Caught by the fuzz

Got pulled over yesterday by the pigs...

Actually, it was my own fault, as I’d been driving a short distance with my phone next to my ear, and thoroughly deserved to be dragged from my car and beaten. Getting a new phone meant that I hadn’t sorted out the Bluetooth pairing of my little earpiece thingy, so when it rang in the car, I answered it. Cutting the conversation down to a minimum is all well and good, but I’m not sure we would have missed a shuttle launch or a cure for cancer had I waited until I got back home and returned the call.

Funnily enough, the hands-free kit is now well and truly sorted and that sort of thing won’t be happening again, m’lud. Lesson learned.

This all came to mind as a post, due to coming across a blog that concerns itself with how the UK is essentially a police-state and that we’re all going to be killed into oblivion in our beds by the British equivalent of the Stasi.

You see, I’m as rabid a supporter of chav-sterilisation as the next person, but I’m not all that sure we are living in the “End Times” (or whatever your local branch of the god-botherers are calling it). When confronted by the two cops in the car, I sheepishly got out, admitted I’d behaved like a twat and proceeded to talk to the guy about how great rear-wheel drive cars are for power-sliding round corners, while the WPC filled out my ‘don’t do it again’ form. Though disappointed that the description section of the form didn’t include words like ‘devastating’, ‘eye-wateringly rugged’ or ‘hysterically manly’, I have to say that the two of them were pleasant, courteous and respectful and never once did they patronise or attempt to intimidate me.

There was no expectation from them that I was likely to be any trouble, or that I might be involved in a plot to overthrow the government. In fact, we ended up talking about police procedurals and I recommended they take a look at The Wire.

You see, I’ve been pulled over by traffic cops in the US and, frankly, they scare the shit out of me. Everything about them screams I want to shoot you, please please please give me a reason to empty the clip into your head, motherfucker. There seems to be a presumption not only of guilt in relation to a traffic violation, but that you’re probably a chainsaw-wielding, anti-American terrorist who ought to go back wherever the fuck it was you came from...

This contrasts greatly with the former Sergeant Cam Woolley of Toronto, who I watched with great affection on Canadian TV (in a simply fantastic hat), explaining driving skills when in the vicinity of trucks that seemed blindingly obvious to me. But then I’m from Europe, where we all drive teeny-weeny cars, and are most likely a lot more ‘truck-aware’. The enormous things that were humming down the freeways in Canada were gargantuan in proportion, and by that I mean the family vehicles. I once briefly spotted a Smart car amidst the steel leviathans, and silently offered up a prayer for the driver - he seemed lost amidst the wheeled behemoths.

So, PC Healy and your companion from Hitchin police station, I salute you for your commendable dealings with a scruffy old git who ought to know better, and won’t do it again. ;-)