I see traffic cops all over the country. Some are assholes, some are saints, but they are doing their jobs. Of course, I tend to follow company policy and obey the speed limit. I know some fellow truckers that have less positive feelings about law enforcement.
A couple of months or so ago I was driving home after dark, in a light snow, and the roads were getting icy what with the temp dropping below freezing. Some jerk, amazingly not in a huge SUV, was tailing me so closely I couldn’t even see their headlights. I was not going to speed up for them, I wouldn’t want to anyway but I was going as fast as I felt comfortable with. Ya know, the icy roads and all that.
I saw lights go up behind us so went to pull over, jackass started to pull around me to the left and then suddenly changed his mind and BAM! pulled over behind me, so close I was afraid he was going to hit me. And behind him pulled up the cop. A well-deserved ticket was written, and I hope it was a big one.
I was downright gleeful during the rest of my drive home.
Last year one of our neighbours further down the street parked partially across our drive and stopped me from getting to work. They’d come back late from a night-shift and because we have a dropped curb there’s always a space, and they tried to squeeze on the end and left their rear bumper hanging over.
I didn’t know whose car it was and didn’t want to go knocking on all the doors (it could have been any one of 50 houses). So I called the local police station and they were super-helpful.
Initially they tried to call the registered owner at his home but no answer (they couldn’t tell me his address due to Data Protection, which is fair enough). So they said they’d send a patrol round when available but did point out it would be lowe priority (again, fair enough).
About 15 mins later one of the unmarked pursuit cars pulled up and two officers wandered over. They asked me to wait inside, then went and woke up the owner, grabbed his keys and moved the car to a spare space.
Perfect outcome really - all I wanted was to get to work, so they got it sorted without any aggravation, no tickets issued and all done in minutes. Seems like a bit over-kill for the police, but it prevented either me damaging the car by trying squeeze past, or an argument when the owner eventually came to move it.
Not sure if this was well-deserved or not, but once I was going the speed limit on a deserted country road with 2 cars behind me. The one directly behind me passes me, whereupon the unmarked car behind him turns on his lights and pulls the passer over.
I think that’s the modus operandi of the cops in the space in between Orlando and Melbourne (where that took place), because I’ve seen it happen a couple times going the other direction on a different road in the area – guy pulls out from the pack whereupon a cop a few cars back instantly puts on its lights.
Bit of a different story, I guess, but here goes:
I was stationed in Korea for a time (the South one, since people always ask…), and around the middle of my tour there, I flew home for a month on leave. On the way back, due to a scheduling goof on my part, instead of having a day to recover after returning, I was going to be arriving back at my base at about 1AM on a Monday, with PT at 6AM. Yeah, one of those days back at work.
Anyhow, I arrive at the airport, get pointed in the direction of the bus stop by the airport staff at Incheon (the Airport workers there single out confused looking Americans, ask us what base we’re trying to get to, and then tell us which bus to take, very helpful, but not the point of this story today…) I catch the last bus for the night by about 10 seconds, and proceed to watch some bizarre Korean variety show on the big-screen TV that Korean buses inevitably have.
Few hours later, we get to my destination, literally the end of the line for the bus. I find myself standing on the curb of a very deserted bus station downtown with the only other white guy from the bus. We split a cab back to the base, and as we walk up to the gate, the sentries do a very unexpected thing… they hustle up to us, come to attention, and one of them says “Sir, Staff Sergeant so-and-so reports, Checkpoint Whatever All Secure.”
… 
… :eek:
The guy makes small talk with the sentries, turns out he’s someone highish in their chain of command, returning from a trip to go to the funeral of one of the airmen in their squadron. He asks the sentry to call a patrol car down to the gate to take him and his things back to his dorm. And then he turns to me and asks
“Hey, what building do you live in?”
So yeah, like any good tour in Korea, mine included at least one trip in the back of a police car. In this case, back to my dorm at 1AM after about 20 hours of traveling away from home. Never did figure out who that guy was, though I know he wasn’t their commander since that guy always hung out with our commander.
Now if they would only start stopping people for running red lights.
They do occasionally, trust me, they do.
I am, in fact, female, though not particularly hot. The officer in question was also female (and considerably hotter than I), which may account for her care in following up with me.
Yes, quite, thank you.
My husband got busted for running a red light once. He was going to the drug store to pick up my prescription pain meds after I broke my ankle a couple years ago, and he (blatantly, by his own admission) drove through a red light on the way home and got ticketed.