipedia is just a Google click away, but who has time for such rhetoric. Nevertheless, there are those who read our blogs..I will make this short and sweet.   

 We have a three-tiered Court System:

 District Court or Trial Court- a Judgment is reached. If you find error in the judgment reached in district or trial court, you can appeal to the Appellate Court.

 Appellate Court or Court of Appeals:  Is made up of a panel of three judges who hear arguments on both sides.

 The Appellate Court has three options: 

• Change the judgment
• Remand send the case back to the lower court to change the judgment
• Send the case back to the lower court to keep the same judgment

 Supreme Court- All 50 states have their version of the Appeal to the Supreme Court.

 The Nevada Supreme Court is comprised of seven justices. There is no court higher than the Supreme Court- their decision is final.

 Cheaters, I mean the channel 8 I-team was on the scene exposing Governor Gibbons in his affair gone completely bad.

 But, what affair doesn’t go bad? It’s like a drug deal. Ever heard a news anchor say, “It was a drug deal gone bad.”

 Drug deals always go bad. There’s drugs exchanged for money, somebody gets high with illegal drugs and another person gets paid for illegal drugs.

 Of course, an affair is not illegal. These shenanigans have more to do with moral and ethics. Nevertheless, it always goes bad.

 Why do we continue to make an issue out of our politicians having affairs? Perhaps because they are elected officials running on platforms and they are held to a higher moral standard.

  Remember though, we are people running on platforms too.

 We have our religious platforms- Lutheran, Catholic, Baptist, Mormon and don’t forget the non-denominational or just plain atheist. Why should we judge? We are hypocrites. We stray all the time (drinking, gambling, cheating, omitting, one way or another we all lie) and we don’t have an entire camera crew trying to get us to confess, or do we?

  I called it in the beginning. I said, never trust a man without a bottom lip or is it a top lip? Either way. Our Governor was controversial before he was put in office. So, it seems we love the drama.

  A couple days after Chrissy Mazzeo yelled sexual assault we put him in office. All of a sudden we care about Jim’s girls in different area codes.

 Yes, last night our lipless Governor was caught in multiple lies – one after another.  This reminds me of…ah yes, Clinton – who we now pay to hear him whisper sweet nothings in our ear.

  While I was watching the video- I team vs. Gibbons, I felt myself pulling for Gibbons-  saying, come on, come on… just say, yes! Admit it and they will leave you alone. I guarantee you the camera crews would have backed off if he admitted to his special session. I’m’ just Monday night quarterbacking though.

 Until… I saw the girlfriend get in to the state vehicle. That stung a little. I felt like he was driving his girl around in the car that I pay for. Oh no he didn’t!

 For the record, I don’t agree with the Governors politics, but I do feel we have become sidetracked on the sensationalism of his personal life. Channel 8 has got us wrapped up in their own vendetta against the Governor.

This is why yesterday’s Super Bowl win tasted like Pecan Pie for New Orleans and for many Americans. For the first time in NFL history the Saints came up and conquered, restoring hope to a city that has been in a struggling economy for the last four years.  

 After Hurricane Katrina, Americans showed solidarity and assisted New Orleans by setting up relief funds, medical aid, rebuilding houses, and donating time to America’s city in chaos.

 New Orleans hung in there, took their handouts and did what was necessary to survive after such a devastating event. But, yesterday was different.

 The Saints sent out one big thank you to all of America and finally won back their city fair and square. No more handouts. It was symbolism at its best. Maybe even a fairytale…the stories my mom would prelude with, “remember this is only imaginary.”

 After the game, I thought… finally some good karma, some divine intervention for this city. This is a perfect scenario for an economy that has been suffering for so long. This victory is sure to give New Orleans a good boost.

 However, my cynical side kicked in, the one where people yell not another conspiracy theory! No, not the voices in my head, but the die-hard Saints’ fans and of course my friends who always cheer for the underdog.

  I started to think… was this another handout given out by Corporate America? Was this an Ode to My Mum: putting out that disclaimer at the beginning of the fairytale?

 The NFL is big business… Did Peyton Manning take one for the other team? Or, did he take one for his home town?

 And, if the Colts did lose this Bowl for the betterment of society aren’t they the real heroes or are they just gettin paid.

 Didn’t this sort of thing happen with boxing too? After a while, we pretty much knew a fight might be fixed? It’s hard to believe that we can’t just have a good ol’ fashion American Football Fairytale rather than a Corporate American Hand-Me-Down Dream.

 Or, perhaps I’m still dealing with mommy issues?

 In the past the DMV took a drivers word when it came to proof of insurance, but since we can’t play well with others, we must abide by the new rule and pay.

 Before registering a car with the DMV, you must provide proof of insurance on the vehicle, if you cannot prove you have coverage or your insurance lapses drivers will be fined $250. Nevada Drivers will not have a seven-day grace period anymore.

 The DMV keeps track of lapses in insurance electronically and when lapses occur, it will prompt an automatic bill in the mail.

 So, it sounds like big brother is really looking out for us, or could it be a simple way to generate some state income?

 Either way, I guess it won’t hurt for Nevada drivers to grow up and become responsible adults.

BY BOB SHEMELIGIAN

As local police departments step up traffic enforcement on Southern Nevada’s roadways, nearly a dozen Las Vegas law firms vie for their share of the ever-growing businesses of ticket defense.

They include Ticket Busters, Ticket Terminator, Ticket Doctor and Ticket Eliminators — to name a few.

“I’ve heard of Ticket Ninja and Ticket King,” said Richard Harris, owner of Ticket Busters. “It seems like everyone in Southern Nevada is a ticket lawyer. We’re the ticket law firm capital of the world.”

MIKE STOTTS | LAS VEGAS BUSINESS PRESS Lawyer Richard Harris stands in his Las Vegas firm Nov. 30. He owns Ticket Busters, a business that pleads for deals in court to save clients time, money and driver’s license points.

Despite the cute names, humorous advertising campaigns, easy-to-remember phone numbers and catchy slogans like the mean looking traffic cop saying, “You don’t want to see me in court,” ticket attorneys are serious about business.

“With 2 million people who live in a 24-hour drinking town and drive on surface streets that are big wide freeways, and you add 30 million tourists a year, it gives us a perfect storm,” Harris said.

Records show that in fiscal 2009, the 12-month period ended in June, Las Vegas Justice Court collected nearly $36 million in ticket revenue for violations that occurred in unincorporated Las Vegas, the area generally south of Sahara Avenue.

Revenue for fiscal 2010 is projected to approach $42.5 million.

Harris bought Ticket Busters in April 2007 from attorney Adam Stokes, who now operates Half Price Lawyers. The attorney, who also operates Richard Harris Law Firm and The Defenders, explained that some have the misconception that ticket attorneys are in the business of trying to “fix” tickets. Rather, these attorneys provide a service. They plead for the deals they can get, often saving their clients time, money and driver’s license points.

Not everyone agrees.

In a recent Internet “Ripoff Report,” a Las Vegas woman named Shawna wrote that although Ticket Busters was able to get points removed from her husband’s driving record following a traffic ticket, the husband was required to attend traffic school “which would have removed the points for us anyway!”

Harris counters this claim with several laudatory testimonials on his company’s Web site, ticketbusters.com. He added that all customers of Ticket Busters save time, and some save money and points. In other words — as it is in criminal cases — it’s not up to the attorney to decide the sentence, it’s up to the courts.

“We as professionals in a traffic-related law firm are not going to guarantee any result,” Harris explained. “We handle tickets as any professional would — expeditiously. We save a lot of time, and in many cases our clients receive reduced fines, and no traffic school or points.”

Like other ticket lawyers, Harris or other attorneys at his firm typically attend special sessions before a judge and try to get the best deal they can for their clients. It’s not unusual for these attorneys to try to obtain reduced charges on several tickets at a time. In other words, they plea bargain.

“Many of these violations are in packages,” Harris said. “Some motorists could be hit with several citations. They could include improper lane change, no insurance, signals — I remember one client had seven. When we have this many, we can negotiate, and we do a good job.”

Stokes understands this.

“I’ll go (before the judge) with a stack of 500 tickets and try to get the best deal I can for my clients,” Stokes said. “If I can’t, then I’ll ask the judge to set all 500 cases for trial,”

Stokes, who boasts that he charges only $50 to handle a traffic citation, explained it’s not a matter of threatening a judge with clogging his calendar. Ticket defense goes to the heart of the judicial system — meaning that every defendant, no matter how minor the charge, has a right to an attorney and a right to his day in court.

The attorney also said he’s vigilant about trying to remove points from his clients’ driving records to help keep the clients’ auto insurance rates down.

“I don’t know why the state has an interest in sharing driver’s license information with insurance companies,” said Stokes, who holds master’s of business administration and law degrees from Tulane University.

A competitor to Ticket Busters and Half Price Lawyers is Ticket Terminators, which former insurance agent Kirk Helmick runs from a pink office building at the corner of Flamingo Road and Rainbow Boulevard.

Helmick, a native of Elkins, couldn’t be reached for comment.

Two years ago, he told the Elkins-based Inter-Mountain newspaper that he started the business several years ago after he began selling insurance in Las Vegas. Helmick explained that sometimes his insurance customers would have traffic tickets along with personal injury claims and local attorneys were hired to represent the clients.

“The relationship was working and we had a trade-off,” said Helmick, adding that he would refer personal injury cases to the lawyers who were already handling the tickets. “I decided that I was going to take it to another level.”

Helmick told the Inter-Mountain newspaper he has three attorneys working for him and he does all the marketing. He also said he has a traffic school.

Harris also offers his clients a traffic school. He notes that his online traffic school, which does business as Traffic School Busters, is free. The official name of the online school is gototrafficschool.com.

“There are some courts where traffic school is required if the client wants to remove the points,” Harris said. “And we offer traffic school for free.”

Any attorney would argue that the best way to avoid fines, points and traffic school is to avoid the ticket in the first place.

A few weeks ago, Harris was stopped by a Henderson police officer over a minor traffic violation.

“I got a warning when I told him I owned Ticket Busters,” Harris said.

Bob Shemeligian is a local freelance writer. Send questions or comments

 Cavemen are all shoved into a room and told to get along. Put alcohol and the financial stress into the mix and ummm …maybe some pink golf clubs a certain someone got for Christmas and it’s on like Donkey Kong.

 Take one family for the sacrificial lamb, a brother who’s contemplating divorce from his wife, a sister-in-laws’ sister whose playing hard to get with her ex-boyfriend who brought along his daughter (who just got out of rehab) and grandson.  

 A picture-perfect holiday gathering. Yes, the all-American family.

 Don’t judge if you think this family is dysfunctional. Just wait until next year- one to many appletinis and you are one step away from one very bad mug shot. Stay sober!

Charlie Sheen's MugShot