Friday, December 07, 2007

A Run in with the Swedish Police (Almost)

Today something amazing happened to me as I was driving around picking up print jobs for work. I was cut off by a police car. And not one that was in a hurry to get to a crime scene. And not one that had lights flashing and sirens blaring. Nope, just your classic Swedish Volvo police car. Of course they are Volvos. Come on now. What did you expect? It does make it hard to identify in the dark sometimes. Just so many Volvos driving around.

But anyway, the policeman waved politely as if to apologize as I slammed on the brakes and swore under my breath. My initial reaction was, “Shit, I almost hit a cop,” followed by, “Shit, that wasn’t even remotely close to being my fault.” He did give the wave though so I forgave him. I’m a forgiving person, and for the most part if you mess up in traffic all I ask for is a wave. But it was nice to see this from the police. Just developing good relations obviously. Or trying to save face.

Needless to say though I was dumbfounded. I didn’t know this sort of thing happened. Police are the ones who are supposed to be enforcing the traffic laws, not nearly causing an accident. Anyway, as luck would have it, I followed him for a while until I had to make my turn. All the while thinking that I hope he was worried that I was going to pull him over and make a citizen’s arrest. Because come on, when you are being followed by a cop after having done something stupid that’s all you’re thinking about. But he made his getaway and I went about my business reflecting on my rainy Friday afternoon where I almost crashed into a police car.

Now most people have a poor image of the cops. No matter what country you’re in. But I’ve always had pretty good luck with the cops. Except for this one time when I was 16, and my girlfriends dad was a cop. Good times indeed. But aside from that no really bad experiences. I have a couple of buddies from college who are cops now; a couple of friends who have dads who are cops. All in all, a good lot. But it’s still nice to see that even Swedish police make dumb traffic mistakes but will cop to it immediately. See what I did there?

But there you have it. My amazing experience. And first near run in with the Swedish police. Good times indeed.

3 comments:

  1. glad the policeman was nice at least.

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  2. tell us more about the girlfriend and dad cop situation?

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  3. It's true. Gotta appreciate that.

    He was a policeman. And enjoyed using that to his advantage to intimidate at times. Sometimes very nice, othertimes not so much. And come on I was a little 16 year old.

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