Back when I was in high school I had a fe experiences dealing with the cops, and most of them seemed to revolve around the cars we had to drive. My friends and I didn?t have a lot of money, but we were mechanically inclined, so we drove junkers that we had to constantly work on to keep running.
Story #1
I?m driving home from my girl friends house very late (2:30-3:00am), and I rush through an amber light to avoid waiting for the next green. A couple of blocks later a cop pulls me over. I pull over and roll the window down, but I don?t turn the engine off because I know the generator isn?t working and it won?t start. (I rolled it down a hill to start it at my girl friends).
Cop: Drivers License and Registration please and turn your car off please.
Me: Here you are officer, but may I please leave the engine running, as I have a dead battery and I know it won?t start again.
Cop: Turn the engine off.
Me: Yes officer (and I comply)
Cop: Where are you coming from so late?
Me: I was at my girl friends apartment and fell asleep, so know I?m just heading home.
Cop: Any drinking?
Me: No I haven?t had any alcohol tonight.
After going back to his vehicle and checking out my documents, he comes back and hands them to me and says: have a nice night, and don?t run any more yellow lights.
Thanking my lucky stars not to get a ticket, I turn the key hoping my luck would hold. Nope, the car won?t start. I?m stopped in a no parking area, so I spend the next 10 minutes pushing my car around the corner to an area I can leave it for the night, and then walk the 2 miles home.
Story #2
My friend, who lives next door, and I are out one night just kicking back at a local park chatting and smoking a few bowls of BC Bud. It was a school night and it was approaching 11pm so we figured it was time to head home. We climb into his car as mine was sitting in the driveway again impersonating a large paperweight. . As I climb in, I toss my baggie with a pipe and a few strands of pot into the glove box, and we drive home. We turn onto our street, and my buddies car pukes it?s guts out on the side of the road and stops. We attempt to push it the last ¾ of a block to get it into his driveway, but it is slightly uphill and we are too wasted to want to work that hard, so we close the doors and leave it where it is, meaning to rescue it the next day.
Well 8:30am the next day, I getting ready for school and there is a loud knock on the door. I open it to the biggest cop I have ever seen in my life. He holds up the baggie with the pipe and pot and says he found it when looking in the glove box of the abandoned vehicle down the block trying to find the registration.
Cop: Is this yours? And before you answer, you should know I?ve already spoken with the kid next door who owns the car and he claims it isn?t his and I should talk to you.
Me (reluctantly): Yes, sir that is my pipe.
Cop: Are your parents home?
Me: No sir, they have gone to work.
Cop: OK, show me some ID.
After inspecting my drivers license, and writing my name in his notebook, He tells me he is confiscating my drug paraphernalia and he will be entering my name in a register at the police station and if I get picked up with drugs again they will prosecute.
I was pissed to lose the pipe, as I had hand carved it from a beautiful piece of ironwood, and I was pissed at my friend for throwing me under the bus, but I soon came to realize it was my own fault for leaving it there, and I could hardly expect him to take the rap for it. It never did go anywhere, as I never got caught again, and the cop probably realized he didn?t have a supportable reason for searching the car.
So in both of these stories, I came out without any significant consequences, but I did develop a healthy fear of the law and was much more careful in my actions.
