Many things tell us summer has arrived – searing heat and humidity, the smell of freshly cut grass and watermelons, a host of foreign number plates, visiting relatives… and the re-emergence of traffic cops who have been dormant during the year.
Watch out, drivers!
After recklessly speeding along the John Ross Parkway all year, skipping red robots and overtaking on blind rises – all without a care – you are about to encounter the seasonal traffic cop advent.
Get ready for booze buses, roadblocks, breathalyzers and speed cameras – it’s time to boost the traffic department’s budget.
I don’t for one minute mean such things are not necessary.
Were it not for the amplified presence of the ‘spietkops’, our horrific accident and death stats would be far worse.
I personally have great respect, admiration and appreciation for traffic officers.
When I first joined this newspaper almost 30 years ago, my favourite entertainment over weekends was to sit near them and listen in as they pulled over motorists who had disobeyed the rules of the road.
I remember on one occasion a driver who was caught doing 127km/h on Angler’s Rod, which is a 60km/h zone.
Asked why he was going so fast, he replied he was just ensuring a good following distance between his vehicle and the car behind him!
I thought it was brilliant enough to be let off the hook.
Then there was the guy who was waiting in a queue for his gatsometer reading, so he calmly walked over to the machine and furtively fiddled with it.
By the time the cops attended to him, the reading was zero and he walked free, winking at me and saying, ‘I used to work at the factory that made them!’
For the unenlightened (read: young), a gatsometer was a vehicle speed recording machine linked to cables that were spanned across the road.
If you saw those black lines well in advance, you could increase speed and brake just before you hit them, ripping the whole cable from the road and rendering speed recording impossible.
There are many more stories I witnessed, such as the guy who failed the breathalyzer and was taken to hospital for blood to be drawn, the alcohol content thereof to be used later in evidence against him.
Except… on the way to the police station he drank the blood sample! No kidding.
And the chap who was taken to the Bay Hospital to have blood drawn and asked to quickly use the toilet.
He locked himself in and the fire department had to be summoned to chop down the door.
But my favourite one is fictional, concerning a drunk driver who was stopped at 2am and asked where he was going.
He replied, ‘I’m on my way to a lecture about alcohol abuse, smoking and staying out late, and the effects they all have on the human body.’
‘Really?’ said the speed cop. ‘Who would be giving such a lecture at this hour?’
The man replied: ‘That would be my wife.’
