Monday, December 10, 2007

TSO...

...potential fleeing felon (hyper-potential). He (almost) fought the law, and the law won. He was impaled on the horns of a legal dilemma; on the one horn we have "the law is an ass"; on the other we have "I don't want my ass in jail." He could have taken off and led the cops on a high speed chase and gotten himself on TV. Instead, he sits there for an hour, politely waiting. He's such a creature of the system he even imagines he saved 100$ by so doing. The whole thing was avoidable. What idiot doesn't know that you have to come to a complete stop after exiting a parking lot so that you can get smashed by oncoming traffic?

I guess he did the right thing. Resist not evil and all that. The nutritious form of rice, btw, is brown, not white.

6 comments:

Lydia McGrew said...

I'm having trouble picturing this "come to a complete stop after exiting a private drive" rule. _How_ is that supposed to look? If you exit a private drive, you are usually turning into traffic, joining traffic in one lane or another, depending on which direction you're turning. There's nowhere _to_ stop. What the dickens is this rule telling people to do?

TS said...

Lydia is attempting to use logic, when power doesn't require logic. The complete stop rule is one of 5,000 rules that cops learn when they just want to pull someone over for no reason. One cop remembered this one correctly, the other didn't (i.e. "must come to a stop at every intersection") but in the end it really wouldn't matter would it? Whether or not I show butt-crack, my ass still could go to jail.

So: how many people stop before exiting their driveways? No one and I'm not going to start now. Call me a rebel, but not late to dinner.

And I do realize cops rely on the euphoria of the victim not receiving a ticket in order to cover their own ass, i.e. not to have to deal with the hassle of a complaint against them. A sad state of affairs indeed.

TS said...

...to a complete stop after exiting a parking lot

Good catch, I've corrected my cri de ceour to read "before".

Lydia McGrew said...

Oh. That makes more sense, I guess. I mean, at least it isn't telling you to pull out into traffic and come to a dead stop. But it is pretty unnecessary if you're just coming out of your own very short private driveway from your garage, because presumably you looked both ways as you were starting up the car anyway.

Anonymous said...

Lydia is attempting to use logic, when power doesn't require logic.

Great line. You'll notice that she's still attempting to use it.

I have a similar story about how I almost got busted on a similarly obscure rule because a cowboy cop desperate to bust someone couldn't find a real criminal. I just don't have time to tell it right now.

TS said...

I seem to recall someone saying that the "power is arbitrary" and impervious to logic concept began with William of Occam, who said that God’s laws arise from his will, not his intellect. God could’ve made murder a positive good, as a necessity for salvation. “Abba” thus became “Allah”. Not true, except for police officers...

Via email, Mary H. shares another story:

"I've been pulled over several times for small things but have always had the good fortune of having very nice police officiers. It always makes me nervous though.
My brothers, on the other hand, have some whoppers to tell. Like one time my brother was given a DUI after he just got out of the river white water rafting, went to his truck wet, discovered he didn't have his keys, got in, let out the parking brake, rolled the truck down the hill backwards about a block to where the other guys were coming up from the bank. (He is an auto body man so he really can do this smoothly.) A policeman sees him, and gives him a DUI. He tried to explain that he wasn't drinking - he was cold and wet - and he wasn't driving - he didn't even have his keys!"