Brush With the Law

I can't tell you the last time I got pulled over by the police for a traffic violation, which I'm thankful for. It's probably been over 25 years. I've become a much mellower driver in my old age, and sometimes I'm embarrassed by how I drove in my younger days. It makes you realize how shortsighted and thoughtless young drivers can be.

Well, the other night I was bringing the kids home from hockey practice and we were driving on a remote road that connects the two towns, and at some point a car pulled in behind me and I didn't give it much thought. We came to an intersection and I confess that I didn't come to a complete stop as I made the turn, and you can imagine what came next. As soon as those flashing lights came on, my heart sank. I pulled into the first space I could find and waited for my punishment. I was so bummed, and the kids were probably baffled about what was happening. I don't think they'd ever seen us getting pulled over. The thing is, the road was empty and there was nobody around. It's a lonely country road, not that this makes it okay to run stop signs.

The officer was nice and took all my information. He spent several long minutes in his car which I took to be a bad sign, but he ended up just issuing me a warning. Boy was I stoked. The warning said I didn't use my turn signal, though I'm pretty sure I did. Even N said he thought I did, but I wasn't about to argue and jeopardize my good fortune. My guess is that he had been following me for a bit. Thinking I was going too fast, he was just looking for an excuse to pull me over and I gave it to him.

I'll tell you one thing, I'm not running any stop signs for awhile.

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Wayne Schulz for the pic.