Anne Marie, Nishi and I were pulled over for the first time yesterday. There have been plenty of police/bus encounters, but up until yesterday no one had felt the need to pull us over. We were driving through the hills of western Connecticut, when a state trooper pulled along behind us. He followed me for nearly ten minutes before deciding to throw on his lights as I was crawling up a hill. There is probably something wrong with going 25 mph on a road that allows for much faster, and I was imagining a bizarre “Do you know how fast your were going?” exchange.
He walks up to the door looking kind of confused, and asked if I had any papers for this thing. I get up to get the registration, and the e-brake starts to slip. The e-brake in that bus has never been very good at keeping the bus from rolling on hills, though Joe once drove it all the way to Cheney using only the e-brake. When the e-brake slips, it makes an almost ratcheting movement, rolling a few inches backward at a time. I stepped on the brake quick enough to keep from buying him a new cruiser, and we threw chock blocks under the wheels. Playing it safe, he decided it would be best to move his cruiser out from behind thirteen tons of spray painted madness, and parked uphill.
When he came back I produced the registration, which he looked over briefly before asking for insurance as well. Handing him the insurance he explained that he pulled us over because he couldn’t read the license plate (reference picture), and everything seemed to be a-ok. He was nice enough to escort us as we crawled out way up the rest of the hill.