An Unhappy Coincidence

I was driving back to the office this morning after having met a client, and my spirits were rather high. I was singing along to a new CD that I got for Christmas, and I wasn't paying much attention to the speedometer. Having just pulled off the highway, I was driving a bit faster than the posted speed limit. I saw the police car sitting in a side street and knew that I was busted.

Sure enough, the red and blue lights started flashing and I pulled off to the side of the road (after driving along for a few seconds in the vain hope that perhaps there was some other reason that the police car was tailing me with flashing lights).

Bugger.

The strange thing about this incident is that I was caught speeding at the exact same spot two weeks ago. It was the same time of day, and lo and behold, the same humourless police officer got out of the car and asked me to produce my license, registration and insurance. My little attempt at a joke "we have to stop meeting like this, people are going to start talking, heh heh heh" was met with her outstretched hand and a rather icy stare. So much for that. See if I ask her to the prom.

While sitting in the car waiting for her to process my papers (what takes them so bloody long???) I thought of a radio interview that I had heard on the CBC a few weeks ago. The hostess was interviewing a police officer from New Zealand about a rather peculiar incident.

Constable Flitton was working his shift on the south island of New Zealand earlier this month when he pulled over a driver who was speeding. The driver pulled out his British and South African licenses and handed them to Constable Flitton. The driver asked Constable Flitton if he had worked in London recently, and as a recent emigree from the U.K., Constable Flitton nodded his assent, he had indeed worked for the police in London where he had also been a traffic cop. The driver then enquired as to whether the good constable had operated a laser gun on the A5 motorway in north London. Yes indeed, he had operated a laser gun on the A5. The driver, also recently emigrated from the U.K. then proceeded to tell the constable that the last (and only other) time that he had recieved a speeding ticket, was two years ago in London, and that Constable Flitton had been the one who had issued it.

I'm not sure what the odds of  being ticketed by the exact same policeman on both sides of the world are, but they have to astronomically high. This wasn't enough for Constable Flitton to let the driver off though, he did issue the ticket for $120.00 (N.Z.), which came to be roughly the same amount as the first ticket. Some times the truth can be stranger than fiction, here's the story from the Telegraph.

I got off a little easier this time. I was only doing 76 in a 50 zone, not 80 like the first time, so instead of a $180.00 fine, I'm only going to be dinged for $97.50. Oh well, from now on, I'm avoiding Telephone Road.