Son, do you know why I pulled you over?

The company office is located in a smallish town, and in their ads they vigorously promote how much they pay and the idea that the sky is the limit for what you can make. This creates some partnerships that are positive for employees, such as car dealers who are willing to put their name out there offering a discount when you decide to buy that sports car you've been visualizing. And there are some negatives, mostly to do with local law enforcement.

One night coming out of a midnight shift, I had just pulled on to the public roadway into the parking lot when I saw flashing red lights behind me. I couldn't have been doing more than five miles and hour, and I didn't think any of my lights were out. What's up?

The officer came over, and asked me what I'd been doing there. "Working - I work the west coast shift - three to midnight," I answered.

She nodded. "Did you realize your registration is overdue?"

I looked at my sticker, and indeed it was. She wrote me a ticket for the expired registration, and went on her way.

Small question. It's midnight. It's dark. And she had clearly been waiting for me where the parking lot becomes public road. How did she see my sticker?

I got my answer from someone at work the next day. "Saw you got busted on your way out - what happened."

I told them it was for registration, and he nodded. "Yeah, any car in the parking lot here after 10pm, the town cops come and run all the plates to see if there are outstanding warrants, and all that crap. They'll look at inspection stickers, too."

"So how come she didn't hit me in the parking lot?"

"Ah...that's private property. She can only cite you on a public roadway. They have permission to go into the parking lot from the company, so that way the cops will do overnight patrols on the property. But yeah, you want to see the real fun, you should see the speed traps at 8am, 5pm, and 9pm for the east coast nights. Looks like a damn Christmas tree some nights."

I went to court to see if I could argue down the ticket, and found four other people I knew from work were there arguing speeding tickets or other violations. I talked to the prosecutor, and paid my fine.

Two weeks later, I got busted for speeding on the way in to work (late). So a month later I'm talking to the same prosecutor, who's laughing at me this time. We talked about law, and law school, and he told me to get out of collections and get back to school. Speeding reduced to failure to obey sign, no points.

For the rest of my time there, I strictly obeyed the speed limits. A friend of mine at work had a truck that was uninspectable, but arranged with someone else for rides home at midnight when the town cop was waiting right there for him. It made for a very surreal situation, to say the least.

In the end, I should be grateful my license survived collections, along with so much else.