COPS I'VE MET
And there have been more than a few.
With 30 years on the road and a propensity for high speed truckin', I met a lot of cops. Yes, a lot. I can remember getting more than 70 speeding tickets and a couple of passing in a no passing zone citations. I know, that sounds like a truck driver story, but it's not and anybody who knew me then can tell you I just drove fast most of the time. Real fast. How I kept a license and kept most of those tickets off my driving record is a secret which will remain mine, thank you. Maybe I'll pass the tricks on to my grandkids before I die. Maybe not. Heck, in the age of the internet and the information revolution, they probably wouldn't work anymore anyhow. Data now follows you from place to place and it's hard to hide things. That wasn't the case not so long ago.
Most cops I met were just working stiffs who did a different job. They were professional, did their duty and mostly not a bad sort. Some would cut you some slack and some wouldn't. There's too many variables to make a blanket statement about cops, but they mostly were fair and that's good enough. I can't say about everyone else, but I rarely bitched about getting a ticket because I was a big boy and knew what I was doing. If a cop gave me what I deserved, I'd just smile and take it. It wasn't the cop's fault I was acting like a fool, was it?
Case in point:
I was tooling along across the California high desert east of Barstow one night on I-40, just minding my business. The CHP (California Highway Patrol) was pretty lenient back then about the 55 mph speed limit out there in that miserable emptiness between Barstow and Needles. They had enough to do just rescuing stranded motorists and didn't pay a whole lot of attention to how fast trucks were going, especially at night.
This night, I was loaded pretty heavily with produce bound for Oklahoma City and was running about 70 mph or so. Behind me, I saw headlights coming up at a ridiculous rate of speed for California. In spite of their tolerance, one COULD run TOO fast, even out on the desert. This guy was doing that and probably more.
He blew by in a flash so, naturally, I pumped it up and fell in on his tail. He was pulling an empty float trailer (flatbed) with only a small, wooden box tied onto the tail…and it was hanging on for dear life.
We finally got to talking. He ran air freight out of Tulsa to LAX and was going home with just that empty box. I had a hard time keeping up with him on the hills, but he slowed down just enough that we could run along and shoot the shit at over 100 mph. We were close to doubling the "double nickel" speed limit, but who cared, right?
Nobody bothered us across the desert and we REALLY gained speed going down the grade between Essex and Needles, but slipped into Arizona without being caught, which was something of a miracle. After clearing the Port of Entry, we went on up to the TA truck stop in Kingman, AZ where I had to fuel. While I pumped, my new friend went in and bought us some sandwiches and coffee. We hit the road again and were soon up the long grade which ends at Williams and were hammer down again. Somewhere in that 100-120 miles, the box on the tail of his trailer came apart in the high wind we were generating, so we pulled off onto the shoulder and threw the remains into the ditch.
We were just tooling along without a care in world and yakking on the CB, passing mile after mile after mile of trucks and cars. Nobody dared keep up with us.
Somewhere near Winslow, my new friend (I can't remember either his name or his CB handle) was leading the way as we blew by a long string of slow trucks. As I started past them, a Schneider freight truck pulled out into the left lane to pass and I was only about 50 yards away when he did it! Schneider's, known as "Pumpkin" trucks because of their orange color, would only run about 55 or 60 mph and I was doing nearly twice that when he pulled out in front of me! It wouldn't surprise me to learn that my skid marks are still on the interstate out there! I cussed him like a sailor, but the coward never responded…so I just went on.
Nearing the New Mexico line, I was still running in second place when the bird dog (radar detector) suddenly lit up twice, in rapid succession. BEEEEEP…pause…BEEEP! I knew immediately what it was. A cop was parked back up on the ramp at the exit we had just blown under and had shot me in the ass! A quick glance into the mirror showed headlights, blue lights and red lights suddenly come on in the darkness and here he came!
My new friend's bird dog had gone off too and he bogged down on the brakes. Too late!
"Man, I'm sorry," he said.
"Don't worry about it," I responded. "I'm a big boy and knew what I was doing. I'll see you on up the road." (I never did) I pulled onto the shoulder, parked and waited for the cop to show up.
When he did, I could see it was an Arizona Highway Patrol trooper and that probably meant trouble. They were known for being fair and honest and I was guilty as hell. Worse, I watched as he got out of the car and could see in the headlights of passing vehicles (including that damn Schneider driver who was probably laughing his head off) that the cop was young, blond headed and looked to be about 16 years old. Uh oh. More trouble….a rookie!
Not waiting for him, I grabbed my wallet off the dash, my permit book, bill of lading and log book and met him at the back of the trailer. He was pissed. REALLY pissed! OOOOOOOO!
"Do you know how fast you were going?" he practically screamed.
"Uh…yeah."
"The first time I clocked you, you were going 98 mph!"
"Yeah? If you'd have been a mile up the road, you'd have caught me doing a helluva a lot more than that."
"I hit you again and you'd pulled it down to 78!"
"Yeah?"
"Don't you think that's too fast?"
"No."
From there on, I don't remember the conversation. I do remember him looking at my log book, open on the hood of his car, and implying that I had lied on it. I hadn't. I'd drawn it up right to the minute at our last stop in Kingman, but we'd covered the intervening 300 miles or so in just under 3 hours. He was literally scratching his head and trying to figure it out. He knew something was wrong, but he couldn't wrap his mind around what.
"Man, how fast was I running when you hit me?"
He thought for a minute and said, "Yeah..that's about right, ain't it?"
"Yup."
In the end, I got him to laughing and joking. He wrote me a ticket for 60 in a 55 zone. At the time, the charge for that speed was "waste of a finite resource"…wasting fuel. The fine turned out to be….$5. LOL
I still love that guy!
Another night, I was blazing a trail across the Oklahoma panhandle on OK Rt.-3, somewhere between Woodward and Guymon. The road is as flat as a pool table and straight as a plumb line for mile after mile. Nobody was out there but me, so I just sorta let the truck find it's own speed.
Out of the darkness came a voice over the CB: "Big truck westbound. Don't you think that's a little fast?"
"No," I replied. "If I thought it was too fast, I wouldn't be doing it. And, who the hell are you anyway?"
"Look in your mirror."
I did, and saw a shadow pull out from right behind my trailer. He turned on his headlights and red lights and passed me! It was an Oklahoma state trooper who had been following me with his lights turned off!
"I'll pull over as soon as I can find a place," I said.
"Don't worry about it," he replied. "Come on…I'll run the front door to Guymon!"
And boy, did he ever! He took off like a scalded cat and I couldn't keep up! By the time I got to Guymon, he was getting out of his car at the OHP cop shop as I passed by. He waved!
One night I was enroute from northern Colorado to Dallas with a mixed load of produce. I must have had some ear corn on because part of the load was covered with top ice to keep it moist and, as I pulled the little hill south of the railroad tracks coming out of Springfield, CO, a load of water fell out of the trailer's drain holes. A state trooper pulled out the little rest area which used to be there and stopped me.
I gathered my stuff, walked back and sat down in his car. The cop was an older guy, probably mid-50's to early 60's, and gray headed. I figured this wouldn't be too bad. It wasn't.
"What did you stop me for? I wasn't speeding."
"Naw. There's something leaking out of your trailer."
I looked at him incredulously and said, "You know very well that's melt from top ice. You've been out here long enough to know that."
"Yeah, I know." He laughed. "I was just getting sleepy and needed somebody to talk to."
So…we yakked for awhile. See? This was back in the days when cops and truckers were adversaries, but not enemies, back before every damn thing was a felony. Heck, I've even had cops stop me back then to see what kind of pills I might have to trade! Everybody was using some sort of speed then to keep up and it wasn't a major, end of the world problem. Not so today. Not even close.
We talked for awhile, with me growing ever more agitated because I really didn't have time to bullshit with this cop, and he eventually wrote me a bogus truck inspection and let me go on to Dallas. To make up the lost time, I sailed around the courthouse in Boise City, OK and was running 70+ in a 35 mph zone just before the city limits and I got stopped again for speeding by a local cop!
Got out of that one with just a warning too! (The Silver Tongued Devil strikes again! LOL)
One more:
I was northbound on US-75, passing by McKinney, Texas on what was then the new freeway. A Texas highway patrol car was just in front of me, shooting his radar over onto the southbound side. A four-wheeler shot by going south and the cop lit up his top lights, pulled into the median strip and just…..stopped. He turned off his lights and just sat there.
He was buried up to the floorboards in mud!
On instinct, a couple of other drivers and I stopped and helped push him out. He was so thankful that he didn't have to call his Sergeant and tell him….again….that he'd gotten stuck in a spring which came up through the grass right there. So, he gave us all one of his business cards and said, "This is good for one free ride through Collin County."
I never did collect on that.
One more:
I got stopped for speeding just shy of the Minnesota state line on US-75 in Iowa one afternoon, north of Sioux City. The cop was tucked in behind a truck heading south who didn't bother to warn me that he had a cop on his tail. He got cussed for that.
The cop, who was an arrogant and mouthy little prick, wrote me a ticket for speeding and then wanted to see my log book too. I handed it to him and he wrote me a ticket for that as well. Asshole.
This was about a week before Christmas, sometime in the early 80's before fines got ridiculous. He figured things up and said, "That comes to about $75. That'll put a dent in your Christmas, won't it?"
Well….I knew about what cops made, and I knew what I made, and I was tired and in a foul mood anyway, so I said, "Hell, fella. That ain't a tenth of what I make in a fuckin' week. Why don't you write me another one?"
He said, "Get outa my fuckin' car."
I did.
One more:
I got stopped for speeding somewhere. I don't remember where or when.
The cop was pretty mouthy and stopped writing the ticket to lecture me on the dangers of driving real fast, as if I were a moron who didn't know anything. I took it for a few moments and then interrupted him:
"Fuck you. I'm not a child who needs to be lectured and I'm sure as hell not gonna take it from you. If you're gonna write me a ticket, get on with it. If you're not, I'm leaving. I've got places to go."
He did. And, I went on to those places I had to go.
This could go on forever, but I'll stop right here. Maybe I'll write more later.
And there have been more than a few.
With 30 years on the road and a propensity for high speed truckin', I met a lot of cops. Yes, a lot. I can remember getting more than 70 speeding tickets and a couple of passing in a no passing zone citations. I know, that sounds like a truck driver story, but it's not and anybody who knew me then can tell you I just drove fast most of the time. Real fast. How I kept a license and kept most of those tickets off my driving record is a secret which will remain mine, thank you. Maybe I'll pass the tricks on to my grandkids before I die. Maybe not. Heck, in the age of the internet and the information revolution, they probably wouldn't work anymore anyhow. Data now follows you from place to place and it's hard to hide things. That wasn't the case not so long ago.
Most cops I met were just working stiffs who did a different job. They were professional, did their duty and mostly not a bad sort. Some would cut you some slack and some wouldn't. There's too many variables to make a blanket statement about cops, but they mostly were fair and that's good enough. I can't say about everyone else, but I rarely bitched about getting a ticket because I was a big boy and knew what I was doing. If a cop gave me what I deserved, I'd just smile and take it. It wasn't the cop's fault I was acting like a fool, was it?
Case in point:
I was tooling along across the California high desert east of Barstow one night on I-40, just minding my business. The CHP (California Highway Patrol) was pretty lenient back then about the 55 mph speed limit out there in that miserable emptiness between Barstow and Needles. They had enough to do just rescuing stranded motorists and didn't pay a whole lot of attention to how fast trucks were going, especially at night.
This night, I was loaded pretty heavily with produce bound for Oklahoma City and was running about 70 mph or so. Behind me, I saw headlights coming up at a ridiculous rate of speed for California. In spite of their tolerance, one COULD run TOO fast, even out on the desert. This guy was doing that and probably more.
He blew by in a flash so, naturally, I pumped it up and fell in on his tail. He was pulling an empty float trailer (flatbed) with only a small, wooden box tied onto the tail…and it was hanging on for dear life.
We finally got to talking. He ran air freight out of Tulsa to LAX and was going home with just that empty box. I had a hard time keeping up with him on the hills, but he slowed down just enough that we could run along and shoot the shit at over 100 mph. We were close to doubling the "double nickel" speed limit, but who cared, right?
Nobody bothered us across the desert and we REALLY gained speed going down the grade between Essex and Needles, but slipped into Arizona without being caught, which was something of a miracle. After clearing the Port of Entry, we went on up to the TA truck stop in Kingman, AZ where I had to fuel. While I pumped, my new friend went in and bought us some sandwiches and coffee. We hit the road again and were soon up the long grade which ends at Williams and were hammer down again. Somewhere in that 100-120 miles, the box on the tail of his trailer came apart in the high wind we were generating, so we pulled off onto the shoulder and threw the remains into the ditch.
We were just tooling along without a care in world and yakking on the CB, passing mile after mile after mile of trucks and cars. Nobody dared keep up with us.
Somewhere near Winslow, my new friend (I can't remember either his name or his CB handle) was leading the way as we blew by a long string of slow trucks. As I started past them, a Schneider freight truck pulled out into the left lane to pass and I was only about 50 yards away when he did it! Schneider's, known as "Pumpkin" trucks because of their orange color, would only run about 55 or 60 mph and I was doing nearly twice that when he pulled out in front of me! It wouldn't surprise me to learn that my skid marks are still on the interstate out there! I cussed him like a sailor, but the coward never responded…so I just went on.
Nearing the New Mexico line, I was still running in second place when the bird dog (radar detector) suddenly lit up twice, in rapid succession. BEEEEEP…pause…BEEEP! I knew immediately what it was. A cop was parked back up on the ramp at the exit we had just blown under and had shot me in the ass! A quick glance into the mirror showed headlights, blue lights and red lights suddenly come on in the darkness and here he came!
My new friend's bird dog had gone off too and he bogged down on the brakes. Too late!
"Man, I'm sorry," he said.
"Don't worry about it," I responded. "I'm a big boy and knew what I was doing. I'll see you on up the road." (I never did) I pulled onto the shoulder, parked and waited for the cop to show up.
When he did, I could see it was an Arizona Highway Patrol trooper and that probably meant trouble. They were known for being fair and honest and I was guilty as hell. Worse, I watched as he got out of the car and could see in the headlights of passing vehicles (including that damn Schneider driver who was probably laughing his head off) that the cop was young, blond headed and looked to be about 16 years old. Uh oh. More trouble….a rookie!
Not waiting for him, I grabbed my wallet off the dash, my permit book, bill of lading and log book and met him at the back of the trailer. He was pissed. REALLY pissed! OOOOOOOO!
"Do you know how fast you were going?" he practically screamed.
"Uh…yeah."
"The first time I clocked you, you were going 98 mph!"
"Yeah? If you'd have been a mile up the road, you'd have caught me doing a helluva a lot more than that."
"I hit you again and you'd pulled it down to 78!"
"Yeah?"
"Don't you think that's too fast?"
"No."
From there on, I don't remember the conversation. I do remember him looking at my log book, open on the hood of his car, and implying that I had lied on it. I hadn't. I'd drawn it up right to the minute at our last stop in Kingman, but we'd covered the intervening 300 miles or so in just under 3 hours. He was literally scratching his head and trying to figure it out. He knew something was wrong, but he couldn't wrap his mind around what.
"Man, how fast was I running when you hit me?"
He thought for a minute and said, "Yeah..that's about right, ain't it?"
"Yup."
In the end, I got him to laughing and joking. He wrote me a ticket for 60 in a 55 zone. At the time, the charge for that speed was "waste of a finite resource"…wasting fuel. The fine turned out to be….$5. LOL
I still love that guy!
Another night, I was blazing a trail across the Oklahoma panhandle on OK Rt.-3, somewhere between Woodward and Guymon. The road is as flat as a pool table and straight as a plumb line for mile after mile. Nobody was out there but me, so I just sorta let the truck find it's own speed.
Out of the darkness came a voice over the CB: "Big truck westbound. Don't you think that's a little fast?"
"No," I replied. "If I thought it was too fast, I wouldn't be doing it. And, who the hell are you anyway?"
"Look in your mirror."
I did, and saw a shadow pull out from right behind my trailer. He turned on his headlights and red lights and passed me! It was an Oklahoma state trooper who had been following me with his lights turned off!
"I'll pull over as soon as I can find a place," I said.
"Don't worry about it," he replied. "Come on…I'll run the front door to Guymon!"
And boy, did he ever! He took off like a scalded cat and I couldn't keep up! By the time I got to Guymon, he was getting out of his car at the OHP cop shop as I passed by. He waved!
One night I was enroute from northern Colorado to Dallas with a mixed load of produce. I must have had some ear corn on because part of the load was covered with top ice to keep it moist and, as I pulled the little hill south of the railroad tracks coming out of Springfield, CO, a load of water fell out of the trailer's drain holes. A state trooper pulled out the little rest area which used to be there and stopped me.
I gathered my stuff, walked back and sat down in his car. The cop was an older guy, probably mid-50's to early 60's, and gray headed. I figured this wouldn't be too bad. It wasn't.
"What did you stop me for? I wasn't speeding."
"Naw. There's something leaking out of your trailer."
I looked at him incredulously and said, "You know very well that's melt from top ice. You've been out here long enough to know that."
"Yeah, I know." He laughed. "I was just getting sleepy and needed somebody to talk to."
So…we yakked for awhile. See? This was back in the days when cops and truckers were adversaries, but not enemies, back before every damn thing was a felony. Heck, I've even had cops stop me back then to see what kind of pills I might have to trade! Everybody was using some sort of speed then to keep up and it wasn't a major, end of the world problem. Not so today. Not even close.
We talked for awhile, with me growing ever more agitated because I really didn't have time to bullshit with this cop, and he eventually wrote me a bogus truck inspection and let me go on to Dallas. To make up the lost time, I sailed around the courthouse in Boise City, OK and was running 70+ in a 35 mph zone just before the city limits and I got stopped again for speeding by a local cop!
Got out of that one with just a warning too! (The Silver Tongued Devil strikes again! LOL)
One more:
I was northbound on US-75, passing by McKinney, Texas on what was then the new freeway. A Texas highway patrol car was just in front of me, shooting his radar over onto the southbound side. A four-wheeler shot by going south and the cop lit up his top lights, pulled into the median strip and just…..stopped. He turned off his lights and just sat there.
He was buried up to the floorboards in mud!
On instinct, a couple of other drivers and I stopped and helped push him out. He was so thankful that he didn't have to call his Sergeant and tell him….again….that he'd gotten stuck in a spring which came up through the grass right there. So, he gave us all one of his business cards and said, "This is good for one free ride through Collin County."
I never did collect on that.
One more:
I got stopped for speeding just shy of the Minnesota state line on US-75 in Iowa one afternoon, north of Sioux City. The cop was tucked in behind a truck heading south who didn't bother to warn me that he had a cop on his tail. He got cussed for that.
The cop, who was an arrogant and mouthy little prick, wrote me a ticket for speeding and then wanted to see my log book too. I handed it to him and he wrote me a ticket for that as well. Asshole.
This was about a week before Christmas, sometime in the early 80's before fines got ridiculous. He figured things up and said, "That comes to about $75. That'll put a dent in your Christmas, won't it?"
Well….I knew about what cops made, and I knew what I made, and I was tired and in a foul mood anyway, so I said, "Hell, fella. That ain't a tenth of what I make in a fuckin' week. Why don't you write me another one?"
He said, "Get outa my fuckin' car."
I did.
One more:
I got stopped for speeding somewhere. I don't remember where or when.
The cop was pretty mouthy and stopped writing the ticket to lecture me on the dangers of driving real fast, as if I were a moron who didn't know anything. I took it for a few moments and then interrupted him:
"Fuck you. I'm not a child who needs to be lectured and I'm sure as hell not gonna take it from you. If you're gonna write me a ticket, get on with it. If you're not, I'm leaving. I've got places to go."
He did. And, I went on to those places I had to go.
This could go on forever, but I'll stop right here. Maybe I'll write more later.
