The Hallof Lame

I didn’t realize I was going that fast.

The official motto of every driver whose speedometer was apparently decorative — a charming dashboard ornament, not unlike a bobblehead, consulted by no one. The needle was pointing enthusiastically at 87. It had opinions. You chose not to listen.

I’m late for work.

A classic. Timeless. Also completely irrelevant to every law ever written. The officer is rarely moved by the notion that your shift manager outranks the state legislature. Your boss cannot issue tickets. The state can. Guess who wins this one.

I really have to go to the bathroom.

Sometimes delivered with full Academy Award–level commitment: the squirm, the grimace, the thousand-yard stare of a person at absolute biological capacity. Occasionally true. Officers, being human, have reportedly taken pity. More often, the subsequent search of the vehicle reveals no emergency whatsoever — only shame.

I was just keeping up with traffic.

Particularly bold when deployed on a stretch of highway that is, at this precise moment, entirely empty. The phantom convoy of speeders that apparently surrounded you moments ago has vanished into the ether, leaving you — alone, pulled over, and philosophically committed to an explanation that requires witnesses.

My car just goes fast. I can’t help it.

As though the vehicle seized autonomous control — a racehorse that heard a starting pistol, a golden retriever spotting a squirrel. The car, apparently, has needs. Desires. A need for speed that overrides all input from the human being sitting in the driver’s seat with both feet and ten fingers available.

The speed limit changed and I didn’t see the sign.

Plausible, just barely, once. Significantly less plausible when you have passed six identical signs in the last two miles, each more visible than the last, the final one appearing to be roughly the size of a barn door. The signs were there. They were there so hard.

I thought this was a 55 zone.

Said, with a straight face, inside a 25 mph school zone. Children are present. A crossing guard in a bright orange vest is making prolonged eye contact with you. A sign reads SCHOOL ZONE — SLOW. The flashing yellow lights are flashing. All available evidence disagrees with your thesis.

I was passing someone.

The “someone” in question is often imaginary, long gone, or — in the finest versions of this story — was itself driving exactly the speed limit, making you not a courageous passer but simply someone who sped up to overtake a law-abiding citizen and then kept going indefinitely.

I’m testing my new tires.

A bold, visionary reframing of reckless driving as consumer safety research. One imagines a clipboard. Perhaps a lab coat. Rigorous metrics. Unfortunately, tire manufacturers do not conduct road tests by blowing through residential neighborhoods at 70 mph, and neither, legally, can you.

I’m trying to dry my car after the car wash.

Technically creative. Mechanically questionable. Legally useless. The car wash industry, for the record, does not endorse this method and has towels available for a nominal fee. Also: your windows are still wet. The drying did not work. None of this worked.

My cruise control must be broken.

A sophisticated way of blaming a button — specifically, a button that you pressed, at a speed you selected, which then maintained that speed on your behalf as instructed. The cruise control performed exactly as designed. The design simply did not account for traffic laws.

I wasn’t speeding — I was coasting downhill.

Gravity: history’s most underappreciated accomplice and, apparently, now your co-defendant. A compelling defense, except that the brakes — those large pedal-based devices engineered specifically to counteract the effects of gravity — were available to you at all times during this descent and were not utilized.

I have a medical appointment.

Often followed, upon gentle inquiry, by no appointment, no symptoms, no urgency, and no supporting details of any kind. The officer, trained in the art of follow-up questions, would like to know: what kind? When? Where? The silence that follows speaks volumes about the appointment’s existence.

My GPS said I’d arrive late if I didn’t speed up.

The navigation app is now, apparently, an accessory before the fact. Waze did not actually say “exceed the posted limit.” It suggested a route. You interpreted this as legal authority. Somewhere in Silicon Valley, a product manager is reading this police report with genuine professional concern.

I sped up because I saw your police car and got nervous.

This one has a certain exquisite circular logic: “I was speeding because I was worried about being caught speeding.” A self-fulfilling prophecy of the finest order. The nervousness, presumably, did not suggest simply slowing down as an option — only acceleration into the very fate that caused the nervousness.

This isn’t even my car.

Interesting. Truly interesting. This information, however, does not travel with the posted speed limit and cause it to adjust. The sign says 35. The sign means 35 for every vehicle, owned or borrowed, rented or mysteriously acquired. Your name on the title is not a variable in this equation.

I thought the left lane was the fast lane.

It is not, in fact, an Autobahn permission slip. The left lane in the United States is designated for passing, after which one is expected to return to the right — not to engage unlimited velocity mode and treat the highway as a personal racetrack while nodding knowingly at German engineering traditions.

I’m on my way to church.

A risky theological defense. The implied argument — “Officer, I was speeding for the Lord” — has not, to our knowledge, appeared in any traffic code as an exemption. The deity in question has not filed supporting documentation. Also, it is Tuesday at 2 p.m. The officer notes the time and day with quiet interest.

My spouse is absolutely furious at me right now.

Sympathetic, perhaps, on a human level. Officers are people too, and they understand domestic tension. However, marital discord has not yet achieved the status of a recognized traffic exemption in any jurisdiction. If anything, the officer now has two concerns: the speed, and whatever happened at home.

I just got this car and didn’t know how fast it was going.

Translation, offered without judgment: “The accelerator performed better than my judgment.” The car, still wearing its paper dealer tags, was indeed going very fast. The speedometer reported this faithfully. The driver and the speedometer had simply not yet been formally introduced and established a working relationship.