Eric Thompson: Traffic tyrants spoil it for the rest of us

It's best not to argue with police over a ticket when you've consciously broken the speed limit. Photo / APN

Although I do not condone breaking the speed limit or endangering other road users, I do get frustrated with the speed Nazis, who think it's their right to dictate what speed other drivers travel at on the open road.

If the law allows you to travel at 100km/h on the open highway, you people do not have to spoil everyone's day because you are incapable of travelling faster than 75km/h.

If the law says we can drive at 100km/h, I have the right to do so without you bloody lot deciding something different. However, if you break the speed limit and get pinged for speeding there is no excuse.

I have, on the occasion, been pulled over by the police and asked, "Did you know how fast you were going?" Of course I always do, so I tell the officer it was 112km/h. And when the officer says I'm going to get a ticket, he gets no argument from me. I knew the limit and broke it consciously.

But when the police are simply revenue-gathering and hiding in bushes trying to catch drivers hovering on the limit, I tend to blow a gasket.

Last weekend I went to Manfield for the New Zealand Grand Prix. A number of us were picked up in a minivan from the airport and were heading into town. As we were proceeding along a short straight after exiting a roundabout, a police car, which was parked on the side of the road, put its lights on and an officer got out and indicated our driver should pull over.

We all thought something had fallen off the van but, oh no, the driver was told he had been speeding and had been doing 67km/h in a 50km/h zone. "Rubbish," was the collective response from inside the van.

To have been doing that speed in a van full of people, in such a short distance after a roundabout, would have meant our driver came into the roundabout really hot, and four-wheel-drifted the van 270 degrees with the engine screaming its nuts off.

That didn't happen, I can assure you - I would have been impressed if it did.

Everyone in the van had either been a race-car or motorcycle racer, so we all had a good idea about speed, and every last one of us reckoned the driver might have been doing 57km/h but never 67km/h.

I suggested to the officer that she may have got the wrong car, and this was where her wheels fell off.

She replied: "I was looking down and reading when the buzzer went off and when I looked up I saw a van."

So there you go, folks - the officer wasn't even watching the traffic and so pulled over the biggest thing she saw.

All credit must go to the driver, though, as he didn't say much and just accepted the ticket.