may I have another?

Over the years, one aphorism I have come to believe whole-heartedly is that no good deed goes unpunished.

So it's the Friday before Memorial day and I've just gotten back from a week at a conference. I make it home at about 4pm and decide that since my group leaders were cool enough to let me go to this conference, I at least owe it to them to pop into work to get caught up on e-mail and see what new crises have arisen while I was away. Of course, I now live in Cambridge, so the drive out to work is a nightmare because of holiday weekend traffic...what takes me twenty-five minutes on a good day instead takes an hour. Not to worry, I make it in and spend a few hours catching up and clearing out my in-box. When I walk out the door just after eight I'm glad I've gotten a little bit of a head start on next week, and for once am even a little excited about all the work we've got coming up over the next six months.

So I'm cruising home on 128/I-95, the eight-lane superhighway that forms the northern boundary of the metro Boston area. Traffic is moderately heavy but humming, and I'm keeping pace. I'm paying attention to the road ahead, so I don't even notice the state police cruiser that slips into my lane right behind me until he turns on his flashing lights.

Dammit.

I pull over. The cop is curt and to the point; no pleasantries and no negotiations. The sum total of the conversation is "I've got you clocked at 70 in a 55. License and registration." And when he returns, "This is a non-criminal citation. Instructions are on the back." Then, with one more flash of his lights he's gone, and I'm left with a $150 ticket and who knows how many years of increased insurance rates.

Huh. 70 in a 55.

Like Matt Damon said in Ocean's Eleven, "uh, yeah..."

So the thing to understand here is that when it isn't gridlocked, cruising speed on 128 is between 70 and 80. We could debate the reason that the posted limit is 55 on 128 when it's 65 on I-93, the other local eight-lane superhighway just a couple of miles down the road, but there's not much point. I was just driving along with everyone else, not driving recklessly or zipping from one lane to another. He literally could have picked any car on the road to tag, but he picked me. Completely random. It was just my turn.

As I'm sitting on the side of the road it occurs to me that I'm a total schmuck. It's the Friday before Memorial Day. He's got a quota to fill, and the sooner he fills it the sooner he can get home to get smashed with his friends and family. Or, he's stuck with traffic duty all weekend and won't be getting smashed at all, so he's taking it out on whoever happens by. Some mid-level bureaucrat who fears the bad PR associated with highway death tolls for the Memorial Day weekend has decided to get tough on speeders to impress his superiors and has mandated that all cops will be on the road all weekend. Said bureaucrat is, of course, right now home getting smashed with his friends and family, so it's only natural that the cop is bitter and looking to take it out on the average commuter. So I'm screwed in the name of a hollow, meaningless statistic that will be a ten-second news blurb and then forgotten.

Alternatives? Here's an interesting experiment that I'm dying to try: I'm going to get on 128 and then do 55 in the fast lane. Either I'll cause an accident or I'll get a ticket for obstructing traffic. Which will happen first? I predict even odds. Betcha the results will be completely random.