How to minimize your chances of getting a ticket

When you get pulled over, stop as soon as possible. If you're in the left lane, you might want to stop right there in the middle of the road. If the cop wants you to move, he'll tell you. Put your drivers license between the first 2 fingers of your left hand and raise that left hand as far as possible out of the window. Put your right hand on top of the steering wheel. Now wait.

If the cop asks you to incriminate yourself, don't do it. If he asks you how fast you were going, say something to the tune of, you're not quite sure, but apparently you were going fast enough to get his attention, you'll watch it closer in the future, and not repeat the mistake. If you say, well I was going 45, and the speed limit is 25, you'll get a ticket for 45. He might only have you for 34 on his radar. Never lie. I'm not sure, is a perfectly reasonable answer, after all you're supposed to be looking at the road, not staring at the speedometer.

On the other hand, don't ever be a wise ass. I recall one night in the drivers room when the Sidewalk Commando came in and was bitching about getting a ticket. He said he got pulled over at Owen and the Point, and the guy came up to him and said, "How fast were we going?"

A simple I'm not sure, sorry about that, would have done the trick. His reply was pretty bad. He said he came back with, "I don't know, how fast were we going?" Which was obviously taken as smarting off to a police officer, and resulted in a ticket. I told him he'd smarted off to that cop too. The Commando wasn't the sharpest crayon in the box. I haven't seen him in a long time, after he got canned, he drove a yellow taxi for years, perhaps he still does.

How did the Commando get canned? Well, he'd been going for calls and getting beat for 15 or 20 minutes. It happens, even when it's busy. Many years back, they modified State street so you can't get from State street to either block of Francis, cul de sac's on each side. The Commando pulled the cab over the sidewalk, either to get from State to Francis or the other way around. That wasn't bad enough. Then he went and bragged about it in the drivers room. Like I said, not the sharpest crayon in the box.

Why do you do the exact things I described in the first paragraph? Well, it works like this, they all wear body armor, right? He can pull you over anyplace he wants to. He wants to see your hands. Once you're pulled over, he can yell at you and let you go, if that's all he wants to do. Don't push it. He can only write so many tickets in a day. Sit at any intersection for 30 minutes, how many tickets can you spot, 10? It would be impossible to write 10 tickets an hour, so you have to do something special to become one of the perhaps 2 people an hour he can actually spend quality time with. You'd be surprised at how many times, in your own car, or a cab, if you make him comfortable, he'll simply yell at you for screwing up and tell you not to do it again.

How many tickets have I ever gotten in a cab? 1.

I was all set to offer the details of that event, but on second thought, I think I want legal advice before I start accusing someone of intentionally causing an accident, which is what happened. So, it might be in the book, and it might not. How many accidents? A few. Why? Almost always it's someone else doing something that isn't consistent with what you'd expect in a given situation. Someone who stops on an on ramp for the freeway would be a good example, though that specifically has never happened to me.

I guess I will describe the guy who hit me head on in Middleton sometime. Yeah, I should put in a few accidents, it's part of the business. God it's a dangerous business. Ever have passengers in and have a drunk driver coming head on at you, on the wrong side of the road? What would you do? I'll put that one in too some time. Wow, it's 2:10. Time to piddle the dog and get my bootie over to Fast Eddies, before I miss my ride to work.