ooh, blimey
Right. First of all, I don't condone the whole driving under the influence thing at all. Nor speeding. Nothing annoys me more than people whining across message-boreds (sic) the interweb over, saying "oooh, I was doing 160 in a 30 past a school and they fined me £60. the bastards. Why don't they go out and catch some real criminals. As far as I'm concerned you're all cunts.

However, when I was 17/18, I was a right cunt.

1. Before I passed my test, I figured out that removing the L plates from my car made me look like a fully qualified driver to all concerned, and thus I could happily blat up and down the A10 at 100mph to see my mates, and I'd probably be ok. Winner. I did it for a couple of months, probably 5 days out of 7. 8 days after I finally passed my test, a charming officer stepped out from a layby on the borw of a hill infront of me, and suggested using only his arms that it'd be a good idea for me to pull over and have a nice chat. This I did, and he politely pointed out that 84 is too fast in a 60 and that I was going to get some points,. "Where's your license sonny?" ... "ummm... at the DVLA sir. Only passed my test last week.". he wasn't that impressed. It was good of him to take the mark as 84, cos if he'd clocked me at 85 it would have been 6 points, and I'd have lost my license. I was doing about 95 when I spotted him.

2. A few months later, I was out on the raz. I lived about 12 miles north of the town where I went to school and all my mates were, so any drinkage activities meant finding somewhere to crash (hassle), kipping in the car (cold) or driving home. (This was a few years back, I should point out, when drink-driving was slightly more socially acceptable than it is now). So I'd had a snorter of a night. One of my mates who lived even further away was fucked for a way home, so I offered him my sofa, and we headed off. So I'm being fairly careful, cruising down the A10 at 62moh (60 limit) steering with my knees and air drumming to whatever was on my stereo. Coming towards my hometown, I slowed comfortably in advance of the 30 limit (cos they often hid in a side road just after the signs) and noticed a pair of headlights in the reaview mirror. "ohfuckingcuntybollocks" I muttered, seeing it was a panda car, and thanking the good lord of pissed up reasoning that I'd remembered to slow down for the 30 signs. Presumably thinking I'd clocked him, mr policeman put his blues on, so I pulled over hoping he was trying to get past me to some kind of urgent matter, like getting to the chippy before it shut or something. Parked behind me didn't he. Bollocks. He came round to my door, opened the door and asked me to get out. I tried, remembered I still had my seatbelt on, un-latched, tried again and fell straight into the road. Officer politely picked me up and helped me to the kerbside quipping "we don't want to get run over do we sir?". Nice. So he explained that he'd clocked me about 5 miles back doing 80 and that he wanted to test my breath for evidence of dunkenness. Fair enough. Fucking hell, I thought. Although I did point out that I was driving particularly carefully and I could guarantee I didn't get near 80. (That's true - I didn't - and he never proved otherwise).

"Right sir, blow in this". He carefully explained that there were 3 lights on the machine. The first one showed it was on. The second one (which lit up when got out the car, I think!) meant that there was some trace of alcohol on my breath. "I only had a pint officer and it was hours ago" I bravely ventured. The third light was the one we were both waiting for. That's the "you're nicked" light. NEVER came on. 5 minutes we stood there.

Poor copper couldn't believe it. I fucking couldn't believe it. I was beaming! I shook the poor bloke's hand more than once, when he said he was going to let me off the (obviously made up) speeding offence. He suggested I "get homne as quickly as possible before I pass out and consider myself a very lucky boy".

I did, and I do. When I got home, I spent a good hour on the white porcelain phone to huey, and had the mother of all hangovers the next day. Bloody lucky bastard though.

Quite a few years on and I have a lovely clean license. :)

Fuck me, that's longer than I meant. Mmmm. Rambly...
( Tone Depear fucking rocks, Sat 24 Sep 2005, 11:57, Reply)