Of course I'm not and there isn't, but I really don't know how actual criminals cope. Honestly, it must play havoc with their blood pressure.
I think it stems from the humiliation of actually being pulled over, lights, siren and all, when I actually was speeding. I entirely blame the little red sports car I owned at the time. It made me do it.
But that didn't wash with the nice policeman who gave me a ticket, after pulling me over, right in front of some roadworks where lots of road workers were all having smoko.
There's nothing like having your own cheerleading squad while a policeman writes you a ticket. They even had matching outfits but there was a disappointing lack of pompoms.
I got pulled over a year or so later, minus the sports car but in possession of a horse float.
I was going home after an unfortunate incident at a showjumping lesson, which included a sudden gravity-assisted dismount and involved some blood, a black eye and some of the arena surface becoming embedded in my elbows.
My instructor had kindly suggested I load the horse up, take it home, shoot it and buy a new one.
I'd got as far as loading it on the float and taking it part-way home (the shooting it bit was still under consideration ...) when the police car driving towards me did a U-turn and came up behind me. Lights, siren, again.
This nice policeman asked me how I was and where I was going. I looked up at him through my dirt-encrusted and blood-smeared glasses, batted my one functional set of eyelashes and told him I was having a bad day.
Yes, he agreed and told me that I had been doing 96km when, because I was towing a horse float, I was only allowed to do 90kmh.
And, he added, it was a long weekend and on long weekends there is a zero tolerance rule to going over the speed limit.
Did I not realise this, he asked.
Yes, I told him I did know about the zero tolerance thing because I was the one who had written the article about it, in the newspaper.
The policeman (I was starting to go off him about now) wrote me out a ticket and told me I was free to go home and shoot my horse if I so wished, provided I had a gun licence and did so in a safe and lawful manner.
I thanked him and he told me to have a nice day and drive carefully.
I do try and curb my criminal tendencies, I really do, but sometimes bad things just happen to good people.
I was in court one day - no, not in the dock, on the reporters' bench - and in the silence while the judge prepared his summing-up, my cellphone rang.
As a breach of etiquette goes, it's right up there, just below rolling jaffas across the floor in the boring bits. The judge let me off with just a scorching glare from under his bushy eyebrows.
Suitably chastened, I double checked my phone in the lunch break to make sure I'd pushed the off button. Twice.
Pushing the button twice effectively turned the phone off and then on again. The second offence occurred just moments after his honour had been seated for the afternoon session.
This time he didn't let me off with a glare.
"Stand up," he said and I did.
"I am very tempted to charge you with contempt of court," he said.
I was afraid. Some of the people he'd sent to the cells that morning didn't look very friendly and I didn't fancy sharing accommodation.
"However," said the judge and he paused because that's what judges do.
"I am going to let you off.
"I am going to let you off, because last week in my courtroom someone's mobile phone also rang.
"And I got very angry and I demanded that the person be put in the cells for contempt," he said and he paused again.
"And then I realised it was my own phone."
Thank you, your honour, I rest my case.
