Technology, Travel, Uncategorized, work

Speed Limit

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On my way to work on Friday I was deep in thought and suddenly looked up to see a police cruiser on the side of the road – I was going 37 instead of 30. I immediately took my foot off the gas, but as I looked into the rear view mirror, I saw the cruiser pulling away from the curb and the flashing lights starting up.

All kinds of thoughts went through my brain: I don’t want to pay for a ticket, I don’t want any points on my license, do red cars get more tickets, I’m going to be late for work, what if I cry when the officer comes to my window.

Luckily someone in the other lane just behind me must have been going a bit faster than I was when we passed the radar; the cop pulled the other car over. I feel like I dodged a bullet and I went the speed limit all the way to work after that.

Have you ever gotten a traffic ticket of any kind?

34 thoughts on “Speed Limit”

  1. Husband has been ticketed a couple of times by the Dunn County sherriff as well as Tribal police at least once for speeding. He changed his ways after the last ticket added points to his license.

    I forgot the renew the tags on our van a couple of years ago, and I got a ticket for that. It is very easy to speed out here in the wide open plains. I have yet to get a speeding ticket, though.

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  2. I picked up four or five speeding tickets spread out over the eight automobiles I’ve owned and 61 years of driving. My work obliged me to drive many thousand miles in remote areas in seven US states and the province of Ontario.

    The only significant mark against my license was a ticket for destroying a pump in a gas station in Willmar. I hit the pump because the station was closed and surrounded by a sheet of wet ice (it was raining and the temp was 31 degrees). I could have been dinged hard for that one but conditions were so treacherous that two emergency vehicles responding to the accident went skidding so wildly they nearly did more damage than I had.

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  3. yes i gotten a speeding ticket and also other types of traffic tickets

    my insurance is high because of this
    i had a nice old woman pull in behind me as i was backing out of my parking place last week

    because of my insurance situation i had to ask her nicely to allow me to pay it out of my pocket

    i have gotten tickets for 37 in a 30 but that was years ago when i was given a ticket for being a hippy in a prestigious suburb . 37 in a 30 was simply the excuse for harassment

    i asked a wisconsin highway patrol while he was giving me a ticket for 75 in a 60 what he world suggest as a max speed

    he said “i ticket at 10 over so go 9 over” i said thanks and that’s been my freeway rule ever since

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    2. The irony of the situation is that the only speeding ticket I’ve ever received was many years ago (more than 30) but it was on that same stretch going in the opposite direction. So being stopped for 37 and a 30-mile zone isn’t a big surprise there.

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  4. The few times I’ve been pulled over for speeding, I got off with just a warning for some reason. I wasn’t trying to get out of them — I guess I seem pretty innocuous. Jim has gotten a few speeding tickets, which are ridiculously expensive nowadays.

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    1. My guess: male cops are somewhat more likely to forgive female speeders than male speeders. Within limits. I wonder if female cops significantly differ from that. I’m sure that, all other things being equal, cops are most likely to write tickets to drivers who flash a FU attitude. I might have avoided a ticket or three with my Three Cs response to being pulled over: Contrite, Cooperative, Crushed.

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      1. A friend of mine used to keep a recording of the opening theme from Dragnet on his car stereo. When he was stopped,he would crank up the stereo volume and as the cop got out of his car, my friend would cue the music: “Daa da dum bum! At least once the cop was sufficiently amused to let him off with a warning.

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        1. Oh yeah! A long time ago black friends tried to tell me they lived in a different legal world than I did. I sort of believed that. Now, because almost everybody has a video camera in their phone, we have terrible evidence of what the differences are.

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  5. I always thought it was safe to 10 over?
    I think I’ve only gotten 2 speeding tickets…both a few years ago. I’m a pretty aggressive driver and it’s only luck I haven’t had more.
    The first one, I was going 55 in a 40 and the officer said he would drop it down to only 10 over. I said I was trying to get a tractor fixed to get corn done before it rained. He smiled and said he had already dropped it to the 10 over and I shouldn’t push my luck.

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  6. Just a few. The most galling one was from a West Fargo cop. 13th Ave South used to be wide open. West Acres was just opened and I left a job there and headed west. Right at the city border there was a drop off in the black top. The bump caused a tr

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    1. Trowel to bounce out if the back of my pickup. I glanced back to see where it landed and that quick look put me from a 45 mph to 25 in a instant. No warning sign of a change in speed limit was given. The trowel was destroyed before I could return .

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  7. Oh, that sinking feeling, when you see those flashing lights behind you. It’s been about ten years since I got my last ticket, mostly because I usually stay within the limits these days. This was not always the case, especially not during the years I drove Saab Turbos.

    I’ve received five speeding tickets in all. The first one in Wisconsin, on the way home from Chicago, and only twelve miles from the Minnesota border. I was going 72 miles per hour, and at the time the speed limit was 60. What irked me about that ticket was the fact that there were plenty of cars passing me, but they all had Wisconsin license plates. Though, clearly I was speeding, I’m pretty sure I was nailed because I had out-of-state license plates.

    My second one was in Montana. As I’m sure you know, you can drive huge distances in Montana on seemingly endless freeways with virtually no traffic. We were headed to Glacier National Park, and wanted to get there before dark, so I was cruising along at a good clip. Unfortunately, the one car that I could see approaching in the distance turned out to be a Montana state trooper. He stopped me, and explained that he had clocked me going 85 miles per hour, and that I had earned a “daylight” speeding ticket: five bucks, payable in cash on the spot, and, he informed me, that it didn’t go on my driving record. He wished me a continued safe trip, and I thanked him as I continued toward Glacier. I commented to Hans that the only way Montana could improve on that service was to sell speeding permits at the state border. This was probably thirty-five years or so ago.

    My remaining three tickets were in Minnesota and were also for speeding. One on the way home from Oak Center General Store on a late, rainy evening roughly twenty-five years ago with Pete Morton in the passenger seat. He had just performed at Oak Center, and was snoozing next to me when he awoke because I had pulled over and stopped the car. As the State Trooper approached the car, Pete asked why I was stopped, and I had to tell him I didn’t have a choice. Pete felt worse about that ticket than I did. He was concerned about what Hans would say when we got home. I reassured him there was nothing to worry about, it was my car, my driving, and my driver’s record that was going to be impacted, and that I had the money to pay the fine.

    As I reflect on this, I find it interesting that I can recall the smallest details of each of these tickets. The last ticket I received was about ten years ago. I was returning home from having dropped Hans off at the airport on a snowy and blustery winter morning at about 7 AM. The roads were slick, and my windshield wipers weren’t doing a very good job of keeping my windshield clear, so I was driving very cautiously. I always drive to and from the airport on HWY 13 because it’s a scenic and not very busy road, and this morning was no exception. A female cop from Mendota Heights pulled out of the parking lot where the Jazz Emporium used to be. There was no traffic in sight anywhere, but she had staked out that spot for apprehending any unsuspecting drivers who had not yet lowered their speed sufficiently coming down the hill, an easy place to reach her quota of speeding tickets for the day. She ticketed me for going 35 miles per hour in a 30 mile zone, and for good measure she made some snooty comment about why I was driving through Mendota Heights instead of on the freeway, as if I had no business being in that upscale neighborhood. I was so offended by her comment that I fought that ticket in court, and had it dismissed.

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  8. fyi, our son, the MPS police officer doesn’t do traffic stops. So don’t expect to name drop and get out of a traffic stop with him. 🙂
    If he shows up, you may be in more serious trouble. Good luck w/ that.

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  9. One of my favorite cards of all time – can’t find exactly but this is close.
    https://rlv.zcache.com/stuff_on_my_cat_cop_postcards-rd2dd255f4d1e4e81bebfd779eb98030a_vgbaq_8byvr_512.jpg?bg=0xffffff

    Also this:
    https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=u8PojC9o&id=F1386089997DA38204544EBE4C2D6ADB8F95F9F1&thid=OIP.u8PojC9odSOFQSdz-GV1nwHaGz&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fs-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com%2f736x%2fcf%2f5d%2fb6%2fcf5db6b4447ad13bc0df2a06e01e9542.jpg&exph=676&expw=736&q=avanti+card+-+cat+police+officer&simid=608000009863236481&selectedIndex=135&ajaxhist=0

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  10. I deserved all the tickets I got except one. An infamous local cop used to nail speeders on I 35 near Pine City. I’m pretty sure he or his township profited from this. He pulled me over for going 92. I doubt the old Ford I was driving at the time was capable of doing 92 on a flat road.

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  11. I’m posting jokes because I have no real stories – just a warning once in an Iowa speed trap around Mason City.

    First Boyfriend had some great Jonathan Winters albums, and for some reason I remember this bit of one routine:

    Officer (stopping a speeding driver): “Where’s the fire?”
    Driver: “In your eyes, Sir!”

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  12. This subject hits a little to close to home for me. Two Saturday nights ago, I had my very first “accident”. Pulling up to a stop for a passing train, my car rolled a few inches too far and bumped the car ahead of me. It was a rolling stop. I quickly put it in reverse, but instead of putting the gear into park, it slipped into drive and bumped her again. At this point, she pulled out of the line and drove off.

    To me, this was such a minor event that I figured that she was just tired of waiting for the train to pass. I proceeded on home. As I pulled into my driveway, two squad cars pulled in behind me. They used the term “hit and run”. In shock from hearing this, I told them exactly what happened. “Hitting” in my mind didn’t encompass a very slight bump. I told them that I assumed that if the driver was concerned, she’d have gotten out of her car and confronted me. I also told them that I had no idea why she then pulled out and drove away. They told me that paramedics were called because she complained of neck pain. From a slight bump??

    Neither car had any damage, but I spent the whole next day filled with dread about her filing a claim and getting a huge citation. Much to my relief, she didn’t file and the citation was listed for “Driving without due diligence”, a $118 dollar fine. The least onerous citation there is and far less than a speeding ticket. The cops couldn’t have been any nicer. They explained to me that if there’s any contact between two cars, you’re supposed to get out of your car and provide insurance information. I honestly did know this.

    All of this being said, it had nothing to do with my multiplying issues with driving in general. At a later time, I’ll share a funny story about my attempts to turn to Uber.

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  13. Two quick OT notes: I wrote about a turkey leftover our family loved, but I got it wrong. We never had written directions for it. You combine diced turkey, diced celery and diced Granny Smith apple . . . about an equivalent amount of each, adjusted to suit your taste. Fold that in together with a small amount of mayonnaise flavored with a small amount of curry powder. Serve on a big French roll. Sorry I got it wrong earlier.

    I heard a nice story about POTUS 41 this afternoon. When he was Ronald Reagan’s veep, his only clear duty was to attend important funerals for heads of state whose services didn’t demand the presence of the president. That still turned out to be a lot of funerals. As he put it, “You die, we fly.”

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    3. A dear friend was a member of the White House Press Corps during the George W.H.Bush and Clinton administrations. Randy is a liberal, no doubt about that, but despite that, he liked George W.H. Bush a lot. He was, according to Randy, a very genuinely personable and kind man, much more so than Clinton, who he often found standoffish. I was surprised to hear him say that, because Clinton sure knew how to turn on the charm when the cameras were rolling.

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  14. I’ve never been ticketed except when parked, for being parked in the wrong place at the wrong time, or for having expired tabs. I’ve been stopped for things like burned out taillights and brake lights, but nobody has ever actually given me a ticket while I was present. Never had to beg or make puppy eyes to get out of a jam.

    I’m a pretty poky driver, so if I ever got a speeding ticket a lot of jaws would drop.

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  15. I once had a cop follow me into a parking lot because I didn’t have my lights on. I explained to him and it was a junker loaned to me while my car was in for body work due to a deer hitting my car. I also said that I thought headlights just turned on automatically. I asked if he’d show me how to turn them on. He then said, “If you drive a car without knowing how to use it, you’re responsible” and refused to help me locate how to turn them on. This is how cops get a bad name.

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  16. When I’ve earned my ticket, fair and square, I don’t make a big production out of coming up with excuses and begging for forgiveness. In the case of my first ticket, I had been speeding the entire way to and from Chicago simply because driving 60 miles per hour for that long of a stretch seemed like an eternity to me. I figured, averaged out over the time I had saved, it was worth it. But, it was a bitter pill to swallow that I got nabbed that close to the end of the trip. At the time, the speed limit was a legislated attempt at saving fuel. So no, the three Cs wouldn’t work very well for me; I’m not that good of an actor. Even a your average cop would know when I was contrite and when I was not. Just give me your damn ticket and be done with it.

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      1. Once again we’ve established how different we are, Steve. I just don’t understand why you would feel ashamed of being caught driving too fast. Sorry for having been caught, sure that I can relate to, but ashamed, no. To me, exceeding the speed limit is a conscious choice. If I’m ashamed of doing it, I don’t. If I have made an error in judgment, and, yes, I’ve done that, I’ll admit it. But if I routinely make a choice to speed, how can I feign contrition? That just doesn’t work for me. As we’re fond of saying in this household: we’re all different. That’s why paint store’s offer more choices than white paint.

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        1. Yes, different. Why would I feel so much shame when caught doing something illegal? That is so difficult to explain, and I’m not sure I want to go very far down that road. I’ll just say this: you never met my mother.

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