Driving Like Goofy

I’m a shade over 26 years old, which means that I’ve been driving for around 10 years now, and yet I’ve never had any type of traffic/moving violation. Now, 10 years isn’t exactly a huge sample set (God willing, I could be driving for another 50years), but I think it goes without saying that your average Joe (or Jill) probably drives faster in their teens and 20’s than in their 30’s, 40’s, and beyond. So, I think the fact that I had managed to make it this far without getting a speeding ticket is kind of amazing…fast forward to this past Saturday, when Krissy and I got pulled over on the way to the gym.

There aren’t too many sinking feelings quite like seeing a police car pull off the shoulder as soon as you pass by, followed by seeing the red and blue flashing lights in your rear view mirror. As I pulled off into the shoulder, I knew I was had. The section of road we were traversing goes from 30 mph to 40 mph to 55 mph in only about a mile. Going in the opposite direction, I usually am careful to drive slowly there because it’s an obvious speed trap. In the direction we were going, I usually don’t care as much, and I almost always speed up to about 60 mph before the 55 mph an hour sign. Anyway, as I said before I knew I was caught. If a cop happened to have been sitting in that exact spot, it was just pretty much up to his discretion how big of a dick he wanted to be…and this cop, while not necessarily a dick, decided for whatever reason not to let me off easy. With a spotless driving record up until that point and cited for only driving 55 mph in a 40 mph zone (I didn’t think I was going above 52 or 53 mph, but then again I wasn’t paying that much attention either), I thought he could have possibly let me slide with a warning this one time.

When this officer approached our truck, he asked for my license and registration and asked the typical, “Any reason you were going so fast?” question. Later on, Krissy remembered a time her and her friend got pulled over, and Krissy made herself throw up on the side of the road to get out of the ticket…her friend told the officer that Krissy had her period, started to feel ill, and her friend was simply trying to drive to anywhere with a bathroom quickly so she wouldn’t have to throw up in the car. Somehow, it worked. In fact, Krissy has estimated that she has been pulled over at least a dozen times in her life, and has never – I repeat, never – gotten a ticket. That is quite a legendary streak if you ask me…and also some ridiculous sexism at work. Just goes to show that if a pretty girl bats an eyelash (or induces her own vomiting), she can get out of almost anything. My initial reaction was that if it had been a girl cop who had pulled us over I could’ve gotten out of the ticket…and yet because of the differences between how men and women think I don’t even think it would’ve worked like that. Anyway, my answer to the officer’s question was simply, “I don’t really have a good reason, sir…just lost track of how fast I was going and was maybe anticipating the speed limit bumping up to 55 mph.” I figured maybe shear honesty combined with being a first time offender might work out for me…yea…no…$90 and 2 points on my license. The points I can most likely get out of just by showing up in court and pleading “guilty with an explanation.” Still, it was a definite bruise to my ego. To add insult to injury, we were so close to the 55 mph zone where we got pulled over that I could have picked up a rock and hit the speed limit sign with it. And while my streak of going without a speeding ticket may point to me being a generally safe driver, it mostly points to my luckiness, as there have probably been 50 times that I could have gotten a ticket but never got stopped for one reason or another. In the end, just one more thing to chalk up to experience.