July 4, 2005 — seen while driving with David on the QEW
Last month I made a rather cryptic reference to December 12 as the day after which I could tell the sorry tale of what happened on my drive back to Toronto in early October. Basically, I received two moving violations in New York State less than a mile from the U.S./Canada border, two violations in two minutes that — if I pled guilty — would give me something like EIGHT points on my license and make my auto insurance rates go through the roof. Why? Because New York, Quebec, and Ontario have a reciprocal agreement whereby points are applied to your license if received in any of those jurisdictions.
It’s amazing how much one learns in a few quality moments with a very bored officer of the law.
Near midnight I’d mistakenly turned off for Niagara Falls too early and found myself in an industrial area that was nearly pitch black, full of potholes, and the lane markers had all but faded away. (I revisited this area a week and a half ago to see if my imagination had run away with me in the heat of ticket denial. It had not.) The posted speed limit was 30mph, which I might’ve seen if I wasn’t in such a hurry to a) leave this sketchy area and b) get to where there were more lights. And people. There was a car in front of me along the boulevard that didn’t seem to know its whereabouts either, veering slightly to the right in an unsure move to make a turn. Not seeing any lane markers, I figured it was a wide road with one large lane in each direction and went around the car to continue forward. That was apparently my first moving violation: “Failure to keep right.”
When I finally saw some lights again I slowed down, and that’s when I noticed the officer behind me. He followed me for a while and decided to put on his flashers when I was practically walking distance to the border.
“Have you consumed any alcohol this evening?”
“No.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
He still didn’t seem convinced and asked me if I had any objections to getting breathalysed. ‘Not if it’ll make you stop asking me if I’ve been drinking!’ I thought.
“No objection, sir.”
(more…)
Technorati tags: Toronto, urban decay, digital photography, Canon A80
