Nabbed

I was close to home and driving down the road that runs perpendicular to my street, a simple straightaway.  I was keeping pace with the cars around me.

Up ahead, at the side of the road, was a cop holding a mysterious object that turned out to be a radar gun. He pointed and waved me over.

“Ma’m, did you know you were traveling 45 in a 30 mile an hour zone?” he asked.

I was going 42, but I didn’t think pointing that out would be persuasive. The fact is, anyone who travels 30 mph on this stretch of road is dead certain to be angrily and illegally passed and flipped off. 

“I live literally just around the corner,” I told him. Subtext: I am from here.

“Well, then your neighbors are complaining about you.”

No, I join my neighbors in complaining about assholes who fly down the street going sixty or even seventy. No one is complaining about a lady going 42 in her Subaru. He asked for my license.

I sat in the car for ten minutes while he ascertained I wasn’t a fugitive from justice, listening to a story on NPR about a Black man who had run across the street to help a friend start his motorcycle. Two cops came over and asked to see his ID. He asked why, since all he’d done was help his friend restart his motorcycle. The cop tased him twice and gave him a ticket for jaywalking.

 The cop came back. “I could give you a speeding ticket, which is $145, but I’m going to let you off with a failure to drive at the posted speed, which is $92.”

I did not thank him. I knew I had been targeted and fleeced, but I had not been profiled and tased, or worse. I drove away, my outrage intact, and in perspective.