The awkward police encounter

Let me preface: No, I did not get a ticket.

Now that I don't have a juicy story to tell, I will go on to explain what the "awkward police encounter" is exactly. I'm sure you've experienced it before. I don't know what it was about it this week, but out of the 3 police encounters I had this week, 1 1/2 was awkward.

So first, what am I classifying as a "police encounter?" For this case, I will say "police encounters" include police cars driving on the road around you. This may or may not include cops that were momentarily stationary or will soon be stationary. However, this does not include an officer who has already decided on who they want to flag down/with another car with their blinky lights.

What makes a police encounter awkward? Well. Mostly the fact that they're driving and not still on the side of the road waiting for an idiot to speed past all the other cars that are braking "for some reason." But again, police cars to need to be driven first to get to these hiding places, so obviously they will be on the road. In most cases, cops are going much faster than the flow of traffic that has seen the cop and is scared to go anywhere near speed limit.

This is what happened first this week. I was in the left lane stuck in traffic after the Essex tolls. Suddenly I hear a siren bleep out at me out of nowhere, so I moved over to the middle lane so the cop that really didn't need to be anywhere could shuffle through traffic. "Asshat" was the first word that came to mind, but this is fairly standard fare.

But then there are those special cases. When the cop is driving in front of you. Or worse yet, when a cop is driving to the left of you. This is awkward. Do you slow down and go behind them? Do you speed up and go in front of them? Do you speed up but then wait for another car to go in front of the cop so you're not the car right in front of the cop? These decisions need to be made in the rare case that you see a police officer driving down the road at or below the speed limit. And I don't just mean when you're stuck in traffic.

To be really honest, I think that cop that I saw yesterday was causing more traffic by being in the middle lane than by moving people over while in the left lane. For a while, I was driving two cars behind him, but seriously, he wasn't going faster than 55. So I moved into the left lane and started to pass--which of course is the exact same time that he decided he didn't want to drive 55 mph anymore and bumped it up to a mild 60. Awesome. And awkward.

Today's encounter was a little bit different. I was further down on the Parkway later in the day, so there was less traffic on the road. While traveling at my cool 75 mph, I notice a dark car merging onto the highway. It could have easily been mistaken for a livery cab, but I knew deep in my gut it was an undercover cop. Boy was I right as it sped past me on my right, not caring that I was going 20 mph over the speed limit while looking like it was transmitting its own radio station from the back of the car.

The best part was that I knew exactly where he was going to go scope out cars. By the time I reached his spot, he had just pulled back to face us. Did I slow down? Well yes, but not to 55, and only because I probably would have crashed into the car in front of me otherwise. But seriously, he just spent all that work weaving around traffic to get to his place. I don't think he's going to come after me if he already knew I had been driving faster than that.

Anyone else feel like they've been stalked by cops this past week?