speeding tickets....

[Roger M. Woodbury]

A long time ago, I was driving home from dinner with my wife.  We had our
brand new BMW 1600 Alpina, and it was after tourist season, so it was VERY
quiet...about eight o'clock and nearly dark.

Turning down the winding Oak Point Road, a large, American-type car came up
in back of us, and sat right on our bumper, all four headlights blazing into
the interior of the car.  I thought it might be kids fooling around.  At the
time I was in the service, and had out of state plates, it was a smallish,
European boxy car, and it wouldn't have surprised me if the locals had
wanted to have a little fun.

For the two or three miles or so, I varied my speed between fifteen and
forty miles per hour, hoping that the "big lights" would go away.  Nope.
The car stayed glued to my bumper.

I knew the road well, and knew that I was nearing the very sharp, reverse
camber 90 degree turn at the entrance to Oak Point, where the road in fact
becomes Bayside Road.  I held the speed around forty approaching, and then
went down two gears, and nailed it just before the beginning of the turn.  I
figured Joe Clamdigger, or whoever was the yahoo in the car in back would
have trouble with the camber, and I would be a mile down the road before he
could get his antiquated POS moving and catch up.  Another three miles after
that, and I would be on the dirt drive to home.  The Alpina was made for
this, and from all the Solo II stuff that I had done in the car, I knew that
I was nearly 911 class up to about seventy miles per hour.

Well, it was about a mile and a half later, in the little section where the
hills are short and sharp that I could see the headlights coming up on me
like a freight train.  I was bouncing over the little hills at around
ninety-five, and the behomoth was catching me.

Then I saw the flicker of BLUE, and knew the worst.

The officer got out and walked up to my car, and walked to the front, then
the back, and looked at the side.  "Man, what IS this thing.  You REALLY
nail me up good in the curves....but I can catch you on the straights...."

Turned out the big Plymouth had been tweaked a bit, and the State Cop was a
real gear head.  We chatted for about half an hour, during which my wife
assumed that I was being sentenced to life in prison.  The citation was for
seventy in a 45.

Just because I had to try, from the safety of Texas where I was stationed, I
wrote to the court in Bar Harbor contesting the speed, "since my car had an
engine just a little bigger than a Volkswagen."  In those days, few people
had ever heard of BMWs, let alone see one.

The clerk of the court sent me a nice note, telling me to pay the fine.

Roger