First clue, lights on the roof. Second clue, paint job. Third clue, and this one was only about two inches ahead of your front bumper, letters painted on the trunk that read “Colorado State Trooper”.
Then, when he moves over, perhaps out of bemusement, perhaps out of a scientific interest in what would happen next, you blow by him.
If I were that cop, I would have been laughing so hard, I wouldn’t have been able to turn on my lights. He managed, though.
Stupidest thing I’ve seen in years.
I once saw a idiot in a Porche pass a CHP officer using the right hand shoulder.
Chase ensued.
Frank, did you forget to include a link to a particular news story?
I’ve done some dumb ones like that in my youth.
Once pulled up next to a NATO-brown sedan (with about 10 antennas on the trunk) at a stoplight. When the light went green, he got out of the hole pretty hot, so I drag raced him and won (until he pulled me over.)
Another time, saw a car closing on me at greater than 100 mph in pitch darkness and decided that he was not going to pass me. We raced in light traffic on an expressway for several miles at speeds in excess of 130 mph until he bailed out and pulled me over. It was a State Police Officer.
No, I saw this happen about four hours ago on I-25.
Which explains the statement " Stupidest thing I’ve seen in years."
Don’t try this at home, kids…but out here, a bike riding on the white line when passing a traffic camera is invisible. Usually, when someone starts playing the “lets scare the girl on the motorcycle” game, I just pull over and let them pass. I can stop much faster then they can.
But, if this game happens when we are close to a traffic camera, I wobble in my lane, change lanes if possible, slow down so they are right on my ass and then hit hit the white line and show my speed. They speed up. I can get them to 90 before they get flashed. Then I pull to the shoulder, let them go by and sedately go my way.
That is awesome. Stupidly dangerous, but awesome. 
There is a little strip mall about 8-10 blocks from my house that has a nice grocery store, drug store, wonderful pizza place, tolerable Chinese place, and a liquor store (what else do you need). The roads between there and my house range from 25 to 30 mph (including a school zone). Coming back one evening… going 30, a car comes up quickly behind me… follows on my tail for about a block and then starts honking. I decided to be polite an pull into the cut off to turn into a neighborhood. Apparently still not satisfied he laid on his horn and gave me the finger out of his window (how dare I drive the speed limit). He raced off so intent on showing me that he won, he didn’t notice the fully marked police car directly across from us clocking traffic and watching the whole thing. Lights came on and he was pulled over right in front of the Elementary school. I drove by and the cop waved to me.
A friend of mine tried to beat a CPD paddy wagon off the line from the right lane at night. The cop told him that he is frequently mistaken for a civilian tow truck.
Heh -
My ahem “friend” has done some dumb things
“friend” (very meekly) I’m very sorry officer, I will be careful to keep my speed under 100 in future
No ticket.
Whenever I see a thread about driving or parking I’m tempted to start a thread Driving in Thailand. A message here reminded me of an incident engraved in my memory since the 1990’s.
There are two northbound lanes on the Asia Highway; I was traveling about 70 mph in the fast lane passing a truck doing about 60 mph. Glancing in the mirror I see two cars approaching rapidly, though it’s hard to judge exactly how rapidly. I consider slowing down, so that I can get behind the truck, put my tail between my legs, and move into the slow lane.
Before I have time to react, both cars are upon us. One takes the left dirt shoulder, the other the narrow right shoulder; they pass the truck and myself simultaneously. Within a few seconds they’re out of sight in the distance ahead. They must have been going at least 120 mph (though perhaps they slowed down to 110 mph or so at the time they passed us in the shoulders).
I have lots of unbelievable driving stories from Thailand, but this one may have astounded me most.
(ETA: Yes “mph” not “kph”. We use “kph” in the Kingdom, but I’ve converted.)
I was cruising along on the interstate once when I came up on a Highway Patrolman and so I fell in line behind him and set my cruise control on 70mph to match him. Some fool in the left lane is going ~70.1mph and over about a 5 minute period very slowly pulls alongside the cop and just as his front bumper passes the patrol car the lights go on and he gets pulled. What a maroon!
The left lane driver or the cop?
Seems like there’s plenty of maroonitude to go round there.
The cargo truck of doom could not wait to pass me, he ahd been drving at erratic speeds for quite some time and swapping the leader position. I was behind a row of cars when he chose to pass all of us on the left, going around a blind left hand curve, uphill, at night, on a two lane road, barely faster than the rest of us. It was a torturously slow verge of death experience for all involved. I stayed at least a mile apart from the Brasilian death road trucker for several hours after that.
On the highway early one morning, it was still dark out. I’m following a cop car, both doing a titch above the posted speed limit. We approach an on-ramp, and I see there’s a car coming down it, so I move to the left lane to give it room to merge. Cop car (and not a stealth car either, this one had big decals and a big light bar) stayed in the right lane. Dumbass on the entry ramp could have tucked in neatly behind the cop without changing speed, and I’d left plenty of room so he could even have then gone into the left lane in front of me to pass us slowpokes. But no, he decided to gun it at the last second and totally cut off the cop car. I was laughing like a maniac as the lights came on and I toodled sedately by
This doesn’t make a lot of sense-
The cops around here don’t want to back up traffic, normally, so they will either blow down the freeway at much higher speeds than normal to avoid it, or they will exit the freeway entirely.
I have passed many a cop going 68-70 by going 71-72 mph, as they only care about safe driving, and are not attempting to block traffic. If you slam by them at stupid speeds and keep going, bad.
If you have cruise set just a mile or so above them, and cruise by slowly, you are fine, as long as you are going with the normal flow of traffic.
Seems like you had an asshole cop, there.
I thought this was going to be about someone tailgating an unmarked police car, which when you’re close enough to tailgate, is pretty obviously a police car (the make and model, the antennas, the floodlight at the side of the car, the equipment inside the car, the rifle sticking up from its holder in the car, etc. all tip you off pretty good). Tailgating and then speeding in front of a marked police car - yup, that’s a special kind of dumb.
Which, I must say, some of these stories here demonstrate, too. Not only dumb, but dangerous to yourself and others on the roads with you.
I was driving home around 2 am and was in a pissy mood. Some idiot got right behind me, tailgating. I was in such a foul mood that I didn’t care if he hit me; I hit my brakes. He didn’t hit me but he did put on his lights and pull me over.
Dude was seriously angry at the near accident. I was sober (I think he was trying to get probable cause to pull me over, figuring at 2 am maybe I was drunk). I told him I hit my brakes because I saw a deer near the shoulder.
I wasn’t ticketed, but boy did he want to.
Hijack:
Frank (OP): I see you’ve abandoned St. Louis for Denver. IIRC you never warmed to St. Louis so I’m imagining you got a new gig & are happier for it. What’re you doing in Denver, how long have you been there, what do you think so far, etc?