Speeding in a Nannacar: Traffic Cops are so unfair

A couple of months ago I was driving through town in one of the office cars, a little Hyundai Nannacar that’s about as powerful as my Philips Rotary Shaver...

... and I got a speeding ticket.

That’s right; as I coasted down the hill in a vehicle that has the aerodynamics of a hay stack, the spatial capacity of bread basket and the style of a prawn cocktail at a black-tie affair; travelling with the momentum of a high-flying snail driving head-long into gale-force wind, a local cop nabbed me for driving too fast.

Now it wasn’t the $80.00 fine that peeved me, nor the humiliation of being caught speeding in a Nannacar for goodness sake… No, what actually peeved me was the fact that the Police Officer had the audacity to ask if the Hyundai was my car. For crying out loud you moron, it’s Korean!!!!

But what really bugs the hell out of me is that when these Traffic Nazis pull you over and ticket you for speeding, they don’t take into account any plausible argument about the relationship between distance travelled and variable velocity. In other words, before he pulled me over there was a period where I was stuck behind a truck and travelling quite slow – so overall my average speed for the trip was well within the speed limit. Why, on this occasion if my calculations are correct, the Cop owed me an extra 20 kilometres per hour over a distance of three kilometres with a standard deviation of 4 kilometres each way. It's elementary physics for goodness sake. At least that’s how I’m going to argue it before the Judge.

But the reason why I have raised this issue is to high-light just how unfair this whole traffic cop system actually is. You see, last night I was watching a locally produced TV programme called Highway Patrol. Now every country has this type of programme; a reality series that follows traffic cops as they stop and ticket dumbass rednecked motorists.

So anyway, I’m watching this programme when the cops pull over this van full of young Hip-Hopping Marmadukes. Now the first thing they’ve got these Yo, Dude-boys on is that the driver wasn’t wearing his seatbelt (isn’t that an instant $150.00 fine?). And as the driver gets out of the car sporting his sideways baseball cap and no t-shirt (so we can see his skull tattoo and his fake gold medallion), he starts his little rhyming rap routine:

I got me pulled over and getting my 15 seconds of fame,
Too bad I’m a dick and all my buddies are lame…

By the way, that’s not verbatim – but it’s all I heard.

And it just gets worse. Because the next thing that is revealed is that this guy is on a restricted licence and no-one in the vehicle has a full licence (whoops, isn’t that another $400.00 fine?). And this Turkeycrooner thinks it’s funny. “Like woe Man, diggitysplits! Gonna doopen doowah heehaw ma Bro, eh?” - Or something like that (damned if I can translate their gangsta-gobbledegook).

Finally, it turns out that the van itself doesn’t have a current Warrant of Fitness (required in New Zealand to indicate that the vehicle is roadworthy). Now that’s potentially another $400.00 fine.

So, as he faces up to a possible $950.00 fine for being a right asshole – he begins singing to the female officer while his mates stand in the background to cheer him on and get their own faces in front of the TV camera (“Look at us Mum, aren’t you soooo proud?”). Like, not one of these Eminemenas is taking this matter seriously – it’s all a big laugh to them.

So the Cops give them a whole stack of warnings about how they’re acting like a bunch of plonkers and their actions put innocent motorists like you and me at risk, and then they fine them a whopping great $200.00.

$200.00!!!! You have got to be kidding!!!! And then they let them drive off!!! And as they do, their SnoopDogPoo of a driver still isn’t wearing a seatbelt - and he’s so busy doing hand gestures to the camera rather than holding the steering wheel that he nearly takes out another motorist (“Look Mum, you gave birth to this twat, you should definitely be proud”).

$200.00???? And you fined me $80.00 for speeding downhill in the Office Nannacar – a vehicle that would have never been capable of reaching that speed if it wasn’t for the weight of my club sandwich in the glove box. By my reckoning, what the Officer should have said is; “Thank you Medicine Man Jack for speeding, here’s your $40.00 refund and a dinner-for-two voucher to your favourite restaurant. Drive safely and have a nice day.”

That’s what I think… And usually I’m right.