My first ticket ever involved me going to the courthouse to straiten it out. It was terrifying given I'd never even gotten a ticket before.
It was back in the day when my parents still covered my auto insurance. It just so happened the insurance policy had just expired, so it was renewed and new cards were issued. I was in Texas and my folks were in New Mexico, so they had to mail me the new cards. Not meaning to rat on my parents, but they were taking their time in mailing the new cards to me, so I was driving around with expired cards for about a week, and I happened to have been pulled over during that time. The officer, though just doing his job and certainly having heard every story out there, didn't show any sympathy when I said I
was insured, and my parents just hadn't mailed me the new cards yet, so he told me to take it up with the court.
So I didn't work for two days because I was so terrified of getting pulled over again, and when my parents Fed-Exed my new cards, before even going back to work, I went strait to the courthouse to get everything straitened out and clear my record. Thankfully, once I got there, the secretary I spoke to was able to pull up my file and fix it for me right away, without me having to go before a judge or anything. But man, what an unpleasant experience that whole thing was!