Originally Posted by Neal Stevens
After leaving work around 7:30 I was stopped by the law in South Houston. The officer said "I stopped you because your headlight isn't working." I was on my 1975 Suzuki 380.
I had seen the cop car a few minutes earlier, probably before he saw me, and made sure I came to complete stops at the intersections. I said, "well, the headlight works, I switch it on when it gets dark." I showed him the switch. He's too young to remember the days when bikes had a headlight switch.
Then he said, "It took me a while to catch up with you, you were haulin' ass". I paused to consider how to reply. I'm on a motorcycle with 32 HP, dude! But I didn't say that. "Well, I may have been going a little fast," I replied with pride. You never win when you contradict a police officer, so wth, I may as well accept the compliment.
Several times he asked if he knew me, I looked familiar. I get that ALL the time, I don't know what's going on but people are always saying I look like this guy or sound like that guy....weird. Maybe the officer thought I was a city council member....
He asked me to sit tight while he ran my licence. As the denizens of the hood passed by with their borrowed Family Dollar shopping carts, I nodded, "yeah, that's right, I'm an outlaw..."
The officer returned, thanked me for stopping, and admitted that the problem he may have had keeping up with me had something to do with the speed bumps on the ~3/4 mile street we had just traveled down. "You were going through the gap in the bumps, I had to slow down and pass over them." Hmmm... yeah, I hadn't thought about that. Anyway, no ticket! The officer was professional and I have to laugh, a little bamboozled by the headlight switch.
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