On my way into work yesterday I had a close call with The Law. Cruising southbound on I-5 Express Lanes in Seattle near 70th street. The Express Lanes are usually a pretty “safe” spot as they are a place where I have only seen the State Patrol doing speed enforcement work maybe three times in 20+ years. But, following my own advice, I was in the right-hand lane rather than over in the “fast lane” (Number 5) and I was exceeding the speed limit by a margin I’m not willing to admit. Not “autobahn speeds” by any stretch, but certainly faster than the posted limit, and even a bit faster than other cars around me. As the road made a wide right-hand bend my detector (Number 1)went off, and I immediately slowed down(Number 7). WAAAAY over on the left shoulder of the road was a Washington State Trooper, his Crown Vic parked right up against the concrete jersey barrier. He was wedged in the open driver’s side door, pointing his LIDAR device at me. I watched as I slowed down, and he dropped the LIDAR from his eye and looked at me, then looked around at the surrounding traffic, “tagged me” again with his SMD, then looked at me again. I surmise that he was weighing the risk & probability of success of climbing in and pursuing me. As I had already slowed to the posted speed limit, and traffic was pretty thick at the time, I guess he decided to let me go and get back to the low-hanging fruit in the fast lane.
It all happened right about here (don’t bother with Street View) as it does not cover the Express Lanes)
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Thank you Officer… should we ever meet again I’ll buy you a beer. 😉
Well, it can now be told…..
I had to take the day off to attend Weld County’s traffic court, for a speeding ticket I got back on December 11th (at which point I was *almost* 12-years, offense free….dammit. 🙁 )
I did have an excuse, a valid one, which, because I told the State Patrol officer who pulled me over, and to the DA today, the *exact* incident (as noted on the officer’s copy of the ticket)I was allowed to plea bargain down from a SIX-point ticket to a THREE-point ticket.
Needless to say, I was THRILLED to accept said plea bargain: In Colorado, each point assessed to one’s license roughly equates to a $50 dollar increase in insurance.
The OTHER* lucky thing is, like most insurance companies, they don’t regularly check one’s DMV. It’s done on a by-population basis (weld county is huge, areally, but pretty small, populationally) and when one lets one’s coverage lapse.
Needless to say, AGAIN, this troop will be paying CLOSE attention to not allowing that to happen for 5 years…and to not reacting out of fear..
:/
Chuck, you may already know this but for the benefit of others I will state that from firsthand experience I know that WSP also paces cars in the I-5 express lanes from patrol cars in the “regular” lanes. They then pull over speeders north of where the two meet at Northgate. One has to keep one’s head on a swivel ’round here, yes?