…I DIDN’T get ticketed/cited, but I [probably] DID deserve to.
2007, Rural Vermont, on US Route 7.
It’s one of those roads where the speed limit is generally in the 50s, but slows down to 25 in the small towns, of which there are plenty.
Part-way through one small town, i saw the lights and heard the siren. The cop asked if i knew why i had been pulled over, and i honestly didn’t know. I asked him if i had been exceeding the speed limit. He said that i had, and i believe him. I think i just forgot to slow down sufficiently as i entered the town.
I was living in the US at the time, but was still driving on my Australian license. He ran me through his system, and then came back and told me that i wasn’t on any Homeland Security watch-lists, so he was going to let me off with a warning.
He was perfectly amiable, and i got the impression that half his life consists of pulling over tourists who forget to slow down while driving through his quaint little village.
I chose DIDN’T but DID, although technically there was no way he knew how fast I was going other than “It looked fast.” because I know where he was. I pretty much deserve a ticket every time I command a vehicle however, so I’m fine with getting them.
It was only the IIRC fourth time in my life I’ve been pulled (except for the time they pulled me over because somebody else was driving a car like mine who did some sort of crime) and the only time I’ve ever had a ticket. I just hadn’t paid any attention and totally didn’t see the school zone. It was my fault, I apologized, paid up.
Pulled over this summer because some asshole tried to cut me off going into a one-lane construction zone and didn’t quite make it, then he called the cops and said I was drunk. Cop stopped me, found I was not drunk or doing anything wrong and released me with an apology.
Time before that (2014) I was stopped 2 blocks from my apartment after driving 620 miles that day. Turned out my rear plate lights were burned out. He asked me to get it fixed and let me go.
Pulled over for speeding, 59 in a 45 zone, about 2 years ago. It was the road that I used to commute to work, and the speed limit on that road drops from 55 to 45 at one point. I had made a (bad) habit of not slowing down, and one morning, there was a cop on radar duty. Totally deserved it. (Driving a cherry red Mustang probably didn’t help in my visibility to the officer. )
I was able to attend traffic school and avoid having the ticket go on my record.
I was flying along U.S. 50 in Colorado at 50 in what is, for some inexplicable reason, a 35 zone. (No houses, no intersections, no real curves or changes in elevation.) A cop came along the other way; I was like, “Oops”. I immediately slowed down and looked in my mirror. He was u-turning and had turned on his lights, so I just pulled over. I knew I was had.
He walked up to me, said, “Thanks for pulling over right away; watch your speed,” and walked back to his car.
)