Traffic rules in your country

[Sean C]

When I was a teenager I had a lead foot [and wrist], and so I got a lot of speeding tickets. A lady at the department of motor vehicles once told me I had the most infraction points on my license that she had ever seen. I asked her what I had won.

Having had so many interactions with the police, I was bound to have some notable ones. When I was 17 and living in northern Virginia, I was pulled over for doing 110 mph on my motorcycle in a 35 mph zone. That's over three times the speed limit. Believe it or not, I was let go with a warning. The officer couldn't believe I immediately stopped and waited for him. Took him a while to catch up to me.

A few years later, my license was suspended for having so many tickets. But, I still had to get to work. This was way before Uber, etc. and I couldn't afford a cab every day. So I got pulled over twice in the same week while driving on a suspended license ... by the same officer. He let me go with a warning both times. I guess he had enough paperwork to do.

A friend and I were once stopped by a cruiser while walking on the side of a highway at night. We were, in fact, quite drunk (which is why we were walking). I was so hammered that I fell into a ditch while trying to hand the officer my identification. He told us to get in the back of his car. I was sure we were going to jail (being drunk in public is illegal here and my friend was not old enough to legally drink), but he took us where we were headed and dropped us off. I guess he was appreciative of the fact that we had chosen not to drive.

One day, I [lightly] rear-ended a pickup when I wasn't paying attention while pulling out of a parking lot. The truck lurched forward a little, stopped, and then suddenly took off over a curb and crashed into a road sign. I pulled off the road and ran over to the truck to find the driver confused and disoriented. I thought he must have hit his head or something. Turns out he was very drunk - and had his young daughter in the truck with him with no seat belt on. The police actually thanked me for staying on the scene and filling out a statement - before giving me a minor ticket with a small fine. (I think it was for failing to yield or something.) They told me that I had probably saved the little girl's life.

And speaking of listening to music so loud that you can't hear emergency vehicles, I was doing just that on my way to work one day. At a stoplight, I glanced in my rear-view mirror and saw a very angry officer behind me with his lights on, motioning for me to pull over immediately. I have no idea how long he had been following me. I think I did get a speeding ticket that time.

If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that treating an officer with copious respect can go a long way. I have since become a much more responsible driver.