Spring Break Was A Learning Experience
We were buzzing along the scenic highways of the Washington coast, enjoying our own little version of National Lampoon’s spring vacation, when, suddenly, it happened.
A man with a gun forced my car off the road, marched up to the driver’s window and insisted that I hand over all of the valuables in the car.
Actually, not all of the valuables. Only my registration and proof of insurance. The guy was a state trooper.
The moral of this chilling tale of danger is twofold: (1) Don’t exceed the speed limit, and (2) always keep your glove compartment wellorganized.
No. 2 is, of course, the most important lesson, although I didn’t know it at the time. And for one happy moment, I believed that I was not in violation of No. 1 either. When I saw the state trooper approaching from the opposite direction, I looked down at my speedometer and noticed that I was comfortably within the federally mandated freeway speed limit of 65 mph.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t on a freeway. I was on a two-lane state highway where the speed limit is only 55 mph, which explains why I immediately hit the brakes, sending one of my daughter’s stuffed animals off of the back-window shelf and into the back of her head.
“Hey,” she yelled.
Meanwhile, I yelled my own expletive, which was of an entirely different degree of difficulty than “hey,” because I was watching the state trooper in my rear view mirror.
He was making a U-turn, which could mean only one of two things: (1) He had forgotten his jaunty state trooper hat and was returning home to get it, or (2) I was in a heap of trouble.
“You’re nailed, dad,” said my son.
“No,” I said. “I think he forgot his state trooper hat and is returning home to -” “His lights are flashing.”
“Oh.”
So I pulled over, and for one quiet moment, everyone in my family reflected on what a night in jail would be like.
I had my driver’s license ready when he arrived at the window, but I was a bit flustered by his next words, “Can I see your registration and your proof of insurance, please?” This is where Moral No. 2 comes in.
My wife, Carol, fumbled frantically in the glove compartment, tossing maps aside, throwing old gum wrappers back over her shoulder. She found the registration, and I handed it to the trooper. Then she found the proof of insurance. Actually, she found about eight of them, the most current being from 1993.
The operative one was sitting on our desk 400 miles away.
The trooper cocked an eyebrow at me and then issued his pronouncement: He was not going to ticket me. He was only going to issue me a warning, due to the fact that he thought I was Mike Lowry.
I’m making that up. Actually, he said he wasn’t going to ticket me because he had clocked me at only 61 mph, which hardly made me Tom Sneva.
However … he strongly suggested that I carry my proof of insurance at all times. He said he would trust me on it this time, probably because I was sincerely apologetic and also because I looked like the dorky kind of dad who would sooner leave the house without pants than without proper insurance. Then he let me go, thus sparing my children from their first taste of jail time.
When I got home, I checked my second car and realized that the glove compartment contained neither my proof of insurance nor my registration. It did, however, contain a 1974 street map of Missoula.
So, to reiterate, here are the lessons that every motorist can learn from my experience:
1. Treat the trooper with courtesy and respect.
2. Keep your seat belt on as the trooper approaches (they like that).
3. Pretend that you are Mike Lowry.
4. If you must speed, speed in moderation.
5. If you’re going to stuff your glove compartment full of 1985 muffler receipts and St. Joe topo maps, you might as well toss in your registration and proof of insurance, also. Just a suggestion.