Interesting about them preferring to write a seat belt ticket. Hm.
Story about why I never complain about stuff any more. True. 100%:
I used to live on the crest of a hill overlooking a recreational area entrance kiosk out in the boonies. Thirty-five MPH on that road. On a nice, sunny day the kiosk would be overloaded, and the backup car lines would spill out onto the two-lane road. I could sit on my porch and look out on both sides of the blind hill.
It was kinda fun to estimate somebody's speed as they approached the hill, and try to guess whether they'd have to slam on the brakes when they crested the hill and suddenly saw the cars stopped right in front of them.
Most of the time they could stop, but there were a couple of near-misses and once in a while a screechcrunchtinkletinkle, and some boat trailers got half-jacknifed. It seemed that the slight reduction in gravity as they went over the hill made the trailers lose traction. Or something.
So one day noble little do-gooder me called up the Highway Patrol (their jurisdiction) and suggested they start enforcing that 35 MPH limit on that road.
They took my call about the blind hill and the speeders but didn't seem too enthusiastic about it. Just routine stuff, I guessed.
Well, as far as I could tell for the next month or so, nothing happened on enforcing that speed limit and the weather was kind of cold-cloudy-rainy, with no backups on the entry kiosk and no screechcrunchtinkletinkles, and no sidewise boat trailers, either.
So anyhow I'm coming home on that road one Sunday afternoon after a Church Men's Meeting and all of a sudden I see a State Trooper on top of the hill in his campaign hat and with radar gun in hand next to his motorcycle, and I look at my speedo and I'm doing about fifty.
So he waves me over and as he approaches, I'm laughing my tushie off as I get my paperwork ready for him and he goes through the drill ("Do you know how fast you were going, sir?" etc) and all the while I'm chuckling at my own idiocy, shaking my head in amusement.
He starts out with a lecturer's tone, "speeding is a serious matter, sir, and you shouldn't be laughing about it..."
"Trooper, did you notice my address?"
He looks at my license again, "Oh, you live on this road?"
"Yeah, right there," and I point at my house. "What's so funny is that I'm the one who complained about the speeders along here."
So then he starts laughing. "Guess what, sir?"
"Hah?"
"You're the first one we caught!"
He thought it was so funny that he only gave me a warning ticket.
True. 100%.
Morals:
(1) Don't blithely speed over blind hills and blind curves.
(2) Don't complain.
(3) Don't stay around for the Church Men's Meetings.
Terry, 230RN
