Reply #25: Both bad [View All]

One time, I had my wallet stolen out of my car. The guy tried using my debit card at a nearby ATM, with cameras plastered all over the place. He was never caught.

A few months ago, back in December (during the slow time around here), I was pulled over and given a speeding ticket for the first time in my life. I usually work late, so I got off around 11:20pm or so. I was in a rush to get home, because I had a doctor's appointment for blood work the next day, and was told I couldn't eat past 12am, and I hadn't had anything to eat all day. To get home, I have to get on a major thoroughfare, which immediately turns into a bridge. You start below the bridge, so you can't see what sort of traffic you are merging into. Then you have may 50-75 yards where you get to see traffic and you have to merge...period. It's a bridge, so it's not like there's anywhere to pull off to if you can't get into traffic.

Long story short, I hate that merge, and I always build up speed so I can "catch" an open spot instead of run out of road. I was probably going around 60mph. At the bottom of the bridge, you get into more of the city part, where the speed limit drops to around 45mph. There was a cop at the bottom, with his lights turned off, just waiting to catch people. He got me going for about 10-15mph over the speed limit. He reduced it to 5mph or so, but I was still angry.

Yes, I "broke the law" by going 10mph faster than the speed limit, but I'm not going to run off a bridge because I can't merge into traffic going 45mph because the merge was stupidly thought out, and once I do merge into traffic, I'm not going to slam on brakes going downhill on a bridge and cause an accident that way either. I slowly let my car slow down into a normal traffic speed.

Everytime I see a cop now, I flip them off. Useless bastards. They cower in my tourist-y town when we get busy and have big events and a lot of tourists in town, but then when it's slow in December or January or something, they're all out on the streets, hiding in the bushes trying to give locals a hard time.