Another Reason Why Cops Freak Me Out

The events of my drive home from Dana Point on Saturday night are bludgeoned into my brain due to an intensely peculiar meeting between me and a highway patrol officer. I keep replaying the encounter over and over again in my head and am still unable to make sense of it all. And when such an experience sets my mind ablaze with excitement, anxiety, or just sheer activity, the best way I can process said experience is to explain it away in written form. So, here we go...

I was driving north on the 5 freeway in the carpool lane approaching the 405 junction. If you know the layout of Los Angeles interchanges, then you know that the carpool lane on the 5 has its own onramp to the 405. About a mile or so from the interchange, I was cruising along at a decent speed when I saw a highway patrol on the freeway... and I was passing him. Now, if you know the rules of how-not-to-get-a-speeding-ticket-on-the-freeway, rule number one is (assuming the cop isn't grossly traveling under the speed limit) NEVER PASS A COP ON THE FREEWAY!!! You just don't do it. Violating this cardinal rule is the kiss of speeding ticket death.

I want to make one thing clear, I am acutely aware while I drive on the freeway; I take pride in my freeway driving ability. But despite all my rules for minimizing incidences with the police, eventually the perfect storm of factors assemble themselves against you. So in this instance, I saw the cop late because:

1. It was night time.
2. The cop car was one of those highway patrol cars without sirens mounted on top.
3. The cop was driving in lane four, I was in the carpool lane four lanes over.

Despite this stacked deck of events, I still only passed him by half a car length before seeing him and matching his speed. We traveled like this for a bit, side-by-side until the interchange was upon us. Before I merged onto my onramp, I saw the cop inexplicably speed off towards the 405 onramp for non-carpool vehicles. As he merged he turned his sirens on.

One thought immediately entered my head: The cop could be after me and was planning on catching me as I merged onto 405 from the carpool lane. Instead of swerving over four lanes before the interchange, he would just pull me over on the other side. To account for this eerie hunch, I merged onto the onramp at a severely reduced speed (about 60 mph). I maintained that slow speed waiting to see the cop with his flashing lights chasing after some other poor schmo on the 405 in front of me. Strangely, I never saw the sirens.

As I wondered where the cop was, I began my merge onto the 405. As I merged, the cop shot out from behind the median where his position had been obscured. He had been waiting for me, his sirens still flashing. Traveling directly parallel to me he matched my slow speed of 60 mph. I was in shock, I think mostly due to the accuracy of my hunch. When the cop began to slow down (in an attempt to possibly get behind me), I panicked and slowed down with him. I continued to match his speed until we were trudging along the freeway at 45 mph. 

Inching along the freeway and a good 20 mph under the speed limit, the cop aggressively swerved right next to the passenger side door and got a look at me and Shivy P. I could see the cop bring the com to his lips and something blared over the loudspeaker that I could not make out. Thinking that he wanted me to pull over, I started to merge to the right.

As I was pulling over the cop strangely sped in front of me and was swerving wildly between lanes. Once I got to lane three, I halted my trip to the shoulder to make sense of what the cop was doing. The cop swooped across the freeway lanes like the police do when they are attempting to stop traffic. When he wasn't swerving he was straddling lane lines. I just sat back. By this time the traffic from behind us had finally caught up. Then, as strangely as the whole incident began, the cop unexpectedly turned off his siren, made a hard right across four lanes, and exited the freeway. I never saw him again.

I still am unsure as to what happened. What I am sure of is that the cop turned on his sirens for me and was waiting specifically for me to merge onto 405. Why he did so is a mystery. My best guess? I got his attention when I initially slowed down when I first noticed him on the freeway. Driving side-by-side from four lanes over I would guess the cop then looked into my car and couldn't see little Shivy P in the passenger seat. Thinking I was illegally traveling in the carpool lane he sped ahead with sirens wailing to bust me on the 405.

What the cop found when he rode right up next to me was that I did have a passenger, which would explain why I got off the hook. What this explanation does not account for was all the wild lane-changing that ensued afterwards. Was the cop pouting? Was he frustrated by my insane willingness to stubbornly match speeds to 45 mph? Or did he just get another call? Of course, if it was another call, why did he turn off his sirens before he harshly exited the freeway? My brain is still confounded by these strange events.

In the end, I got home unscathed, but a little shaken up and paranoid. I half expected the cops to be sitting in my driveway waiting for me to arrive home. I still can't tell you why a cop tried to pull me over Saturday night and then suddenly reneged. I guess I should just consider myself lucky.