I did, once. On US-101 in California between Salinas and Gilroy, it’s 2 lanes over rolling hills — 2 lanes in each direction. Traffic was light to moderate and I was going about 10 MPH faster. If a car in the left lane didn’t move right, then I passed on the right.
Suddenly I saw a CHP about a quarter mile behind me and coming up fast. I was pretty sure it was me he was after. I passed a large semi that was in the right lane and I moved to the right into the right lane in front of him (there was plenty of room, I didn’t cut off the semi). I was then blocked by the semi and the CHP couldn’t see me, and I couldn’t see him.
Just then to my good fortune I saw an exit lane, and I took it. Lucky! As I slowed down the semi was then on my left and the CHP was in the left lane about to pass it. As they both went past I saw the CHP driver was looking around for “where did he disappear to?”, and then he saw me exiting just as he was about to come up next to the semi. I saw him turn his head and look right at me.
There was other traffic in the right lane so there was no way he could hit the brakes and move right to get to the exit lane.
I’m certain that I dodged a speeding ticket that day.
Something very similar happened to a friend of mine years ago- he was speeding on the freeway, saw a cop coming up in his rear view, so he slowed to the speed limit, got a semi between him and the cop, and immediately took an exit that was conveniently there.
Unfortunately for him, unlike your story, he thought it was safe to get back on the freeway after taking the service ramp for a little ways, and got back on. Where the cop was waiting for him up ahead. When he was pulled over the cop said, ha, I knew you’d get back on the freeway. He got a speeding ticket and the cop said the only reason he wasn’t charged with evading the police is because he slowed down to the speed limit before exiting instead of speeding up more.
Once I believe I did, I was passing a long line of slower cars/trucks and returned back to my lane a bit after the passing zone added, and what do you know that was the exact time ol’smokie was heading the other way. I may have been going a tad fast too. Well the road bend + the truck behind me made it impossible to see what he was doing, but I assumed him hanging a U-ie was high on his priority list.
But there was quite a lot of traffic he would need to overcome. On a whip of adventure I decided to make a right turn on a small mountain road and spend an extra hour enjoying the drive home instead of taking the direct way.
I didn’t do any evasion, but… a cop going the opposite direction on a 2-way highway clocked me speeding. She hit the lights and did a dramatic U-turn off the side of the road. But a line of passing cars got between her and me before she could get back on the road.
I guess she weighed that I’d be out of sight before she could bullhorn the traffic out of the way to pursue me. So I watched in the rearview as she sat on the side of the road, lights and siren on, leaning out the window to give me the stinkeye. I was glad because I was a teenager who already had 2 tickets in that speedtrap town. My dad would beaten whatever part of my ass that the judge didn’t chew to pieces. My right foot got a little lighter that day.
Driving westward on I-90, I spotted a cop on the frontage road who sped up faster than me (oh yes, I was speeding) and I figured he was going to pull me over. As I passed the on ramp, he was coming down the ramp and pulled in right behind me. I drove 1 mile under the speed limit to the next exit, which was 10 miles away. He got bored waiting for me to go fast and was getting too far from his jurisdiction, so he passed me an took that exit at 10 miles away - only to see me in the rear view mirror take the same exit behind him. I needed gas. Thankfully, he did not wait around, but I’m sure he notified those ahead of me to watch out.
Not exactly the same, but this happened last week when going to get my covid-19 booster shot. The site was located in the Metro Toronto Convention Center, the same place I went for my first 2 shots, which has an underground parking lot accessed by a side street. This time, the block of the side street north of the center was blocked off by construction, so I had to go a block west and then double back. As I was approaching the side street there was a truck with a big spool of cable at the corner blocking the right turn lane and a traffic cop waving cars through. I saw the the side street was open just as I was passing the cop, so I made a quick right turn down it to the entrance to the parking garage. I heard the cop shout something at me but couldn’t make out what he said. He didn’t come running after me so I guess I got away with whatever it was he thought I shouldn’t have done.
Just remembered another one, it was on the toll approach to the Throgs Neck Bridge in NYC. Traffic was backed up for miles and I took surface streets to the last entrance to the tolls, but that was gaited closed (I did not expect this), though the off-ramp was open, allowing traffic from the bridge approach to exit. A large SUV turned onto this exit against the flow that ramp was suppose to be and I followed. Well as we got to the bridge traffic there was a cop who waved the SUV driver over to him, which allowed me to go around him on the right, blocking the view of me from the cop. After going around him I drove all the way to the toll booths on a lane with an unopened booth and merged in very close to the toll booth to get into an open lane and got though. I didn’t look at all towards the cop, but I can just imagine the conservation he must have had with the SUV driver.
SUV driver: why didn’t you stop him also then?
Cop: How was I suppose to do that, he’s gone.
Let’s not forget evading cops on foot or on a bike. Didn’t any of you do graffiti, explosives, or skateboard?
The rule was as soon as the lookout gives the signal, run. Don’t wait til you see the car, just sprint and vault those fences and walls you’d scoped out beforehand.
So I might have evaded cops, or just had a good adrenaline-fueled workout while a cop car drove innocently past a block away…
Driving to Pennsylvania from Florida I was on I-95 when I saw a huge sign warning that all vehicles were being searched 7 miles ahead. I immediately thought “bullshit, that just isn’t feasible”.
A few miles later I passed an exit for some tiny town. Two Winnebago type vehicles were pulled over on the exit and the people were being patted down. Apparently, the police had created a situation where evasion by drug-runners made them easy pickings.
Back in the day I had a Triumph Spitfire complete with the legendary Lucas electrical system. I was asked to take a largish piece of equipment to a different office and chose to drive my car because it was cooler than the office van. At that time, the starter was iffy so I always parked nose out so I could push start it if needed.
A cop had started following me a few miles before I got to the job site, speed was probably related but I was doing the speed limit while he was following. There were no suitable parking spots so I pulled up next to a door on the grass, hopped out of the car, turned around to look at the motorcycle cop behind me and said something to the effect of “I’m so happy you are here, I need help moving this heavy equipment inside!” Cop told me he just wanted to tell me to not drive over the sprinklers because I would break them and left.
I did kind of the opposite: egged a guy into getting a speeding ticket.
I was driving home from work on a country road from Crystal Lake toward Palatine, IL. Two lane road, dashed median. This was an absolutely notorious speed trap area, so I’m going maybe 5 miles over. Some guy starts tailgating the heck out of me on this absolutely deserted road. Dude, if you’re that pissed, pass me! So fuck this, I start driving slower, just a little under the limit, hoping he’d go around and he just wouldn’t do it. Probably had smoke coming out his ears at this point. I knew a four-lane section was coming up and that’s where the radar cop would surely be so I drove at my pokey speed til we go there, and sure enough, tailgater guy ROARS past me in the other lane, making probably 85mph. Finally got rid of that jerk, yay!
I drive about 1 more mile and see him pulled over with a cop with lovely flashing lights. Karma’s a bitch, dude.
I once pulled over a cop before he could pull me over.
Got lost in New Jersey and at one point thought I had to turn around, so I made an illegal u-turn. Then I noticed a police car, and he pulled out to follow. I made a turn and he followed. But before he could put his lights on I activated my flashers, pulled over, rolled down the window and beckoned him to me.
The officer pulled up alongside and I put on my dumbest face. “Am I glad to see you! I’m trying to get back to the GW bridge and I got turned around. Can you tell me how to get there?”
He frowned and seemed to roll his eyes, but gave me directions and let me go. I half expected him to tell me to start driving again so he could pull me over properly.
When we were 14-15 y/o, my bestest buddy had a father with more dollars than sense and a Maserati Khamsin:
He’d let my buddy drive it, or ride his dirt bike (motorcycle) around, figuring it’d make him a better driver one day, should he ever become eligible to drive legally.
Dad always told him, though, not to ever let himself get pulled over (driving underaged and without a license) or there’d be Hell to pay.
We were cruising along in the aforementioned Maserati one day … languidly … at about 85mph (probably in a 40mph zone). From the other direction came a cruiser who flipped on his lights and did a very quick U-turn.
My buddy – very respectful of his father’s requests – hit the go-fast pedal and got us up to just shy of 170mph, the blue and red bubble-gum flashers becoming an evanescent memory.
The slight rises and falls in the tarmac put us aloft several times.
But my buddy could drive. Man, could he drive.
Just to be sure we were free, my buddy decided to take a known-to-us side street up ahead, slowing prudently to about 85mph for a 90* right angle turn.
When he mashed the brakes, the semi-metallic linings threw a roostertail of sparks behind us as we four-wheel drifted masterfully into the turn.
John Q. Law never made the turn. I think he’d met his match and just let the boys have one that day.
When I was parked nose out and down hill so I wouldn’t have to bump start it, I could just release the parking brake. Worked like a champ then. However, parking nose in pointing down hill absolutely guaranteed the starter wouldn’t work so the weight of the car pressing against the starter while it was parked had nothing to do with if the starter would work.
Murphy was made during the last production run, so they used a lot of left-over parts on him. He was more, umm, interesting than most Spits.
Nah. I did accidentally evade a sobriety checkpoint (I was sober). It was late one Saturday night and I saw a long line of cars near Wendy’s for some reason and decided to go home a different way due to the “weird traffic back up” because I’m impatient. I mentioned it to my brother the next day because his apartment was a couple hundred feet beyond the parking lot and he explained what it had been.
Coming down the Grapevine on I-5, I was going way too fast. CHP pulled out behind me. I saw them and slowed down immediately, then moved to the right lane. I guess they didn’t have enough time to pace my car and determine the speed, so the officer pulled up next to me, looked at me, and held up his fingers indicating that I had escaped the ticket by “this much”. He then pulled away into the distance. He was followed by a car of young men who pointed and laughed. Good times, good times.
Someone once told me he knows a guy who committed some traffic violation (e.g. red light, illegal turn or something like that), cop turned on his lights to pull him over, guy just pulled into a nearby parking spot, turned off the car, and got out of the car and walked away. The cop did not pursure him on foot.
The guy telling me this claimed there was some sort of legal obstacle to cops pursuing once you got out of the car, and that this was therefore a viable option for anyone in that situation, but I very much doubt if this is correct.
Same here. Very young, riding a dirt bike and had to take a paved road to connect parts of the trail. A cop might’ve turned on his lights before I hit the next stretch of trail. There was no one else around so I can guess who the lights were for. But, his car wasn’t built for that trail so hasta la vista baby.
