Tickets, tales and John Doe

On a bright friday morning, I was on my usual commute. My 91 Camry (aka Indiamobile in friendly circles), with 152467 miles on the odometer, rushing north, logging its daily quota of 126 miles. Cruise control (it still works) was set to exact speed limit of 75 mph and NPR news was lamenting the exploding cars in Iraq. And that is when I noticed the familiar dancing lights atop the police cruiser behind me. The usual routine started with the officer,”I have been watching you for over ten minutes now. You were driving in the left lane”. And my thoughts were – Shouldn’t you be enforcing law somewhere. And what in the world was this left lane thing. If I trampled over an imaginary object in the left lane, I am very sorry. The words however were, “I was within the speed limits, officer”. More inquiry followed, “Didn’t you notice the sign posted back there”? My thoughts – you mean to say that sign board of the size of a postage stamp. My alter ego kicked in with his own thoughts,” Officer, he was too dumb to notice you for more than ten minutes, how do you expect him to notice a sign”.

I learned afterwards that officer was actually enforcing a law, a recently dusted off Colorado statute 42-4-1013, which clearly states – A person shall not drive a motor vehicle in left lane of the highway of speed limit 65 mph or more unless such person is passing other vehicles that are in a non passing lane or turning left, or unless the volume of traffic does not permit the motor vehicle to safely merge into the non passing lane. Such lucid description seems to be handiwork of a lawyer on a state payroll, trying to justify his job.

A week later, I made my peace with the “Left Lane Mafia” by parting company with a sum of forty five dollars.

My chequered criminal history in the arena of traffic goes back a bit. In Texas, a friend of mine (John Doe I) was a famed ticket collector. A zig-zag trail of ticket collection he blazed covered a good number of counties in the state and the vicinity. At one time, he even tried going about it alphabetically. You can only imagine the peer pressure for me.

A friendly one
One morning, I received a harried call from a dear friend (John Doe II),” Hey, my car was stolen last night”. Generally my reaction to such calls is friendly and sympathetic but having known John Doe II, it was a tad interrogative,” Did you park again in the spot, which has a sign as if a guy is sitting on a chair – a sign you are more used to seeing on public rest rooms?” His initial surprise was followed with defensive,” but everyone parks there”. Of course everyone does, that is one of the disadvantages of living in a gated complex with high incident rate of cerebral handicap. So we agreed to pick up his car first. A slight hurry, misplaced pressure on the gas pedal and there “HE” was, waiting at the strategic location by the side of Krispy Kreme, sadistically mixing work and pleasure – “You folks seem to headed somewhere in a hurry this morning. Any emergency?” And I confessed, ”Officer, we were speeding to the tow-car lot to pick up my esteemed fellow passenger’s car, which he had parked in the handicap spot. Now please tell us, how we can contribute to the donut kitty for the Texas’ finest”.

Don’t mess with Texas….and Arkansas
While returning from a weekend in Ozarks of Arkansas, I was pulled over for venturing into the unexplored territory of the speedometer of my vehicle. Later, swayed by the anti-Arkansas lobby in Texas, I assumed that state is truly behind the curve and I left the US for an extended vacation without paying the ticket. Upon my return, among the other bills, a letter declaring that warrant for my arrest have been issued in the state of Arkansas was waiting for me. Since then, I have become so prompt in paying off my good citizen dues that I can easily qualify for a good payer discount.

The unfair one…perhaps to the cop too
The incident occurred during the somewhat chaotic days of post September 2001, in a small north Texas town of Memphis (pop. 2479). You might think “unfair” when a cop tells you, “you were still 20 ft. behind the 45 mph zone board, when you started speeding up. I clocked you at 43 mph”. However before you argue the “perceived unfairness”, make sure that you are not wearing a turban, cop is not standing one foot behind the window with one hand on his gun, he is not eyeing the large unmarked transparent bag of wheat flour in the back of your truck and latest news headlines do not contain the word…..ANTHRAX. If so, just offer an apology and take the serving from ticket buffet.

When I promptly called the county court to pay this ticket, the person told me that he was unable to locate my record. And then suddenly he asked, “Was the cop who gave you the ticket was a fat one”? Well, he sure had some serious gravitational pull, if that is what you mean. And for next few minutes, a rant about a lazy cop from a responsible court officer was served free of charge.

I have a ticket…but it is not for you
With our golf bags in the back of my truck, my friend (John Doe III, most venerable of the Doe family) and I were headed for another round at the links when we were strangely pulled over. This time I was sure that I haven’t broken any traffic rule whatsoever. Even more strangely, the cop approached us from the passenger side window. John Doe III enquired, “Officer, what’s the problem”? And officer replied, ”Sir you are. You are not wearing a seat belt”.

I can tell you with absolute certainty that if you ever receive a ticket, while sitting in the passenger seat of someone else’s vehicle, the expletive section of your vocabulary will tend to suddenly grow by a many orders of magnitude and it might contain certain additions, which were banned from use during the first meeting of the United Nations.

Unsure about the deadly linguistic viruses and bacteria left floating in the small cabin of my Frontier, I almost called CDC for a decontamination procedure. Thank almighty for my good, extremely devout and very humorous friend (Jane Doe), who came armed with her collection of cleansing "Bhakti Sangeet". I guess, finally it was Anup Jalota's "Aisa Mantar Maro Prabhu Ji", which restored the air to its baseline levels.

And it all started here...
I had just arrived in the US and started the graduate school when I received my first crown jewel of the upcoming series. At that time, I did not have a car or even a driver’s license for that matter. I was on a rickety bicycle when I failed to make a “dead stop” at the stop sign. My good intentions of slowing down to zero+ speed and checking for a (non-existent) traffic were dismissed as groundless facts under the traffic law. I knew I was going to like living in the US, when my ticket carried more value ($35) than my ride ($20). Realizing my foreigner status, the cop offered me a way out of the financial quandary– a Defensive Biking class. Yes, only the chosen few receive this biped-centric education, which is a genetic offshoot of its well-known and certainly well-attended quadruped-centric “Defensive driving class”.

So folks, if you see me approaching you on a bicycle at sub-mach velocities, just relax. I might have learned to pedal on the dusty streets of my village in Punjab, but my re-training comes with a seal of approval from none other than Arizona Police Department.

Disclaimer : All incidents and characters described here are figments of my imagination. And thus, any perceived resembelance to certain homo sapiens must be a figment of yours.

Glossary :
Bhakti Sangeet : Gospel Music
Aisa Mantar Maro Prabhu Ji : O Lord, Do thy magic.