Procrastination has its benefits, right? Not just penalty fees?

We’ve all been there—four years into a PhD program, realizing our dissertation is due tomorrow and we haven’t started it yet. Then to our surprise, we’re praised with unfairly high marks, further ingraining a pernicious lifestyle of running behind that seems to do us no wrong, never learning that it’s “egregiously disrespectful” to show up “fashionably late” to funerals.

But I can ask for my family’s forgiveness. That’s easy. What’s not so easy is getting a traffic ticket and asking the state of New York to waive the late fees. Best protection against that? A NYS defensive driving course. Save on insurance, avoid the penalties, and avoid the hassle of getting in touch with bureaucrats about your traffic ticket. Because quite honestly, I don’t know how to contact “The State of New York” about a ticket. Do I call 911? Write my senator? Does Ticketmaster deal with that or am I completely misunderstanding the name of that company?

*EDIT: I checked all of these. None of them are right. Do not call 911 about a traffic ticket*

But I digress. Unless your uncle’s a Rockstar attorney willing to fight your ticket for free, it’s best to get rid of the ticket right away. And by that, I mean pay it. Don’t rip it up or burn it. Turns out the police keep records of those things if you go to the station and ask them to “prove it.” Doing nothing about a speeding ticket is a bad move. Left unpaid or uncontested, depending on the citation, your fine could double after being just one day overdue (typically over 30 days). And if you fail to respond for too long, your license will be suspended, during which, if pulled over while driving, you will be arrested and could be charged with a felony, fined up to $5,000, and have your vehicle confiscated.

So, moving forward, consider taking a course in defensive driving so you have the skills and knowledge to never deal with traffic violations again. If you’re a terrible procrastinator, make this the one thing you do punctually. With how hefty NYS tickets are, it’s worth your time. I mean, if you can muster the funds together for a NYS ticket, especially with late fees attached to it, you might as well be day trading Fortune 500 stocks like candy on the playground, you thrifty genius.

Don’t be like me. Learn how to drive safely and legally on the road. If not to avoid a ticket, then to keep the Empire State’s beautiful roads safer for your fellow drivers. If you have a traffic ticket, find a way to contest it, or pay it on time. Don’t let the late fees stack up, thinking it’ll go away or the state will forget. And don’t lose the money you had to pay for the ticket by gambling on a cryptocurrency your friend made and named after himself. I can’t tell you how many times I insisted that the people of the future are never going to refer to money as JoshCoin, but here I am, owner of 72% of the total amount of JoshCoin, worth almost nothing, but just enough to pay for a defensive driving course through Improv Traffic School.

But most importantly, learn where procrastination works to your advantage and where it hurts you most. Maybe it works to get a dissertation done on time after putting it off for four years, or maybe its sloppy, last-minute execution and completely fabricated conclusions detrimentally alter the approach to preserving endangered sea life in the South Pacific, completely discrediting you and barring your involvement from the entire scientific community. That’s up to you to decide.

And hopefully, you’ll decide not to put off the cheap, easy, fun, and award-winning course that will teach you everything you need to be safe and ticket-free on the roads of New York.