“It’s a problem that’s faced by police forces in every major city in our country, that criminals infiltrate and sign up to join the police force.”

-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who has actual power despite saying things like this, on the Iraqi insurgency

The other night, on my way to my new home, I stopped at one of the few remaining traffic lights between me and my couch. I had to make a left turn at this light, but it was one of those that warns you in the Frankensteinspeak of street signs, “LEFT ONLY ON LEFT ARROW.” My neighborhood is plagued by this sign and its cousin, “NO RIGHT TURN ON RED,” and I dread stopping at each of them because of my fellow neighborhood motorists, who are not about your “rules” and your “signs.” They are on the go, and they have places to be, unlike you, who apparently just like to get into your car at night and wait at green lights. Whenever the light turns and I don’t, I almost always get an angry, somehow-still-surprising-every-time smothering of the horn from the car behind me. Whenever I ignore the sign, I get a ticket.

(This is technically true. I have gotten one ticket in my life, and it was from inadvertently turning right on red in what is now my neighborhood. I didn’t even see the sign, which doesn’t speak really well of my driving, but in my defense it was obviously an honest mistake; I mean, clearly I wouldn’t intentionally make an illegal turn right in front of the police station with a cop right behind me, would I?)

(I got this ticket in late 2000/early 2001 right before a business trip to New York City. Locally, when the cops give you a ticket, they take your driver’s license until you pay it. As a result, I had to fly in and out of JFK International Airport with 0 forms of identification. I did, without so much as a raised eyebrow at the ticket counter. While waiting for my flight home, I accidentally left my bag unattended in the middle of the terminal for half an hour. I have thought about that trip often in the last four years.)

Not wanting any more tickets this decade, I obeyed the sign and waited for my left arrow at the intersection, dreading the wrath of the van behind me. Suddenly, as if to replace one fear with another, a loud police siren erupted all around me. I looked in my rearview mirror as flashing lights appeared from their hiding place within the van’s window.

Just as I gathered myself enough to think, “What? Oh my God; what did I do? I waited! I listened to the sign!” the police van darted to my left and made the left turn around me in the wrong lane of traffic. Once it was through the intersection, its siren and lights went off. The cop, who would have ticketed me for breaking the rule, just couldn’t be bothered to follow it himself and wait the additional fifteen seconds. At a red light a block away, he did it again.