I fought only one traffic ticket. I didn't do it to try and get away with something, I fought it to beat the cop.
This particular cop, 'Off. Charming,' used to sit across the street from my workplace late at night. When the shift left, he'd pick one of us to follow.
He pulled me over a number of times, sometimes just to find out what I was doing.
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So, why'd you sneak back here?
I wasn't sneaking. I left my coat, I came back to get it.
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About 20 minutes later after running my driver's license, he tells me he's just 'investigating reports of suspicious activity' before finally letting me go. I was pulled over a handful of times over the next two months. Always the same cop, always the same time of night and almost always in the same spot.
During another exchange...
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If I search your car...am I going to find anything?
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This was after I passed an impromptu field sobriety test because he thought I was drunk. I tried explaining that I had spilled my soda pulling away from a stoplight and swerved a bit into another lane. I apologized. Yes, I swerved, but it was around midnight on a Tuesday and the road in my metropolitan hometown of 20,000 was completely empty. He insisted I was drinking, insisted I take a field sobriety test and then began 'interrogating' me.
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Nothing illegal?
No. Nothing illegal.
I'm not going to find anything?
Nope.
Are you sure, son?
Yep.
No open containers.....no drugs?
Are those illegal? Then....no. No open containers, no drugs.
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Anyway the one ticket I ended up fighting was for reckless driving (I misjudged a stop sign and slammed on my brakes. I managed not to fly out onto the busy bypass and no one was behind me. No harm, no foul I thought. Officer Charming witnessed the 'incident' from across the busy bypass from over 100 yards away and from behind a big ass billboard. I managed to pull out, drive the half mile to work, pull into the parking lot and get out of my truck before he came rushing up....lights and siren blaring, of course. He actually said...
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Well, Mr. 'guthmund.' I know you have to get to work, so I filled this out already...if you'd just sign it down here....
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I fought the ticket even though technically, I guess I was guilty. I brought in poster boards filled with little figures and diagrams. I brought in copies of my tickets and a couple of co-workers showed up to make their statements (including my boss, who had also been pulled over more than a couple of times by this guy). The ticket was dismissed.