Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Driving in a Recession
It's summer and that generally is synonymous with not doing anything productive. This hasn't changed since I was 5 years old, despite the occasional summer school hiccup, but since I bypassed that trap this summer and am unemployed, in this state anyway, I have nothing to do. However, I do force myself to wake up before noon 3 days a week for some personal training in Venice... which increases my time on the road, which inevitably leads to more chances to receive a traffic or parking violation.
Since I got my driver's permit way back in 2001, I have driven to and from my home in South Central Beverly Hills....obviously. As a result, I have become very skilled at turning onto Wilshire Blvd. from my street, as well as directly into the left turn lane to go onto La Cienega Blvd., which happens to be located one block west of me. The problem is, whether I am turning left from Wilshire onto my street to go home, or to turn right to go onto Wilshire, there are what we in the business call asshats blocking the intersection. This is called gridlock and is not the title of a Jason Statham movie but is instead, what some might call, illegal. This invariably leads to manuevers to weave around cars to faciliate the starting (or finish) line of my commute...which may or may not lead to alledgedly illegal activities, such as crossing a double yellow, albeit to avoid other illegal activities in the form of gridlock and general, typical L.A. driver arrogant doucheocity.
And of course, on one of the mornings where I force myself into my car at 9:30 am, an over-zealous Sheriff of some kind, obviously low on his quota due to the late time in the month, attempts to pulls me over after turning left onto La Cienega Blvd. I say attempts because I did not realize T-1000 following me on his shiny BMW police bike was actually signaling for me to pull over. I did one of the, "Who, me?" self-pointing hand gestures, which I later realized doesn't really work when you're in a car, and eventually pulled over half a block later.
"MOVE UP YOU'RE BLOCKING THE DRIVEWAY."
"Ok ok chill Erik Estrada." (I thought to myself sarcastically.)
"License and registration please.... Do you know why I pulled you over?" Yes, they actually say this and I almost laughed in his face because it was so ridiculously self-parodizing.
"I can honestly say, no I do not."
"You crossed a solid double yellow line over there going into the left-turn lane."
"I did?"
"Yes, you did."
"Really?"
"Yeah." At this point, I was genuinely shocked that not only was this guy in a corner somewhere waiting for some miniscule infraction to cross his eye line, but I was actually caught for doing something every single driver everywhere does.
And he proceeds to write me a ticket, after failed attempts to make him realize how ludicrous this guy was, and indirectly, get him to admit that he was low on his ticket quota and/or he was pulling me over while I was DWSNM (Driving while Schwarzenegger needs money).
I was already running late, and Magruff was taking his sweet time writing the citation, so I decided my will my cojones to grow a little.
"Excuse me, officer?"
"Yeah."
"Can you please explain to me how I am supposed to get into the left-turn lane from my street when everyone is blocking the intersection?"
"Well, you were fine, but then you crossed over the double yellow."
"Well I had no choice but to do that because if I remained perpendicular to on-coming traffic, then that's illegal as well, since I would be causing gridlock."
"Yeah...they really need to change that intersection."
"But you're still going to write me a ticket."
"Yep."
I thought I had him with my impeccable logic, but evidently those helmets of theirs repel all rationale and deflect them with "yeps" and "Do you know why I pulled you overs."
I then decided to try a different strategy.
"Well I live on that street."
"..."
"So you can see this as a learning opportunity for me since I will have so many opportunities to practice not crossing a double yellow."
"..."
"Since, I live on that street."
"Right well, I'm still going to have to write you a ticket."
"Really?"
"Yep."
So it is clear that when it comes to traffic violations, logic, wit and general smartassery does not work. I could bring up the stereotype of the use of cleavage and feminine charm to dissuade such things, but I will not go there. However, given the utter bullshit circumstances of this occurence, I will harp it up to lazy po-po fell behind and Arnold needs some dough.
Regardless, as some might remember, I defeated a totally legitimate speeding ticket two years back due to the fact that the officer never submitted his declaration in response to mine, which apparently happens a lot. Also, while that event was much more nerve-racking because it was my first ticket and was considerably more expensive, this one is incredibly preposterous, almost satirically so, that it makes me laugh more than it does make me upset.
And, really, how many times in my life can I say I broke the law, but it was really funny?
7:31 PM
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