Job keeps me from getting traffic ticket

How many people have avoided a traffic ticket because they are a journalist?
The last two times I've been pulled over by police, the officer did not write me up because of my job.
A couple years back, the officer saw my state-issued press card, asked me where I work, said he knew our longtime cops reporter, and let me go with a warning.
The other night, I was pulled over for speeding and recognized the officer as a former local athlete, who I had covered years ago.
After I greeted him and told him who I am, he told me to slow down and returned to his cruiser.
As journalists, we shouldn't accept favors, but I had no problem avoiding what would have been multi-hundred dollar fines and whatever else goes with a ticket.

 

<Throne Of Judgment>
No, because I obey the laws.
</Throne of Judgment>

 

Oh, man, Can't wait for the board ethics police to get hold of this one.

 

I have no stance on the moral issue....

But maybe you could, y'know, slow down. Then you wouldn't need that kind of help.

 

72 in a 55 at 11:50 p.m. on a two-lane highway with no other vehicles in either direction, except, apparently, the cop.

 

I'll get the popcorn.

 

Fixed.

 

We get taxed enough as it is. I don't have a problem with skating on a speed tax.

I've found that the decal that you get for joining the local sheriff or police association can be a big help in avoiding minor violations as well.

 

Clergy sticker FTW. My dad *never* got ticketed for anything, and he was an awful driver.

 

I've been pulled over a couple of times and the cop started talking sports with me after he saw my work ID or if I answered that I was "coming from/going to a ball game" when asked where I was heading in such a hurry. But I'm not sure that I would have gotten a ticket in either instance.

But my best story on the subject involves not being pulled over at all. When I was covering preps for my hometown paper years ago, I would always go eat dinner with my grandparents before I went to cover a Friday night football game.

One week, I was assigned to our most-remote school, about an hour's drive from the office. Dinner ran long and I had to speed or I would miss kickoff.

I was whipping it up a two-lane country road going about 80 mph, when I saw a state trooper pull out of a side road. Immediately, I thought I was dead, and the trooper pulled in behind me.

He never cut his lights on, though, just followed me as I approached the stadium. He turned in after me, and I kept thinking he was going to write me a ticket in the parking lot. But he parked near the gate and went in the stadium.

I knew what the officer was thinking: "You know, I could write this SOB a ticket, but then I'd miss kickoff." He was standing on the sideline the whole game, as I tried to avoid eye contact with him ...

 

I've gotten out of three traffic tickets that way. Every time, I was coming home from a game and the cop was more interested in who won than writing a ticket.

It was funny to the guys in the newsroom, who heard it on the scanner.

 

Yeah...sorry...not feeling the sympathy here. I drove a lot of backroads and dark highways in my days as an ASE, and if I wasn't sure of the level of leeway and police coverage, I went much much closer to the speed limit than that.