The traffic stop

Iturned out of the Arkansas PBS parking lot and drove about 100 yards before the SUV behind me hit its flashing blue lights.

This hadn’t happened in a long time. Three or four decades ago, when I drove cars that I knew were capable of performing at high speeds, I expected to get pulled over two or three times a year—usually in Mississippi, where if I followed the officer to his mother the judge’s house and paid my fine in cash it would not go on my permanent record, or even be reported to my insurance company.

For once I had no idea what I might have done wrong.

So I pulled into the Farris Field lot, flung open my door and was about to step out when the officer told me in no uncertain terms to get back in the car. I complied.

When he approached me I explained that—a long time ago—a Louisiana state trooper of my acquaintance had advised me that were I stopped, law enforcement would appreciate me stepping out of and away from my vehicle, because there were few things as nerve-wracking for a cop than approaching a stopped car with the driver hunkered behind the wheel, especially at night. My officer—a member of the University of Central Arkansas Police Force—disabused me of this notion.

Apparently the thing to do is to stay in your car; the Internet verifies my officer’s instruction. The Internet also says that you should keep your hands on the steering wheel.

I explained that my information was about 40 years old but that I was acting in good faith, and I understood there were legitimate safety concerns. And then I wondered whether that long-ago trooper had been similarly motivated or whether the joke he had planted decades ago had finally paid off.

If so, I hope he had a good laugh about it in hell.

I’d been stopped in Little Rock a few years ago; I’d bought my car out of its lease and there was some confusion with the registration. On that occasion, when I didn’t know why I was being stopped, I popped out of the car and met the officer at his driver’s side window. He didn’t seem fazed; it was broad daylight, not nearly 10 p.m.

I’m not sure any of us know how we appear to other people, but in almost every situation, my goal is to appear non-threatening. Police cannot afford to make assumptions based on the way people look or even what they tell them, and I appreciate that they have no idea of what I’m capable. I go into Beta male mode around police officers, not because I’m scared of them (I’m white and solvent and—as verified the other night—have no outstanding warrants) but because I desperately don’t want them to be afraid of me.

Bad things happen when cops get scared.

And there are some cops who relish any opportunity to demonstrate their toughness. I’ve seen police behave badly and know that some of them actively seek out situations where they can push citizens around. If there is a higher percentage of jerks in the ranks of the police than in the general population, it’s only because more jerks are attracted to police work than to accounting or pharmaceutical sales or other inside work.

I’ve known a lot of cops over the years—worked with them, played cards with them, been a ringer on their city softball teams. They are mostly like everyone else, and there are good reasons that they are not completely like everyone else. I can’t say there are a higher percentage of jerks in your typical newsroom than in your typical police force, but I will say the police are less likely to be passive-aggressive.

The officer who pulled me over the

other night was extraordinarily nice to me, even if we started out on a bad foot by me jumping out of my car. Right up front, he told me he wasn’t writing me a ticket. But did I see that stop sign I blew through?

With God as my witness, officer, I did not see a stop sign.

“Yeah, well, no one does,” he said. “The landowner isn’t maintaining his property, the sign gets obscured; it’s hard to see especially at night. But the stop signs correspond with the crosswalks, and we don’t want any students getting hit.”

Here I resisted the urge to ask whether drivers pay attention to crosswalks in Conway, because they certainly don’t where I come from. (As a pedestrian, I would be excited to see the police pull someone over for not respecting the right-of-way of a crosswalk user.) I just told him I completely understood.

And with that he took my license and went back to his car, and I waited for what seemed a very long time for him to come back with it. (No warrants!) He also told me that I had affixed the “24” sticker to the wrong side of my license plate. But he saw no reason to check my registration or insurance card (the one in my electronic wallet on my phone, I just now realized, expired at the end of 2019; I’m glad I didn’t have to fumble around trying to fix that the other night.)

He was professional and understanding, but that ought to be what we expect from our dealings with police. It seems the older I get, and the more staid vehicle I drive, the less interested officers seem in giving me any grief. So long as I don’t act like the entitled privileged citizen I am, I’m unlikely to get any extra mustard during our interactions.

I have, over the past few years, read several books advocating for a police-less society, and though the authors of these books make some solid points—police should not have to deal with most of the issues they now routinely handle, the criminal justice system ought not have to compensate for the failures of our health-care system or occupy poor neighborhoods in a martial fashion—I should not like to live in a country without officers on patrol, ready and able and maybe even eager to help and problem-solve.

They are, at their best, the first line of our helper class—the most exposed and vulnerable.

I got off with a warning. I drove the speed limit all the way home.