Silly Driver

Believe it or not I’m a trained investigator.

This doesn’t mean that I wear a deerstalker and carry a magnifying glass everywhere I go. In fact almost all of my investigations require no props at all. The simple question and answer system seems to work pretty well for me. Mixed with a healthy cynicism of peoples’ ability to tell the truth makes me nearly infallible.

Any fresh out of the box officer has a number of lessons to learn as quickly as possible. Rule number one is that everybody lies to us. Or doesn’t tell us the whole story, or suffers from selective amnesia. A simple traffic stop gives us the opportunity to test our investigative abilities.

“Do you know why I’ve stopped you?”

“No.”

Now, this could be partially true as you’re not too sure how much I’ve seen. It could have been the excessive speed, it could be the near miss you had caused by the argument you were having on the phone or maybe it was the lack of seatbelt? It’s not like you’re going to give me a list of options to get my pen out for is it?

Let’s try another common first question:-

“Do you know how fast you were going?”

“No.”

Outright lie. After seeing me behind you with my blue lights on, the first thing you did was to look at your speedo. You know exactly how fast you were going; you just don’t feel like sharing it with me. Just to help you out a bit here, Police cars have speedos too.

Having failed miserably at the first hurdle, I’m afraid we’re only going to go downhill from here. You see I’ve only asked questions that I already know the answer to up to this point and they haven’t been really difficult ones either. As I haven’t reached the dizzy heights of the Traffic Department, it’s unlikely that I’m going to get my pen out for what I know thus far. Unless, that is, you fail the attitude test.

No, all I now want to know is if you have a driving licence and insurance. Believe it or not there are laws that say you need these. I know they’re only silly little petty ones. But, some of us take them seriously and don’t really want an uninsured/unlicensed driver crashing into us. Some people are also fed up with paying high insurance premiums because you don’t pay any at all. Sorry for being picky.

If you’ve ‘only just bought the car’ then you may hold your hands up to the insurance. Obviously I’m going to believe you, even though the car is full of several months’ worth of your collected stuff. Of course I’ll let you off. Right after I’ve finished reporting you.

If you don’t try this one, new officers are very likely to ask a “Do you have….” question. That’s not going to get us very far is it? You’ve already demonstrated your propensity to tell your version of the truth and you’re hardly going to start telling my version now are you?

I’ll need to ask really clever questions.

You’re clearly going to be a tough nut to crack.

(…hang on while I think of some…)