My Favorite Traffic Stop

I've been stopped many times in my life, usually for not having a tag on my car. This particular time I was driving some junker and I didn't have money for insurance and I had taken the tag off of another vehicle of mine that no longer ran. However I had not done the necessary paperwork to make that particular move legal.

I was driving on a back road so I wouldn't have to worry about the police pulling me over when I ran into some construction so I had to turn around. I went back to the main road and there was a state trooper doing a traffic stop on another vehicle so I went past him thinking he would be busy. Unfortunately he was finished with the other car and he pulled out right behind me. I had gone about 1/2 a mile when he flashed his lights for me to pull over.

I couldn't pull over because I was at the base of a very steep mountain so I turned on my flashers and got on the outside edge of the highway and drove to the top of the mountain slowly and then I stopped. The policeman came up and he said, "OK, I give up. Why did you make me follow you to the top of the mountain?"

My reply was, "I would have been facing uphill and the car would quit running and I couldn't get it started again. I can kick start it from here, so this is where I stopped."

He said, "Okaay. Now, license - insurance and registration."

I said, " I don't have any of it."

The trooper said,"Okaay. So what are we going to do now?"

I told him that I knew my license number so he could look it up. He said, "That's helpful."

"I don't have insurance," I told him," but I am saving my money and when I get paid next Wednesday I am going to buy insurance" (that was the truth by the way). "I also can show you paperwork where the car was sold to me, but the title isn't clear yet."

"Get the paperwork then," he said. Then he went back to his cruiser and proceeded to check on what I had told him. When he was finished he came up and said, "You know, by all rights I can have you towed in."

I said, "I know, but I was hoping you wouldn't do that. I can't work without a car and then I can't get insurance if I am not working. Not to mention that I can't pay the tow bill so I'll never get the car back."

He smiled. He said he was going to reward my honesty. He proceeded to write me 3 tickets for no insurance, no registration and no license, but he did NOT have me towed in.

Unfortunately the fines took all the money I had saved for insurance. So I still didn't get insurance which made the sticker expire. Then I had to get some red paint (the color of the current years sticker) and paint over my old sticker. It looked pretty good actually. Although it wouldn't have passed a road check it did get me down the highway. (I did alot of night driving until I could make myself legal)