Follow the Cop

Last night, while driving back to the Cities, I got to play one of my favorite road games: follow the police car. The rules are simple. First you find a police car on the road. Then you move over to its lane, remembering not to pass the officer—doing so can result in a deduction of up to one hundred and fifty points, along with what the county defines as “a moving violation.”

Once you’ve secured a safe position behind the police car in question, it’s time to move on to the final stage of the game: you follow it. And that’s pretty much it. You don’t want to follow it too closely because, again, there’s the whole point deduction thing.

The game never lasts too long on the highway. The reasons being that the cop either speeds away, making it impossible to keep up without receiving a citation, or the cop pulls a U-ie through the median in an attempt to snag a speeder driving the opposite direction. Occasionally the game ends because the cop slows to the shoulder to assist a stranded motorist.

Which is why allowing a cushion between your vehicle and the officer’s is a must in this game. When the cop car slows, you slow. There’s no need to get cute, here; shit can get real in a flash.

Last night’s game ended five minutes after it started. The cop had to have hit the mid-eighties on his speedometer and got too far ahead of me to even consider trying to keep up. But this brief round of “Follow the Police Car” allowed me to drive 75 for a nice stretch, and how often can you speed in the midst of the law?

Which is the main reason I play the game. I figure as long as I’m not driving too much faster than the posted limit, and the cop is in front of me, I won’t get pulled over for speeding. If I did—whether it’s by the cop ahead of me, or one hiding in the median—my defense would be that the cop I was following should’ve abided by the speed limit, too; my pursuit of the aforementioned officer would have resulted in a citizen’s arrest had I not been pulled over.

Now, I’m well aware of how invalid my reasoning sounds, and that’s because it’s quite fallacious. This “game” is something I used to play in my younger, more reckless days when I drove too fast and played out would-be confrontations with police officers in the event of a traffic stop. Sadly, I didn’t always make myself out to be victorious and after getting pulled over a few times in reality, I decided it was time to take it easy while on the road.

The closest call I ever experienced occurred back home (at least five years ago), when I went out of my way to follow a Glen Ellyn cop car. Having been tailed many times—about 95% of which result in not being stopped—I thought following the cop would make him know what it was like to have that uneasy, powerless feeling. This particular cruiser had been travelling north on Park toward downtown. When he hung a right on Duane, I flipped on my signal and allowed a little breathing room between our cars. When we reached Taylor, he put on his right turn signal and I followed suit. That’s when, it seemed, the cop got suspicious.

Instead of continuing through the stop sign, he stopped in the intersection. Which prompted me to stop on a dime and flip on my left turn signal. My legs and arms started shaking, and I definitely wasn’t prepared to explain myself. The cop completed his turn and drove north on Taylor.

I’m not sure he stopped mid-turn because of me, but the experience did prove how much of a pussy I was in the face of a potential traffic stop. Going out of your way to play the game, it’s just not worth it. And for the most part, I’ve somewhat retired from this “game.”

Last night, when the needle on my speedometer hit 75, a tiny rush prickled my arms. I thought about trying to keep up with the cop, to see how far the game could be played, my official Last Hurrah. But I didn’t. It wasn’t the thought of my close encounter that stopped me from speeding up; I backed off because my Driver’s License says I live in Mankato (not even the most recent former address), my plates are from Illinois, and I didn’t want to explain why neither of these items matches my current address. It was really cold outside, and I was exhausted from making the drive down to Mankato earlier in the day. I wasn’t afraid to get pulled over; I just didn’t want to go through the headache of talking to cop. They’re conversations are one-sided, they feel interrogating, and they don’t have that entertaining feel of a real game.