I had an encounter with the police [View all]

[TrogL]

I drive truck for a living. With the slump in oil prices, Alberta Provincial revenue is down and many transport companies have been unable to afford the upkeep on their vehicles. Alberta secondary highways often have gravel trucks that lose a bit of their load or for other reasons have stones on them that tend to get thrown around by other vehicles. Hence any windshield older than 6 months tends to have cracks unless promptly dealt with. It's referred to as an “Alberta windshield”. Due to the climate, we have two seasons, winter and construction. Due to a number of fatalities, fines were drastically increased for speeding through construction areas. Due to all of the above, Alberta decided to have a “blitz”.

So I'm driving down the highway minding my own business and see a construction area up ahead. I dutifully slow down to the posted limit. One out of the zone, I turn off onto the next highway to get me where I'm going. I've just nicely gotten around the corner and there's an officer waving me over.

I roll my window down to parlay and he's saying “you're not in trouble, you weren't speeding, it's just an inspection.” He notes the badly cracked windshield. “Oh, it's just an Alberta windshield”. “It's a little worse than that.” “I can see through that little 4 inch square right there.” He laughs and says the problem is the rest of the windshield.

We’re having a good time. He takes me through the rest of the inspection, then asks me how I test the tires. “Errr….by inspection?” He kicks one tire - thud. He kicks the one beside it - thunk. He tests it and it's down to 15 pounds. One of his buddies rolls up, they chat for a bit then he roars off again. He goes in his vehicle then comes back with a citation for the windshield, which has to be fixed in a week, and tells me to go up the road 3 km. There's a gas station there where I can fill up the tire.

I got off easy. Up and down the highway there's trucks pulled over with frustrated drivers on their cell phones explaining why their load will be late.