20th
“Is There A Problem, Officer?” Part Two
I literally walked away from this one without a scratch. Based on the picture of moderate damage below, you might not think that’s a big deal, but that would mean you obviously hadn’t read Part One of this story.
Given the condition of my tires, the smooth highway pavement and hard rain, I must have defied some pretty astronomical odds by crawling out the passenger side of my car unscathed. I didn’t do much philosophizing at the time, though. I just ran, swearing, for the Ridgewood Road bridge, still thinking that everyone was in danger of spinning out of control in the torrential rain.
For some reason, I still wasn’t scared (as I should have been). Just so mad.
I climbed up the rocks under the bridge and just hurled curses at them for a minute. My prepaid phone only had enough credit on it for an unlimited texting package; the remaining 93¢ wasn’t enough to call anyone. Except 911.
Assuming that you can’t really go wrong calling emergency dispatch in an emergency anyway, I chose that route over few alternatives, which included waiting for one of my Twitter followers to come rescue me or send a tow truck. That could have taken five minutes or two hours, so I decided to summon my tax dollars.
In a few minutes, I saw a Fairlawn Police cruiser pull over near my car. I ran down the rocks and jumped into my front passenger seat, which was now facing traffic like a lost British tourist in some perilous situational comedy.
The cop couldn’t have been more than three years my senior. I rolled my window down as he approached.
“Is there a problem, officer?” I was still in the passenger seat, facing the wrong way on the highway. I can’t seem to convince anyone this is hilarious.
He understood me to be joking, not impaired, and even laughed a little bit. Then he followed procedures, borrowing my license and registration and assessing the situation from all angles of the car.
“Where did you say you spun out?”
“Uh, right about over there,” I gestured 15 yards upstream. “Couldn’t have been more tha-“
“Was it at that lightpost?”
“I guess, I mean, maybe not that fa-“
“Yeah, this is gonna be Copley’s accident.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.” He stood up straight, adjusting his belt and looking off into the distance. “By the way, your tags expired in November.”
My eyes must have rolled back and down into my sinus cavities. I heard rim shots and a record being stopped by hand at the same time.
Ten minutes later, a Copley cruiser arrived and its driver did a similar routine, although he did not enjoy my humor as much, and passed the buck to the Ohio Highway Patrol. While we waited for a trooper to arrive, he visited me at my passenger seat, where I had been instructed to stay for safety reasons. Privately, I likened this to seeking refuge in the rear lavoratory of a plummeting aircraft.
“Yeah, they’ll probably citcha for failure to control.”
WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT.
I gave him my best look at how bewildered I am, how can you possibly cite a guy this bewildered look. “Failure to control?!” I thought of how out of control the car had been, and how pointless it would be to try to impress that upon Order instead of his estranged old roommate, Law.
Once he ascertained that I wasn’t hurt, the Highway Patrol trooper was equally cold and calculating, circling the car in his bright green slicker and hat condom and stopping every few paces to mark something on a clipboard. But in his field, I guess that’s synonymous with professional. He’s the one who pointed out that my tires had about as much tread as Patrick Stewart’s scalp, and seemed to really listen to my explanation of why the car couldn’t have been controlled by Dale Earnhardt (a poor example, I realized in retrospect). But he didn’t correct me when I conceded that my accusing the car was probably of little consequence to my citation.
Here’s one of the major lessons from this experience: If you’re in a one-vehicle accident, no one’s hurt and there’s no property damage, DON’T call the police.
As a AAA Plus member, I’m pretty sure I could have myself towed to work every day. I should have texted a friend to call the number on my card and use my account number to have a truck sent over to get my car. I’d have been out of that mess about an hour faster and I’d have two fewer gold stars on my license, to say nothing of the $159 ticket for Failure to Control and the warnings for expired registration and driving an unsafe vehicle (bald tires).
My court date is 1 July.
Stay tuned to find out what’s actually upsetting about all this.
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