Five different cops; three encounters
The road I was on comes off the freeway and four lanes wind their way uphill and around curves and eventually end up at a junior college. I was coming home from the 4-year college one sunny afternoon on my motorcycle when two kids in brightly-colored cars came barreling up the road. One had a flame job painted on the hood, the other had that kind of wide black line that says “I’m imitating a race car!” painted over the hood, top, and trunk. They were weaving back and forth between the two northbound lanes, clearly racing each other as they passed me.
Then we came to a stop light and, since there were a lot of other young people out on the road at the time, the two racers got stuck behind about a half-dozen cars. And, since I was on a bike, I was able to ride between the stopped cars# right up to the yellow crosswalk line. That seemed to piss-off the racers a bit and, since I was in the mood to piss them off even more, I gave my handlebars a shake when the light turned green. That made my bike wobble a bit as traffic started to move, and the drivers to my left and right reacted by slowing down a bit (either to give me room to crash or to make sure I wouldn’t damage their paint jobs when it happened). Then I cranked the throttle and left the whole pack behind me as I zipped up the hill and around the next curve.
Just as I rounded that curve, I saw a city police car on the side of the road with an officer standing at the back and pointing a radar gun at the crest of the curved hill. I glanced at my speedometer and saw that I was going about 5 miles over the limit; when I looked ahead again, I could see him waving his hand for me to pull over. So I slowed, changed lanes, and actually passed and parked in front of his car. Then I got off the bike, set my helmet and keys on the seat, and walked back to stop by his rear tire.
“Watch this.” I said as I leaned casually on the rear fender (side?) of his car. He frowned at me, but busied himself with the details at the top of a ticket as I watched the road behind us. In less than a minute, the pack of cars I had left behind caught up to us and, as I had expected, the two racers were at the front as if they were leading a parade with their un muffled exhaust pipes forewarning the world of their arrival. As they approached and passed, I pointed to each one and said, “One. Two.”
And then I stepped closer to the officer as he asked the routine, “You know why I pulled you over?”
“Yes I do, sir. I was speeding just a bit.” I confirmed, “But you pulled me out of that sticky situation, so I’ll gladly pay for that.”
“Okay.” he agreed, “License and registration?”
I told him it was in my backpack and got out my wallet and flipped it open and pulled out the card and paper.
“I see you’ve done your MSF* Training.” he noticed the strategically-placed card atop the junk in the little plastic multi-fold picture/card holder. I could tell from the tone of his voice that he was going to launch into a you should know better lecture.
“Yes indeed.” I affirmed, “In fact, that’s where the instructor, Mark Thompson, told us it’s better for motorcyclists to be ahead of a pack of racing idiots – like those two guys I pointed out – rather than behind them.”
“Oh?” the officer asked, “And why’s that?”
“Because if they start a pile-up from their shenanigans, a motorcyclist wants that crap to be behind him, rather than be driving into the mayhem. He was a former CHP Motor Patrolman.”
“Well, that may be true.” the officer acknowledged as he handed me back my documents, “but you need to go easy around these blind curves.”
“Point well taken, sir.” I told him and reached out to shake his hand.
“Have a nice day.” he told me and turned to set his ticket book on the trunk of his car while picking up the radar gun again.
I didn’t mind him refusing to shake my hand.
It was the middle of August and I was heading west on highway 8, pushing my motorcycle up to about 70mph and leaning way forward over the tank. After a while I sat upright a bit more and saw the flashing lights in my mirrors. I sighed and pulled over to the breakdown lane on the right side of the highway, only to hear a female voice on a loudspeaker, “Go to the next exit.”
So I drove to the next off-ramp and pulled over at the bottom, only to hear the same woman command, “Proceed to the gas station ahead and stop.”
I was going to just proceed through the red light but thought better of it and waited, and pulled into a little parking space near the air & water station off to the side of the main building and pumps.
The officers got out of their cruiser and approached while I was peeling off my helmet and laying my pack on the seat. I was a bit surprised because they were both female and, quite frankly, both gorgeous. Scenes of me and them and handcuffs played in my head until one of them spoke.
“Do you know why we stopped you, sir?” the driver officer asked.
“No sir.” I responded reflexively and immediately corrected myself, “No ma’am!”
As the MAS*H scene of Radar’s first encounter with Major Houlihan played through my head, the officers chuckled.
“You left the county back at the Greenfield underpass.” the same officer explained, “Here in the city the speed limit is still fifty-five.”
“Ahh.” I acknowledged and reached for my pack to unzip the front pocket where my wallet was stored. But I frowned as I pulled it out and asked, “Was I speeding?”
“You were doing about seventy, sir.” the passenger officer noted.
“Where are you going this evening, sir?” the driver officer asked.
"Oh, I explained, “I’m coming back from the Cuyamacas, I was trying to watch the meteor showers but there weren’t a whole lot.”
“Oh, you should have seen it last week.” the passenger officer responded. She seemed much more relaxed than the driver officer, so I figured she was the junior partner. The skies were full of 'em and cars were lining up on both sides of the freeway. Sunset highway was packed and we were ticketing people left and right."
“Have you had anything to drink this evening, sir.” the driver officer pushed us back to official business.
“No.” I shook my head, then said, “But that reminds me!” As I reached out and unzipped the main pocket of my pack, the officers shared a look that said, Is this guy stupid or crazy or what? I ignored it and flipped my pack open to reveal the tops of a six-pack. I pulled a green can off the plastic retainer and offered it to the more stern officer, “Would you like a ginger ale?”
“Umm, no.” that finally seemed to have broken her reserve and she laughed, “That’s quite all right. Thank you.”
I offered the same can to the other officer, who was already laughing, and she shook her head and declined the offer as well. I shrugged and popped the can open, chugging a bit while feeling like I was proving it was safe.
“Nothing at all, sir?” the officer persisted (and dragged us back to official business again).
“Not a drop.” I told her, “Not for about a decade.”
“You were weaving a bit when we spotted you, sir.” she explained, “So we picked you up when you crossed into the city.”
“Oh, that!” I remembered my slalom attempt and explained, “Y’know those commercials that say ‘slow down when the officer does a round robin on the road’?”
“Yeah.” Both officers nodded
“Well I thought that looked so fun to do but too dangerous to do in traffic.” I continued, “But since I couldn’t see anybody out here for miles ahead or behind me I figured I’d try it.”
Again the officers laughed and, as I chugged my ginger ale again, I could see them exchanging a glance that seemed to say, Is this guy an incredible nerd, or what? and my little fantasy of being their prisoner choked and collapsed.
“So was it fun?” the junior officer asked.
“Well, not really.” I admitted, “It seems like a better move to do at about forty or less – sure ya don’t want a ginger ale?”
“No thank you.” the senior officer declined again and they seemed to move in unison back toward the cruiser, “Just make sure you keep it to fifty-five on this side of Greenfield.”
“Will do!” I confirmed as my menage-a-cop concept withered and died, “Thank you!”
I finished my soda, made a point of putting it in the trash can, then mounted up and rode home.
I was up in Dayton trying to find their University and feeling a full bladder. I passed a filling station on the wrong side of the median, so I made a U-turn at the next stop light. After straightening out of the turn, I cranked on the throttle and saw a police cruiser out of the corner of my eye. When I made it to the speed limit I stopped accelerating, but that was after I’d already seen the passenger in the cruiser pointing at me. I reached the filling station just as the cruiser caught up to me, and they were turning on their lights as I pulled in. They pulled in behind me as I was dismounting and peeling off my helmet.
“Where ya goin’ son?” the driving officer called out as I was walking away from my bike.
“I’m going in to pee.” I replied.
“No you’re not.” the passenger officer told me, “This is a traffic stop.”
“Well, technically, sir,” I noted as they moved forward and converged in front of their cruiser, “I pulled in here of my own accord and then you guys showed up and turned on your lights.”
“Do you know why we’re stopping you?” the driver officer asked.
I didn’t know if he meant stopping me on the road or stopping me from using the restroom and I didn’t want to quibble about the distinction so I simply said, “No sir…z”
“We saw you speeding after you made your U-turn.” the passenger officer revealed. I wondered if they were intentionally playing tag-team, but neither of them was acting like the particularly good- or bad-cop.
“Actually, sir,” I looked directly at the passenger officer, “I only got up to the posted speed limit as I passed the sign. I don’t believe there’s anything specific about how rapidly one may accelerate to that limit.”
“Can we see your license and registration?” the driver officer seemed to be getting impatient about the encounter.
“Certainly!” I nodded and pulled my wallet out of my jacket. I pulled the documents out of my wallet and handed them to the one who had requested them.
The guy took my cards, looked briefly at them, then gave them to his partner along with an odd glance, “You’re here from California?”
“Yes sir.” I confirmed, “I’m doing grad school in Cincinnati.”
“Why haven’t you updated your license and registration?”
“Well, they don’t expire until September and I wasn’t planning on staying past June.” I explained, and then lied, “Unless I get accepted to Law School.”
The officers glanced at each other again, this time longer, and the passenger officer handed my documents back to his partner.
“You really need to update these for your residency here.” The driver officer noted as he handed my cards back to me, “Even if you’re just here for college.”
“I’ll do that this week, sir.” I noted.
But by then the two officers were ignoring me and climbing back into their cruiser.
–G!
#Normally I don’t do any lane-splitting when I ride, but all the cars around me were completely stopped so I wasn’t worried about someone suddenly changing lanes in front of me.
*MSF = Motorcycle Safety Foundation which is a group that was, at one time, nation-wide and had a standardized rider training curriculum and tests.
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