Whatever you say, officer- my run in with the police.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Quietgirl spent the night. As quietgirl’s parents are phobic rednecks, there is always a little bit of sneaking going on when she spends the night- as in, I usually have to pick her up after midnight and get her back home before six in the morning.

We woke up at five, and instead of putting on my regular pants, I put on a pair of pjs. I dropped off quietgirl and then began the 15 minute trek home.

Did I mention that I was very tired? I was running on about an hour’s sleep, and I forgot to pay attention to the speed limit signs. (No, it’s not an excuse.) I went through the 35mph zone of Milton going about 55. At one point, I looked to the right, and saw a car. With police lights on it.

Oh, bugger.

Sure enough, he pulled me over. And I realized several things.

  1. It was five thiry in the morning.
  2. I was very obviously driving in pjs- I was wearing a shirt and flannel pants, sans underwear, which made me very nervous. I really, really didn’t want to explain why I wasn’t driving in normal clothing.
  3. My driver’s licence was in my wallet. Which was in my pants. Which were at home in a crumpled heap by my bed.
  4. My parents, who are out of town, would not be amused by my pre-dawn antics.

Oh, bugger.

The officer was somewhat taken aback by what I was wearing (God, I’m so glad I put on long pants instead of boxers) and was very much not amused by the fact that I didn’t have my driver’s license.

In the end, I got a lecture for forgetting my license, some very strange looks from the officer, and a ticket for 45 dollars for not having a license. He didn’t ticket me for speeding. (whew)

This means that I can just pay the fine and be done with it- it won’t show up on my insurance bill. Mom and Dad don’t have to find out. (I’m probably going to tell them about it, though. I’m just going to make it half past five at night.)

All in all, it could have been far worse. I mean, I could have had rabid lemurs attack me while I was waiting for him to walk up to the car.

andygirl

2

I love getting pulled over by a cop in my PJ’s (which is often with my husband and my weird work schedules, and one car) They always figure out ou were dropping someone off at work. I go barefoot too. They ask you where you are going, and you reply “back to bed.” Always gets a chuckle. Just don’t fall asleep at the wheel.

3

Um, andygirl, don’t pay the fine. You have a license, right? Just show up at court, present the license, and the charges are dropped.

–Tim

4

Um Homer? not necessarily. laws in various jurisdictions vary. In my home town, driving w/o the license is a different charge than driving w/o valid license - ie they DO want 'y’all to carry them, too. You can call and find out.

the only ticket you can do that with (poor sentence structure) around here is/are equipment violations (loud muffler, get it fixed and the ticket goes away)

bottom line, she got a break from the officer. She was speeding and at a rate that they could have gone for something bigger like reckless (big fine, big insurance problems), and without valid id, he could have “assumed” that the car was stolen or whatever and pulled her into jail.

at any rate. cheap, realitvely easy lesson in “never leave home without it”