I got a letter from my insurance company over the weekend, telling me that my insurance rates would go up because of a ticket I received in 2005. I called them to verify, and it turns out they’ll stay at this increased rate for the next three years.

Let me explain. I was driving back home on some interstate in Virginia, back in December of 2005. It was twilight, and I’d just descended into the plains after passing through the Appalachian mountains, where it had snowed. I say this because I had my winter tires on the car, and that day, I was really thankful I had them. The roads were really slippery as we went through the pass, and without those tires, I might not have managed to get down into the valley. I say this to point out two things: I was driving cautiously, and I had winter tires on the car. Anyone who’s driven with winter tires knows they’re not built for speed or turns. You can’t go fast with those things on the car, or you’ll skid right out of a turn. Braking distance also increases when you have them on. They’re softer tires, built to grab onto snow and ice, but they’re too soft for dry pavement. I was very aware of these things, and so I was NOT speeding.

As we descended into the plains, the road dried up. It had rained slightly on portions of the road, and by the time of our encounter with the police, the road was dry. I was driving our car, a MINI, and my wife was in the passenger seat. I decided to pass a big truck, because it was obscuring the way. I accelerated from about 65 mph to 72-73 mph, and started to pass. As I passed the truck’s cabin, I looked behind us and saw a Virginia state trooper. I pointed out the trooper’s car to my wife and we both looked at the speedometer. Sure enough, that big MINI speedometer said we were going 72-73 mph. As soon as we got to check our speed, the trooper started flashing his lights. Personally, I wouldn’t have stopped someone for doing under 75 mph on a 65 mph highway, but I figured they were tight for funds and needed to pull in a few extra tickets. I pulled to the side of the road and stopped the car.

The trooper, a burly guy, pudgy, tall and wide in the shoulders, walked up to our window and asked for the license and registration. I gave them to him and asked him why we had been stopped. “For speeding,” he said. “You were doing 80 in a 65 mph zone,” he said. That’s when my jaw dropped. I pointed to the point on the speedometer where the needle had been and said we had been doing 72, 73 mph tops. My wife chimed in and agreed with me. He looked at us both and said we had been doing over 80 mph, then walked back to his car. I couldn’t believe it! He was either lying through his teeth or his radar equipment was wrong. We waited for him to come back, and he did, with a ticket in his hand. He gave it to us, and handed my license and registration back. I looked at the ticket, and now it said 85/65 mph. He’d added another 5 mph to our supposed speed! I looked him straight in the eyes and told him this was not correct, that our speed definitely was NOT over 75 mph. He didn’t care. He said that was our speed, and that “anything over 80 mph in Virginia was considered reckless driving”. The bastard! Not only did he inflate my speed, but he was going to tag me with reckless driving as well? I agreed I was speeding, but I wasn’t a reckless driver!

I asked him how I could fight the ticket. He said I’d need to call some number and indicate my desire to show up in court, which would be in the local jurisdiction, about three hours away from our home. As we were talking, some real reckless drivers sped by us, definitely going over 90 mph. He didn’t blink an eye. It was as if he didn’t see or hear them!

At any rate, we drove away, and I was steaming mad. How dare a trooper, a policeman whose duty is to uphold the law and protect people, go out of his way to lie, straight-faced, and accuse people of a traffic violation they didn’t commit? He was nothing but a crook if he did that! How dare he put on a uniform and go to work every morning when that’s what he did for a living? All those names I’d heard people call cops over the years came to mind, and I began to understand why people call them those names. All of the traffic tickets I’d gotten up to that point (and there had been only a few,) I deserved, but I did NOT deserve that one. It was a lie, an injustice, and I hated knowing that. I couldn’t believe that this sort of a thing happened in the USA. I would have understood if this had happened in some backwoods country where the government is corrupt through and through, but not here!

Just to be sure, I took time off from work and took my MINI to the dealership, where I had them check the speedometer. It was completely accurate. I asked them if winter tires could affect the speedometer reading, and they told me they might, but that the speedometer would show a bigger speed than the actual speed of the car (the diameter of the winter tires is smaller than that of my regular tires). That means that when my speedometer said I was going 72-73 mph, it was more like 70-71 mph!

I took time off from work again, and showed up in court a few months later, along with my wife, to defend ourselves against this injustice. We told the judge our side, then the corrupt trooper told the judge his side. He inflated his story even more. Even before he was asked, he said he’d checked his radar equipment and calibrated it, and he’d tailed us for 10 minutes nonetheless, all the while checking our speed with both his radar and his car’s speedometer. What bull, what open-faced lies, said in court nonetheless! We’d only seen him behind us a couple of seconds before he started flashing his lights, and I check my rear-view mirror constantly. We re-stated our side of things, and the judge decided to reduce the charge to “careless driving”. Although we were hoping the false charge would be dismissed altogether, we were satisfied. After all, I was speeding when the trooper stopped me, even if it was only 6-7 miles over the speed limit. We ended up paying a little over $150, but at least it wasn’t “reckless driving”.

For a few months after that, I’d get steamed up every time I thought about that lying trooper, but in the end, other things occupied my mind and I forgot about it until this weekend, when I got the letter from my insurance company. As it turns out, not only did that thieving liar cost me two days of leave and about $150, now he’s going to cost me over $690 in higher insurance costs over the next three years (about $230/year)! And it’s all because of him, because he decided to lie and inflate my speed! My blood boils when I think about it.

The police force wonders why people lose respect for them… They wonder why their jobs are thankless, and people aren’t friendly to them. They should look no further than themselves for the reason! Don’t they realize how much respect people lose for them when they pull stunts like this, charging people with false offenses? I wasn’t the only one charged with reckless driving that day in court! There were tens of other people there, with that same charge. And this past December, I read in the Washington Post that the Virginia troopers had another “successful crackdown” on reckless drivers, where they managed to pin that dirty charge on yet more unsuspecting victims.

I’d love to respect cops. After all, they put their lives on the line to uphold the law. But when I stumble over a rotten, stinking apple like this Virginia trooper (and I’m sure there are others like him,) all of the goodwill that I’ve built up for cops evaporates. If that trooper’s lie had only cost me $150, I could deal with it, but now his lie has multiplied, and it’s going to cost me close to $700. How I’d like to charge it back to him…

It’s still okay, because everyone gets their due, one way or another. Life has a funny way of making you pay for the bad things you do. Plus, there’s a fix for police lies when it comes to supposed traffic violations, but auto manufacturers would need to step up to the plate and implement it.

[Added 4/25/07] Found a great article this morning that talks about how to beat speeding tickets. Read it. Crooked cops should NOT get away with false speeding tickets.

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