So I am driving to work this morning, and zip through a toll booth on Dallas North Tollway......and was out of change. So I ran it. Yeah yeah, I know....... Anyway, as I go through it, I see a state trooper out of the corner of my eye walking over, he waves his hands at me, and motions me to pull over. I thought at first, hmmmmm, I could pretend I didn't see him. Nah, I pull aside. He asks me to back up, waving me to put it in reverse and back to where he is standing, while he makes sure my passage is clear. I backed up. Rolled down the window, and he said, "Do you know why I waved you over?" Hmmm, I thought it was because that awful buzzer went off because I didn't pay the toll....but he says because I was speeding through the toll plaza. Fair enough. He asks me for my license. Here's problem number 1. I had been out late the night before, and had left my license in my pants pocket. "No sir, I don't have it." He asks me if I have insurance. I give him the card. He wrote down my DL#, looked at my EXPIRED registration sticker (Problem number 2: I am about to trade my truck in, and have not renewed it for that reason). Then he says, "Oh, did you know you have a reverse light out?" (Problem number 3). I was like, OK, he can give me at least three citations, not to mention the speeding and not paying the toll. Lovely. He comes back, writes me a warning, and without saying anything, walks off. WHEW. SO, what's the biggest snafu or brush with the law you ever walked away from unscathed?
Non-payment of toll? Speeding?? No license?!? Expired registration and a busted tail light?!! And all you get is a warning!!!! Geez...you must be the hottest girl ever.
Got this lucky twice. Once when I used a Beltway 8 entrance ramp as an exit ramp and had left my proof of insurance at auto shop and a second time when I was pulled over for having expired registration and inspection stickers. There is no better ticket repellant than a nice suit and nice manners.
I considered it lucking out when a DPS Trooper drove me to the convenience store to get a money order to pay my fine rather than locking me up in jail and having to try to get someone to come get someone to come bail me out. I don't recall ever not getting a ticket when I actually broke some traffic law (I've even gotten a ticket for going 30 in a stretch of road that was apparently supposed to be posted as a 20mph zone, BUT someone had stolen the sign and it had not been replaced. Apparently one is just supposed to know that blank pole was signifying a change to a 20mph zone). So I can't imagine ever getting away with just a warning with something like that. I've gotten pulled over and ticketed just for the expired license plates alone (I actually got pulled over twice on the same Sunday for that once and ticketed both times). I guess I'm just not all that attractive (or all that female for that matter).
1) Several years ago in driving from Houston to Austin, I was stopped for speeding because the speed limit mysteriously changed from 65 to 55 just outside of Austin. He started writing a ticket but got a call on his radio and had to rush away so he didn't give me a ticket. 2) Several years ago, I had a consulting engagement in San Antonio. I arrived in my hotel at about 9 PM or 10 PM. I was hungry and decided to go to a Taco Cabana that was about 100 yards away. I take a small back street and a cop pulls me over for speeding. Apparently, the speed limit was 20 m.p.h. I get a way with a written warning. 3) I had a consulting engagement in San Francisco. I decide to stay with my sister in Redwood Shores. On the way back to my sister's apartment I decide to pick up dinner at Boston Market in Foster City. I pull out of the parking lot and soon discover that the road is separated by an island and I am on the left side. I drive back to the right side as soon as possible. A cop sees this manuever and pulls me over. He asks me if I have been drinking and I tell him I have not and show him the evidence of my trip to Boston Market. He looks at my Texas license and lets me go telling me to take my time when driving in unfamaliar surroundings. Nicest cop I ever met. 4) I'm driving home to Cambridge, MA. There is a stop sign at a T intersection. The left side of the T is one-way going toward the left and I want to turn right so I don't have to worry about traffic coming from the left. So I make a right turn without coming to a complete stop, a cop standing in the road pulls me over along with many other cars for not coming to a complete stop. I get a written warning. I really am a very good driver!
Many years ago... Riding with a friend from Houston to Dallas on Thanksgiving day to go to the Cowboys game. I had 8 joints rolled, in an envelope labeled "for back pain" in the zipper pouch of my Superbowl Seat Cushion. It was 7am and we were going up 45 north right before the beltway and I had taken one joint out for us to smoke when we came over an over pass and my buddy was speeding and the cop pulled us over. I shoved the joint in the cargo pocket of my shorts (glad I hadn't lit it). I asked my friend if he had any warrants and he said no (he always had outstanding tickets). I was sitting there and in the side mirror I see my friend getting searched then handcuffed. Next thing I know the cop has his gun pulled and in my face pulling me out of the car. He asked me if I knew my friend had outstanding warrants and weed on him and I said no (he told me he was out) and he asked me if I knew there was a handgun in the glove compartment, which I didn't. He seached me but didn't find the joint in my pocket, he then poured the contents of my seatcushion on the hood of his car and looked at the tickets and opened up my mini binoculars the put every thing (7 other joints included) back in the seat cushion. He asked me if the seat cushion was mine, and I told him it was. He then asked me if I wanted to go to the Greenspoint substation or Downtown. I asked him If I was being arrested and he said no but he couldn't let me take my buddies car since he already called a wrecker. I told him I'd go downtown since I lived in the motrose area at the time. So I had to ride downtown, handcuffed with a joint in my pocket and 7 more on the seat next to the cop with my friend. When we got downtown he opened the seat cushion and rummaged through it again but never even looked at the envelope with the joints. He handed me my bag and gave me a quarter to use the pay phone to call my girl friend. This was as close as I've ever come to going to jail. *as I knock on wood*. I called some friends to get my buddy out of jail and caught a plane to Dallas, sold the other ticket and saw the game.
Let's see I have been pulled over like 19 to 21 times in 13 years of driving and I have only gotten 3 tickets. To go through all of them would take me several hours. Let's just say that there are advantages of living in a small town where your parents are teachers (every cop that pulls me over had one of my parents in class it seems).
2 years ago, I got pulled over for speeding in New Jersey on I-80. I was pulled over by a New Jersey State Trooper and got away with only a warning. The passenger in my car, a fraternity brother and resident of Jersey, was amazed. "I've never seen anyone get away with a warning from a state trooper, especially considering how fast you were going," he told me. I don't know what I did. I guess he was impressed that I turned on my internal lights and put my hands on the steering wheel when he approached the car. Must have appreciated my efforts to show him that I meant no harm. I doubt it was my charm.
I was pulled over for going 100 (I was 19 at the time) in a 55 on the way to Freeport for a gig. The cop had me stand off in the grass while he was writing the ticket. Suddenly I had a severe burning sensation all over my feet and calves. I was standing in an enormous anthill and recieved about 50-60 bites. The cop, kind of laughed (I could tell he was trying not to), and then just gave me a warning. Now that I've typed this, it does not seem that lucky.
I've never lucked out with cops. Half of the time in my opinion I get screwed. For example, I graduated from Elkins last year. After the light on 6 that you turn at to go to the school, 6 drops down to two lanes, with the right lane before the light being a right turn only lane. Traffic there at the light can be pretty bad, with a pretty long line to go straight on 6 in the left lane. I'm going back to school one day around 3:30, the light's red, and there are a couple of assholes sitting in the right lane waiting and trying to get over into the backed up left lane. There's a law against impeding traffic flow, so I decide its no big deal if I go around the right of them in the median. I get pulled over for going around them in the median, and they get to sit there scott free and happy. I decided it wasn't worth arguing with the cop though. Wish I had VooDooPope's luck.
How fast were you going? My friends and I went 110 MPH most of the way from Seaside Heights to my hometown (near New/East Brunswick) and it took 25 minutes to get there. Luckily we didn't meet any Jersey state troopers, I HATE these guys. They walk like they have a potato chip stuck up their asses, and then they pull you over for having ****in tinted windows.
I lucked out like this once. Not really so much lucked out, because I didn't do anything wrong, but I avoided a potentially bad situation. I went to Lake Charles, LA for a concert with <a href="http://www.devonmusic.com">Devon</a>. It was really awesome, I was at the bar from 6 PM until 3 AM. I had 4 beers during that time, stopped drinking at midnight and had 4 waters from 12 to 3, so I was totally cool, not drunk at all, not even a little bit affected. So I leave to go find a hotel for the night, and I find the place I want to stay at -- I'd seen it on the drive in. Unfortunately, I passed the turn for it, so I needed to turn either on the next road or make a U. BTW, this is kindof on a dimly lit neighborhood road and I'm the only car. I get into the middle turn lane to turn left onto a road, but it turns out to be a one-way street with a car coming down it, so I get back into the right lane, then I move to the turn lane on the next intersection, well what do you know, it's an off-ramp for a freeway (this is a weird road). So finally I just make a U-turn. But it got to lookin' like I was swirving around. After the U I say to myself "Damn, you're gonna get pulled over if you keep driving like that". Well, sure enough, as I'm making my way to the hotel, I get followed by a cop. And I get to the hotel but there's no turn-in on that side, and I don't want to look suspicious, so I turn right onto the road and expect to be able to make a U, or him to leave or something. Well he follows me as I make one dumb turn after another, totally freaked out because I'm being followed and I have no idea where I'm going. Finally, he puts the lights on. Here I am, in Louisiana, with a car having Oklahoma license plates that's not registered in my name (it was my Grandfather's that I'd just bought but had not gotten re-plated and registered), with a Texas driver's license, and I looked like a drunk driver. And sure enough I had been drinking, but so long ago, and so little that it was a moot point. The cop comes up to me and asks to see my license, then tells me that my right blinker was on solid, not blinking. I knew about that, I just hadn't gotten it fixed (still haven't). I told him I knew, and showed him the blinker. He asked where I was going, where I was from. We talked about the car, he asked whose it was, I told him it was mine, that I bought it from my grandfather, how much it cost, and that I hadn't had time to get new license plates on it. He asked the model and year, I told him (76 Cutlass Supreme Brougham). Then he asks me if I'd been drinking that night and I was thinking to myself "HOLY S#!+, THIS IS IT, HE'S GONNA GIVE ME A BREATHALIZER, OH S#!+!!!!". Now, I should have nothing to worry about, but I don't trust the breathalizer. I've heard of it screwing up often enough to fear it. In a split second I resolved to tell the truth, and not lie about this and I told him straight up, I had four beers over three hours ago (It's like 3:30 by now) and I haven't had anything but water since. He mentioned the swirving and I explained how I was confused by the road. Then he just looked at me, handed me my driver's license, told me to get that tail light fixed. I said "Thank You Officer, first thing when I return home" and he let me go. Holy COW that was scary!! He drove away and I said to myself "I've got to get out of Louisiana" and drove straight back to Houston.
This story reminds me of a guy Elvis knows who got caught with a bag of pot in the glove compartment and tried to get out of it by saying: 'but officer, it's really sh!tty pot! It's bunk weed!' I *love* that. As if the quality of the pot should make a difference to your possible arrest... Elvis' best friend is lovely, but he's one of those guys who thinks he can play games with cops or security guards when he's f*cked up - tiptoe up to them at concerts and tap them on the shoulder and taunt them, or worse. It's hilarious *afterwards*, when we've rescued him from doing something awful in the nick of time, but there are countless times when I've thought 'dude, you are going to get arrested and we're going to be bailing you out of jail - or worse, get arrested with you since anyone with half a brain can tell we aren't quite straight either...'
I've been pretty lucky getting off of tickets, I think I've gotten atleast one warning for not wearing my seatbelt no biggie I know. I've also gotten off for possesion of mar1juana twice. One time the Cop even asked me, "This isn't real weed is it?" in a very leading tone to which I replied "No sir not real weed." He then made me promise to throw it away once I got inside the bar (still makes me laugh too) and was on his way. The other time I refused to sign consent to search and they let me go, took my bud though. Legalize it.
I was driving through Arkansas on the way to Kentucky to visit a college friend of mine with my wife and dog. The speed limit was 75 MPH but I was going something like 85 when I notice a that I'm by myself (not in a pack of cars) and that there is a trooper in the median. I thought to myself "I'm busted," and sure enough see the trooper pull out with his lights on. I pretty much just pull over as I know that I'm the guy he's after. My wife asks me if I want her to hide the radar detector (damn thing didn't even go off) and I told her just to leave it. I figured he's seen it by know (he was walking up to the car) and if we tried to hide it we would just be insulting his intelligence. When he got to the window he asked my if there was any reason why I was speeding and I replied that I was just keeping up with traffic. He then told me to follow him back to his car. He got in his seat and motioned me to get in the passenger seat. I'm sitting there waiting for him to (apparently) write me a ticket all the while looking at his radar and using all of my discipline not to ask him what kind of radar he was using (after all, it didn't set off my detector at all). He asks me what I do for a living and I tell him I'm a teacher. Then he asks me where I'm going and I say Lexington, KY to visit a college buddie. I then tell him that this is the first speeding ticket I've ever got in my life. He just says "yes sir" and hands me a warning! I said "Thank you very much!" and "I promise to be more careful next time!" That was probably the closest call I've ever had and I've still never had a speeding ticket (knock on wood!).
Don't feel so lucky just yet. You do know that even though that cop pulled you over they still mail out tickets to people who run through the booth without paying the toll don't you. Trust me, I speak from experience. In a couple of weeks you will get a letter from the DPS. It will have a picture of your license plate, and it will contain a citation from not paying the toll.
I'll assume you're talking to me. I was probably going about 85-90 MPH on I-80 (coming BACK from NYC). It's not 110, but it's plenty fast (especially in a Chevy Blazer). Lots of places for troopers and cops to hide on I-80. Lots of slow-moving Jersey folk on I-80, too (so those of us speeding stick out like a sore thumb).
This one time I was participating in some illegal activity when I was like 18. I got pulled over and they took me to prison for two years. Oh, wait...that's not what "lucked out" means. Nevermind.
