Worst ticket you got out of

[Wayne Maybury]

Many years ago, I was taking my buddy to pick up his girl friend on a Frdiay night in my hi-po '65 Mustang. We had to take a street that was a little bit more than a quarter mile long with a traffic light at one end and a stop with a dead end at the other end. An officer was stationed with his radar near the stop sign waiting for people to exceed the 20 mph limit on this side street. I was going about 30, maybe 35 when he jumps out of his car and pulls me over. He nails me for 31 in a 20 zone, I tell him that he should give me a break, no deal. At that time tickets were mailed not given to the driver.

I am pissed. We go around the block, pick up my buddy's girlfriend and head back around the block and now take the same street in the opposite direction. The cop is still there so I proceed at 19 mph all the way along. The light is green but I can't speed up since he has the radar on me. The light goes yellow, I pop it into neutral to glide just as a family sedan speeds up in the opposite direction to run the yellow light. I look in the mirror and the flashing lights come on a quarter mile behind me but the cop doesn't stop the speeder, he pulls up behind me and wants to give me another ticket. I call him every name in the book and tell him that he doesn't even know how the radar jumped from me to the other faster car. He stays calm and says that I will get the ticket in the mail. I get in my car, the light goes green, and I smoke the Goodyears. The last I saw of the cop car was the flashing lights getting smaller and smaller in the mirror. Believe or not, I never got a ticket, not even the first one for which I was guilty. I was young, crazy, and very lucky.

Wayne