Sometimes, That's The Way it Goes Here

I was driving along, minding my own business yesterday, along a stretch of a narrow local road on which the speed limit is posted at 25 MPH. In my entire life, I have not known anyone to go 25 MPH along this stretch. Generally, closer to 40 is the accepted speed. Please allow me a couple of illustrative anecdotes.

As a teen driver, I was insistent on driving whenever I was in the car. My mother generally knew when to pick her battles and stayed out of my way on that one. But on one occasion, I guess she felt I was growing too comfortable with excessive speed, and along this stretch she admonished me to mind the speed limit. Since I was trained to be quite passive aggressive, I hit the brakes and slowed us from the 45 or so I was doing to the posted 25. Which elicited the following response from my mother: "Okay, Pos. Now you're just being ridiculous." Indeed. 25 along there is ridiculous.

A few years later, having been issued a speeding ticket or two, I learned that when a cop is behind you, it is best to mind your P's and Q's if you know what's good for you. All your P's and Q's. And I was on this stretch when a police cruiser came up behind me. I towed the line. My speedometer was between 24 and 26 MPH. After about a half mile of this, the police cruiser roared around me, crossing the double yellow line. He didn't flip me off as he went, but he did shoot me a disgusted "Boot licker" look. For those of you who might suggest that he was in a hurry to get somewhere emergent, allow me to suggest that if that were the case, he might have been compelled to flip the switch on that fancy and expensive light array adorning his roof. I would have pulled over and gotten out of his way, in accordance with the law and common courtesy if he had. Just a thought. Those aren't there for show. 

So, as you can see, even the cops, even the mother of a 16 year old male, holds this 25 MPH speed limit in contempt. 

At least, until yesterday. I was doing about 40 when I passed a driveway. One of those long driveways. Lined with trees. And in the driveway was a hidden police cruiser. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what we call a speed trap. It just so happens that as I passed the driveway, I was heading down a gradual hill and knew that if I coasted, I would speed up past the acceptable 40, into the unacceptable 45-ish range, so I eased on my brakes.

And that's when I remembered hearing someone tell me once that if you tap your brakes when you pass a cop, they take that as a sign that you think you did something wrong. And they'll come after you. 

I looked in my rear view mirror and saw nothing, so I kept going. I crested the next hill, but before I reached the next, I saw the cruiser approaching, lights a-flashing. I pulled over. Although I couldn't believe that it was me they were after, hey, why take chances, right?

The cruiser pulled up right behind me. It was me that they were after, alright. Son of a bitch. The cop got out as I rounded up my license, registration, and proof of insurance. I already had my window down, so I had the package ready to go as he came to my window.

And I saw that it was Ray. Ray and I are not friends, per se, but we do know each other well. We go to the same church (when I went to church), and I served on the Board of Directors for said church with Ray's wife years earlier. We know each other well enough to trade amusing barbs at each other. But he was in full on cop mode.

"License and registration, please," he stated plainly and clearly, with a slightly surly demeanor. I handed the package to him, and this is when he looked me in the face. His expression went from "I'll teach you to haul ass through my Borough" to "Hey, what have you been up to?" in half a second. We chatted genially at the window for a while before he said, "Just as second. I have to turn the camera off, and go make the computer happy."

He went back to the car, sat there for a few moments. He came back and said "I just pulled you over because I wanted to tell you that it is a beautiful day out today." He was smiling.

I smiled back and replied "I shall consider myself duly warned. Thank you, sir."

Now. All of you out there are probably thinking "Hey, awesome. Way to dodge that bullet."

And yeah, I'm thinking that too. But I have a couple of issues with the whole thing, that I am wanting to discuss out here in my anonymous world of Blogadelphia...

First. Why is it okay for me to go 40 if I know the cop? Not that I'm complaining about not getting a ticket, but I am thinking of the next guy or the next town, where the speeder doesn't know the cop. In a world of absolute morality, is it wrong to speed or not? My take is that if you are in control of the car and not endangering anyone, speed limits should be relative. Maybe my speed limit is greater than Grampa Kettle's, but not as great as Mario Andretti's. I was clearly in control of my car. I wasn't endangering anyone. In other words, even though I was let off, by pulling me over, I can't help but feel that I was being harassed. And if I were not from this town and did not know Ray, the harassment would have turned to a fine and points on my license.

Sorry, gotta play the bullshit card on that one. There's just something arbitrary and mean about that. Less about protecting the peace and more about making quotas and stuff. I could be wrong. I dunno.

My next issue. I had my 13 year old in the car with me. And I am concerned about the mixed message that was sent by the cop first off by pulling me over and then completely changing tone when he learned who I was. The message that my son may have learned is that the law is arbitrary. The one thing that I know he took away from it was that you may get pulled over if you speed. I actually think that's great. But the other side of it, that you may get away with it if you know the cop, that actions don't necessarily have consequences if you know someone, that's the part that I am conflicted about.

I probably shouldn't worry about it in this case. Later in the day as I jackrabbit started out of a stoplight, the thirteen year old looked at me with something bordering on paternal concern in his eyes and said "Well, you certainly seem to be in love with speed today."

Ideally, I would find Ray outside of his work and talk to him about my concerns, but in reality, I'm not sure that would be a productive conversation. He may be insulted that I was looking his gift horse in the mouth. And he may be a bit more of an a-hole about it all down the road. Which isn't what I want. I guess I would wish that he hadn't pulled me over at all in the first place.

I don't have any insightful statements that wrap this all up. As you can see, I don't even really have a firm grasp on what it is that is bothering me. C'est la vie. Sometimes, that's the way it goes here.