(Christ, has it been a whole month since my last post?)
A couple of times lately, over drinks, the topic of my numerous roadway run-ins with the cops and their affinity for writing me tickets has come up. The first reaction was “Gah, I’m never going to ride with you! How do you still have your license?” When I was really looking for, “Wow, that’s clever how you wormed your way around so many of those tickets!”
I think much of the problem for the longest time was my white-person fetish of plastering my car with bumper stickers, from the time I was 16 til about … oh lord, about 25. And not of the political type, unless you count my middle finger to vegans “Meat is Dinner” sticker. Haha, I got a chuckle out of that one. Oh, and the “ALL People Suck” one. But, as a rule, lots of stickers, especially in a small town, is a fuzz magnet. They can keep a better eye on you on the interstate too as you weave around all the other cars. And, in a heavily Christian area, they’re not too fond of Jesus fishes that say “N’Chips” inside them.
1. Can’t remember if this was my 1st ticket or not, but it was about 1996 and I was heading down I-85, pre-HOV lanes, in a white 1990 Toyota Camry V6, plastered with glitter cat head stickers and 3-D Virgin Mary postcards taped in the rear window. So I’m flying down the left lane, probably was passing everyone else (but hey, it WAS the fast lane), and here come the blue lights behind me. So I pull over into the left emergency lane. Which the cop told me was NOT technically legal, that I’m supposed to always pull off onto the right side of the road. Which would have meant weaving my way back across 5 lanes of traffic. Which would have looked like eluding if you ask me. So anyway he tells me that I was going 80 in a 65 (or something) and that he clocked me by way of his calibrated speedometer. I argued with him, saying something like I had it on cruise control so I KNOW I was only going 75. So when I went to traffic court, I told the judge the same thing I told the cop (shortly before he wrote me the ticket). “Well, it just seems logical that he had to speed up to catch me, which means he would of course be going faster than me.” The judge knocked $12 off my ticket.
2. It was a rainy afternoon and I was on an on-ramp near the connector, getting onto 75/85 north. The guy in front of me began to pull off onto the interstate, so I followed behind him. He then slammed on the brakes, and I slid right into him. I did no damage, not even a scratch. But he told me he worked in insurance and that he knew there could be damage underneath, and also his wife was pregnant. So I had to wait there for at least an hour in the rain, and be late for work, waiting on an Atlanta cop to tear himself away from a narcotics bust to come out and write me a piddling traffic ticket, for something that really wasn’t my fault. Think I was cited for following too closely. Well christ, I was right behind him because we were on a freakin’ interstate on ramp! So I went to Atlanta city traffic court, still defiant that I did nothing wrong and that I could get out of it. When they called me up I pled not guilty, so they set a court date for a month later for my trial. When I came back, the cop didn’t show up and the guy I “tapped” didn’t show up. The judge asked the prosecutor if the state had prepared its case against me, and she said “No your honor.” The judge said “dismissed.”
3. Some guy in a red pickup truck sideswiped me once while passing me on the left while I had my left blinker on and was making a left turn into a shopping center. The cop sided with the other guy, saying that I was illegally turning across two lanes. I thought, what lanes? At least a 1/4 mile was just solid, unpainted blacktop from a recent sewer digging project. So I went back the next day and took several photographs of the spot, so I could plead not guilty and show the judge my pictures if I went back for a trial. So I went to traffic court (DeKalb County) and it was packed. It was kind of late in the afternoon and the judge just sat there and made a face, then said, “I really want to get on out of here, so if you all just pay your tickets today you won’t get any points on your license.” Fair enough, I said, and promptly went to the ATM and came back to pay my ticket before 5. Hey, I don’t mind coughing up the money if I have to, it’s the dings on your license that get you.
4. I was on my way home from my wedding shower, leaving my grandfather’s house and making my way back to Atlanta. I wasn’t even two miles away when a cop pulled me over for supposedly going 60 in a 45. He was like, where are you going in such a hurry? I told him I had just left my wedding shower and that I was heading home. He still wrote me a ticket (must’ve been that uppity Dekalb County tag). So when I got home I called around to see if anyone knew the cop, and I’ll be darned, my aunt used to go to church with him. So they talked to him and he knocked it down to 56 in a 45, so I wouldn’t get any points. Boo-ya! (Yes, I still had to pay full price, but … no points!)
Love it! You have got skills!
Oh, and here are two good cop stories.
1) When I was in college, a friend and I were driving in downtown Athens at around midnight on a Saturday night. We’d been out at dinner and I was driving her home. A cop pulled me over on the corner of College Ave. and Clayton St. He obviously hoped I was drunk and he could add another drunk college student to his quota. But neither of us had been drinking. He said I had my brights on. I said, no I don’t, here’s how my brights work (proceeded to flip them on and off). Then he said, uh, well, that frame you have around your license plate partially obscures the county, so you need to take it off… “I’m giving you a warning this time!” I said okay. He left. My friend and I had a good laugh.
2) Rusty’s grandfather’s widow (his second wife, so not Rusty’s grandmother) is in her early 90s but still sharp as a tack. Last Thanksgiving, I think it was, she was telling us about how she recently got pulled over for speeding. The exchange between her and the cop went like this:
Cop: “Do you know why I pulled you over, ma’am?”
Her: “No.”
Cop: “You were speeding.”
Her: “I don’t believe I was.”
Cop (flustered): “Well I’ve got it on my radar in my car!”
Her: “I’m not interested in what’s in your car.”
She didn’t get the ticket.
Also, her friend who came to Thanksgiving dinner with her (also around the same age) told us how she got out of a ticket in the same small-town way you did in your example #4… she saw the cop’s last name and asked if he was “kin” to so-and-so, and he was, and that was that.
Normally I’m very respectful to the po-lice.
But there was this one time…
Chiefland, Fl is a notorious speed trap. There is a stretch on the south side of town where the limit lowers to 30mph. When’s the last time your drove at 30mph for a sustained amount of time? Try it. It’s not easy.
But I know this about Chiefland so I’m always careful.
Imagine my surprise a couple of years ago when I saw blue lights in my mirror while travelling through the tiny town.
I looked down at the dash and saw I was going 37mph. I was driving my mother’s Lincoln which can cruise at 80 and feel like 40.
I pulled over and a young cop (he looked like he was fresh out of cop school) approached my window.
Police: “What’s the big hurry tonight, sir?”
Me: “I didn’t think I was in one since I was going under 40″
Police: “The speed limit here is 30″
I pointed to the sign 10 FEET IN FRONT OF MY FRONT END which said 45mph.
He shook his head and said “Its 30 here” and wrote me a ticket.
The sheer absurdity infuriated me. But I took my ticket, paid my fine and since it was out of state and under 10mph over the limit got no points.
So fair warning if you ever drive through Chiefland, Fl.