I’m rolling down a major artery along northern Broward County here in South Florida on my way to a local Super Wal-mart to by a new hard drive. Was through with work for the day, but still wearing my uniform. Somewhere along the way I found myself one lane over from a Broward Sherrif’s police car. We drove for about 1.5 miles next to each other, me never going past him. He just had that constipated look on his face as if he was itching to write a ticket on anyone if they just looked at him too hard. I just made sure I stayed out of his peripheral vision and rolled along at a screaming speed of 35 miles per hour.

I happened to be in the middle lane of this three lane roadway sandwiched between this cop and an elevated pickup truck to my right which was a few feet ahead of being completely aligned with my car. As we began to approach the second to last intersection before the Wal-Mart entrance, I decided I would start looking for an opportunity to merge over to my right to get myself in position to get into the turning lane for Wal-Mart. This now brought my car partially ahead of the police car and more in line with the pickup truck. As I made my move to ease past the pickup truck, looking in my rearview mirror and passenger side mirror to check out my surroundings, I was now in the intersection, but as I cleared the truck which stopped abruptly (and so did the police car) clearing my right peripheral vision, a fire truck emerged in my view to the right, but again, I was now in the middle of the intersection. At the same time I was in the intersection and I saw the fire truck to my right, I noticed the driver reaching for the horn and just turning on his lights, but he was a complete stop. Why? Well the fire station was about 200 feet down the road he was on, so he was just beginning his journey and coming to the light, he was just beginning to warn oncoming traffic that he was about to make his move. It was not as if he was barreling down the road, blowing his horn with sirens blaring and lights spinning around. He just so happen to start this process as I was caught in no man’s land and as I saw him in that quick second, I accelerated a little faster out of the intersection as not to block him. If I would have decided to stop in the next second, I would have stopped right in front of him which would have clearly defeated his purpose.

Well donut head decided to bolt out of the intersection after the fire truck passed through and merged over into my lane and followed me into the Wal-Mart parking. He did not put on his lights, but I stopped because I knew he wanted to come make my day miserable. Both of us stepped out of our cars and he started being a wise ass. He asked no questions, but he started accusing, telling me I intentionally tried to fly through an intersection and sped up to get past an oncoming fire truck. I told him I was not rushing to go anywhere and asked him if it made sense for me to see an oncoming fire truck (which was not moving, by the way) and a cop to my left and blatantly disregard both and fly through an intersection? He told me not to question what he saw with his own two eyes. That alone had my blood boiling, but to further infuriate me, he looks at my uniform and tells me I was rushing because I must have missed an appointment with a customer. So now he turns into a mind reader and when I checked him on telling me what he ASSumed I was doing, he tells me to tell that to the judge, walks away and goes to write me a ticket. He wanted to hear no explanation on my part and failed to realize the circumstances, that it would be highly unlikely that I would pull such a stunt to put my life at risk and/or put myself in a position to get a ticket.

In recent years I was still teetering at the edge of hate for cops. I had developed a strong dislike for them after some incidents I had with them where again, they refused to hear anything I had to say. None of my tickets have been of a DUI nature as I do not drink, nor reckless driving or even speeding. They were for sign related offenses such as stop signs appearing out of nowhere overnight around corners where there were once yield signs. Of course, with the erection of such new signs, cops hang out around them knowing full well that locals, accustomed to some other sign OR no sign being there will commit an offense initially. These type situations are there jackpots. Let’s not forget the change in speed limits from say, 45 down to 35 on a road you have traveled for years at the 45 MPH clip or even 5 miles over that. You don’t notice the change in speed limit and a nice friendly cop could care less and hands you a ticket.

My dislike for them has grown so intense that on one occasion in Miami I saw one of their cars flying down the opposite side of the road I was on. For some inexplicable reason, but probably a blow out, the driver lost control of the car and it went airborne and slammed against a yield sign on the concrete median. I happened to notice some movement in the car as I passed by and I just kept going on my way. Yeah, it’s that bad. If it was me, they would be handing me tickets even if I was drawing my last breath under mangled steel and broken glass. I really hate those pompous, “we don’t give a damn what you have to say,” insensitive bastards!