mad anthony

Rants, politics, and thoughts on politics, technology, life,
and stuff from a generally politically conservative Baltimoron.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Back in NJ, and I only got pulled over once...

So I'm up in NJ for the holidays, spending the next few days with the parents celebrating Christmas. I drove up today - it was a fairly uneventful trip, except for hitting some traffic near Harrisburg - and for getting pulled over on suspicion of drunk driving on I-78 in central PA.

I'm driving, right hand lane, going maybe a few miles above the speed limit, and I see a cop car behind me. Naturally, I slow down to a couple miles per hour below the speed limit. Cop is still there, and another one next to him in the left lane. This goes on for a mile or two, and then cop throws his lights on. I pull over, and he pulls behind me. I'm not sure why I'm getting pulled over - I actually wasn't speeding.

Officer comes to my window and tells me that someone called in a complaint that I was driving erratically, weaving in and out of traffic, and that they thought I was drunk. I'm rather puzzled, since 1) I hadn't drank anything except about a half-gallon of coffee and 2) I wasn't driving erratically - while I will admit to not being the world's most careful driver, I'm generally pretty patient - I don't generally lane-hop or anything, and I can't remember cutting anyone off or anything.

The officer was actually pretty cool - he says he can tell I'm not drunk, and that as long as I'm not wanted and my truck isn't stolen he'll let me go with a warning - and he does. I'm not sure he really could have done anything - I'm not a lawyer, but I suspect it would be pretty hard to convict me of any traffic violations just on someone's say-so.

So I'm puzzled who called me in - if I did cut someone off and not notice, or if someone just was overly paranoid, or decided they didn't like me. I'm certainly glad that I didn't get a ticket, and I understand that the police can't really ignore calls about suspected drunk drivers - if I was drinking and hit a busfull of nuns or something they would look pretty bad. But I'm annoyed that someone would call in about me in the first place - I mean, I'm not that bad a driver.

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