Thursday, February 16, 2017

What is the best experience you have had with a police officer?

When I was 16 I was driving alone from a youth conference in Sacramento back to my home in the Bay Area. It was pretty late, I was tired, and even I could tell I was driving erratically; I'd glance down at the speedometer and it would be 20 miles above or below the speed limit in alternation. I really didn't have the driving experience to realize how unsafe this was.

I got pulled over by CHP. As I pulled off the road on an offramp I was pretty nervous as this was the first time I had ever been pulled over. The cop came over and got my license and registration but he never ran them. He just said that they had been following me for a while and that it was clear to them that I was trying to drive safely but not able to do so. I told him where I was coming from and that I was just trying to get home. He explained that driving tired is just as bad as driving drunk.

Instead of giving me a ticket, he pointed down the offramp to a place I could get some coffee and rest. He asked if I had enough money to get some coffee and offered to give me some if I didn't. He said if I really couldn't get back to an alert state that I should call a friend or my parents and get a ride because what I was doing wasn't safe for myself or other drivers.

Honestly, I can't imagine that getting a ticket would have had nearly as big an impact on my driving as the short, compassionate conversation that officer had with me that night.

Read other answers by Andrew 'Boz' Bosworth on Quora: Read more answers on Quora.

from Quora http://ift.tt/2kEwU7L
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)