> Am I the only person who has never heard of flashing people to warn speeders of a cop? If someone did that to me, I'd think, "You moron," and flip them off for blinding me in the middle of the day.
>
> Also, I would never *want* to warn them. If they're going fast enough to get a ticket, then by golly, I think they should get a ticket.
>
> La"watches everything with sadistic glee"Zorra


How ironically appropriate. I got a ticket about an hour ago, going far too fast for my own good. (Actually, it was a reasonable 60-something, but the speed limit was a ridiculously low 40 mph.) I don't usually speed on purpose, but being attention-deficit does make it hard for me to pay attention to that little speedometer thingy.

I almost never get tickets. Well, I guess I should say that I very rarely get tickets. I spent over $300 on a top-of-the-line Escort speed detector, and it can pick up a whiff of radar from a hidden cop miles away. If the cop has his gun on solid (and they usually do), then I am already at the speed limit long before I'm in visual range.

Tonight, however, it was a worst-case scenario. It was opening night for the play I'm in, it went awesomely, and we all went out to a restaurant for a cast party. I had perhaps 3 kiddy cocktails too many, and was starting to get tired because the sugar rush had worn off. (Those Shirley Temples can knock me flat...) So I was driving home at about midnight, listening to soft music, and completely not paying attention to the speed. I approached a hill, and two cars came from the opposite direction. A cop was tailgating some poor guy, trying to pressure him into speeding (according to my new ticket, the fee for tailgating is $130 here, but it's not like the cops here apply that rule to themselves). As soon as he crested the hill, the cop turned his radar on and shined it at me with full force. My Escort screamed like a banshee from hell, shouted its warning like a trumpet of the apocalypse, and gave my reflexes just enough time to slam on the brakes a split second before the radar gun did the math and displayed a number. That number came up 59.

I ripped the Escort off the window and threw it down into a pile of junk below the passenger's seat. In my rear-view mirror, one of the cars was making an illegal U-turn. (It was such a blatant violation of the law that I figured it must be the cop that was turning.) Inside the other car, I'm sure that the driver was breathing a deep sigh of release, tinged by a slight regret that there had been no possible way for him to have warned me.

So I got pulled over, and that was Not Fun. To make matters worse, during that tense minute while I was trying to find my registration, a few stray photons of K-band radar reflected off of the officer's badge, into the pile of junk, and caused my Escort to start giggling like a rutting canary. My humiliation was complete.

- Enigma