The Popo Series

No. 3: The Popo Took My Joy

I don’t want you anymore ’cause you took my joy

I don’t want you anymore, you took my joy

You took my joy, I want it back

You took my joy, I want it back

You took my, I want it back

– Joy, Lucinda Williams

On January 24, 2014, I had my date with destiny, otherwise known as Officer Sean. We had gotten on really well, and I got off with a “be careful out there” and a $51 fine. I was elated. No, ecstatic. On cloud nine.

Then two months and nine days later, I got a breakup letter from the state. My $51 fine and friendly warning had turned into: YOU DO THIS AGAIN, AND YOU’LL LOSE YOUR LICENSE.

Apparently, I had received three convictions in the state of New Hampshire within the last three years, all for speeding. The first, I’d actually forgotten about. The second and third still stung, but not enough to put real fear in me. Now I was being told I’d racked up nine demerit points and that should I “continue to add convictions,” I “SHALL BE SUBJECTED to a suspension period of up to ONE YEAR.”

Talk about taking your joy. Now I couldn’t merely flirt with obeying the speed limit. I had to follow the letter of the law or risk more than my license. I’d risk my livelihood. Without a license, I couldn’t drive. And without a way to drive, I couldn’t work. And without a job, I couldn’t…well, you know.

They took my joy, like only they know how to do.

On the reverse side of the breakup letter were the Habitual Offender Warning and Assessment of Point Guidelines. The warning informed me that “New Hampshire has a serious habitual offender law,” for which I may or may not qualify – it wasn’t entirely clear. It went on to say that the Division of Motor Vehicles sincerely hoped I would read and heed the warning, and that “the purpose of the habitual offender law is to provide maximum safety for all persons who drive in New Hampshire, discourage repeated patterns of conviction and DENY license and operating privileges to individuals who fail to respect and obey our laws.”

The warning further explained that there were essentially four ways to become a Habitual Offender, including 1) any combination of 12 convictions for speed, yellow line, operating without a license or operating without proof of financial responsibility; 2) three major convictions; 3) one major conviction and any combination of eight of the convictions shown in item 1; or 4) two major convictions and any combination of four of the convictions shown in item 1. Furthermore, it stated, the convictions must occur within five years of the violation. The seven most common major convictions are driving while intoxicated, reckless driving, leaving the scene of an accident, operating a vehicle after your license has been revoked or suspended, taking a vehicle without authority, disobeying a police officer and road racing.

So far, I had committed none of those, and I was still nine convictions away from the 12 required to label me a habitual offender, which meant at least one good thing: I didn’t need to go to driving school. Still, the nine demerit points couldn’t bode well for my police record or my insurance rates.

So there I was, feeling castrated in my ability to go where I needed to go. Now I was flying low under a cloud of suspicion everywhere I went, a big invisible “Watch Her” bolted to my car like some bounty hunter’s tracking device. It wasn’t long before I started to experience the chronic post-traumatic syndrome I have come to refer to as “popo paranoia.”

And then I got mad, really mad. Now I couldn’t even enjoy the drive if I tried. Now it would take me two hours to get to work and two hours to get home. I’d lose even more productivity than I already was. And no NPR story or audiobook, no matter how scintillating, could make up for that.

It felt like a gross injustice, hitting me with this threat for merely going with the flow of traffic or disregarding a bogus Construction Zone sign, and then claiming it was for the safety of “all persons who drive in New Hampshire.” Like I was some kind of public enemy or something.

I started to wonder, Where was the part about the critical state revenue stream? There was no mention of that. How much does the state take in annually from speeding tickets, anyway? So I looked it up. According to a Manchester area news source, during 15 months from 2013-2014 New Hampshire State Police handed out nearly 36,000 tickets at an average fine of $155. If you’re doing the math, that’s $372,000 a month. Or $4,464,000 a year. That’s nothing to sneeze at, especially in a state with no sales or income tax.

Turns out state police write an average of 30,000 speeding tickets a year in New Hampshire. So I wondered again: What’s the state’s most productive area for revenue from speeding tickets? That innocent query led to another spate of fun facts: The No. 1 place for tickets is in Hopkinton along Interstate 89, followed by Bow on Interstate 93, Hampton Falls, Manchester and Hooksett. And the busiest periods for our radar-totin’, ticket-writin’, joy-takin’ popo? Rush hours from 8-9 a.m. and 4-5 p.m. Productivity peaks in August and bottoms out in December.

Which leads me to another question: Is there an annual goal? The common belief is that the popo are rewarded for giving out more tickets. According to the NH state police said, that’s a myth. They say the goal is to get drivers to slow down, not to hand out tickets. Right.

And what would happen if they accomplished their goal? The state would lose almost $5 million a year in revenue.

The bottom line: Maybe it’s time I learned that driving slower isn’t just safer and less stressful, but it actually gives you time to look around. And maybe then I’ll get my joy back.

Read more: http://www.wmur.com/special-reports/10-mph-myth-examining-speeding-ticket-trends/26078002#ixzz3CiXqZboN

http://www.wmur.com/special-reports/10-mph-myth-examining-speeding-ticket-trends/26078002

http://www.safemotorist.com/articles/traffic_ticket_quotas.aspx

http://www.lawfirms.com/resources/traffic-tickets/traffic-basics-and-statistics/guide-traffic-tickets-us.htm

http://money.msn.com/auto-insurance/how-to-get-a-warning-not-a-ticket

https://www.escortradar.com/speeding-tickets.php

http://autos.aol.com/article/highest-speeding-fines/

No. 2: The Popo Met Me in Court

Breakin’ rocks in the hot sun

I fought the law and the law won

I fought the law and the law won

I needed money ’cause I had none

I fought the law and the law won

I fought the law and the law won  

– I Fought the Law, The Clash

It was the eve of All Hallows Eve, 2013, and I was headed north on 93. It was just an ordinary Wednesday evening, save for the specter of Halloween that hung in the air. But then dusk fell in the darkest sense of the word, and I was abruptly, acutely alone on this long, empty stretch of highway. Or so I thought.

In North Country, road construction is a regular aspect of life, making it as easy to ignore as it is to watch for. And here I was again, passing through a section of highway that had been under construction at some point but now seemed long since finished. Yes, there were speed limit warnings and $200 FINE road signs to heed, but they looked old and worn. And other than that, it had none of the familiar markings of an active work zone. So I regarded the signs as mere vestiges of a job long ago completed – and rather carelessly abandoned at that.

Then, suddenly, I saw stantions and a narrowing of the road and I began to downshift on the cruise control, tap-tap-tapping fast and furiously – just not fast and furiously enough. Out of the shadows the bomber-black popo leapt, lurching wildly into a hairpin twist to pursue me with all its might. It was a new one on me, a lights-off-hidden-in the-median stealth tactic that scared the bejesus out of me. Ten seconds passed before the blue lights sputtered on, then ten more seconds before I snapped to the now all-too-familiar realization that, yes – he was. Pulling me over. Me. Yes, me.

C’mon, Betty, for chrissakes, who else would he be pulling over? There was no one else out here! At first, I was terrified. Then mystified. Then terrified again. I mean, it was dark out there. Really dark. And I was alone, on the night before Halloween. And he was USING COVERT ACTION. I mean, really. Is that really necessary? What did I look like, some kind of terrorist?

No, just easy bait. Turns out, despite appearances to the contrary, I was in an active construction zone. And he was just there to remind me.

“License and registration, please.”

Oh, shit.

“I’m sorry, Officer, what did I do?” I implored him, almost honestly actually, my heart pounding from the sneak attack.

“You were doing 74 in a 55 mph construction zone. It’s posted, ma’am. License and registration, please.”

“Okay.”

I handed it over and sighed, heart stomping, my whole body slumping in total popo-got-me-again resignation.

I watched him walk back to his sleek matte black marauder in that bow-legged strut popos clearly work to perfect in popo academy. Then, for what seemed like 15 whole minutes (and probably was), I sat and waited as he wrote me up.

“Okay, I’m giving you a citation for going 19 miles per hour over the speed limit in a construction zone. Normally, that’s an automatic $350 fine, but I reduced it to the minimum – $103.”

He said it like he was doing me a favor. Like he was reducing my fine, because it was my fucking birthday or something. Like I should be grateful for the discount and get over that scared-to-death feeling I’d just been pulled over by a madman in a Darth Vader death machine masquerading as a popo.

“Thank you,” I said.

What else could I say? It was what my husband, who’d worked with cops once on a cop show, taught me to say. These guys were risking their lives every day out here, and you treated them with deference and respect. And besides, they carried loaded Smith & Wesson M&P 45 pistols. And if you were a woman alone on the highway in the pitch darkness of a cold late October night, you weren’t about to mess with that.

But the reality of what I’d just been through remained: I was a woman traveling alone at night being chased by a cruiser with its lights off, a state police practice I saw as not only disturbing but downright dangerous. Furthermore, I was in a construction zone that was in two sections, one of which wasn’t clearly marked. Had there been evidence of active construction, I would have slowed down earlier. And truth is, I was actually in the process of decelerating once I came upon the section of road with the Jersey barriers.

I found the whole process intimidating, and it left me genuinely confused about how NH state speed limit laws are enforced. And with that, I decided this time the popo would meet me in court.

My NOTICE OF HEARING came two months later (after at least two calls to the Plymouth 2^nd Circuit District Division to inquire about it), and my hearing was set for 9:00 AM on January 24, 2014. I was scheduled for what they refer to in the Granite State as a weekly “pre-trial conference.” The letter accompanying the notice informed me it was okay to bring a newspaper or book and “alright to use your cell phone for text messages,” but talking on my phone would not be allowed. Ditto for food or drink. The letter went on to explain that they would try to expedite my case, but that I should expect some wait time.

So on the morning of my court date, I dressed appropriately and came prepared. I chose casual business attire in a refined palette of browns and olives that I felt would be respectful and non-confrontational. And I brought my talking points, which I had carefully scripted and rehearsed the night before. In other words, I was loaded and ready.

Much to my surprise, I showed up a few minutes early, having obeyed the speed limit for the entire 40-minute drive to Plymouth. The anterroom outside the courtroom was already filled with other defendants. There were easily 30 of us, and I remembered that the letter had warned me about this and now understood why it had mentioned food and drink would not be permitted.

After a brief wait, we were called into the courtroom and filed into rows of benches oddly reminiscent of church pews. I felt proper and pious and steeled myself for my sermon.

The pre-trial state trooper finally showed up 15 minutes later (what was it with the 15-minute waits???), and the morning ritual began. The clerk had a pile of folders a foot high, each with its own 14-digit case number. I settled in for a long morning. Then before I knew it, my number came up.

The trooper, let’s call him Officer Sean, politely ushered me into a small chamber off the courtroom, where we sat directly across from each other at a small square table. That was it, just the two of us, sitting rather bistro style, close enough to whisper to each other. No bailiff. No Plexiglas barrier. No naked bulb bearing down on me. It was like we were taking tea.

It was all so intimate and non-threatening, the perfect circumstances for pleading one’s case. So I got right into it, building my argument, one strategic point after another. And to my astonishment, he listened, cocking his head, making eye contact, and nodding and smiling in all the right places.

Then, once I was done, he basically let me know he had heard it all before. He was nice about it, though, opening up his invisible little black book of super-trooper highway horror stories just enough to drive home why it was so important to obey the speed limit. There were the stories of the chronic text offenders who had become the bane of his existence. There were the boys on joy rides from down south (otherwise known as Nashua). There was even the one about the guy he chased for 20 minutes, who had stashed his wife’s dismembered body in the trunk. And, of course, there was me, who could end up getting picked off by any one of them if he weren’t doing his job right.

Then I gave him my zinger, the reason I hadn’t just paid the ticket outright, the question I had come there to ask: Can you explain to me, officer, how speed limit laws are enforced in this state?

That’s when he fessed up it was really all pretty arbitrary. It depends, he said, on how much you were exceeding the speed limit. Or what else the trooper had going on (like chasing someone with his wife’s dead body in the trunk). Or what kind of mood he was in. Clearly, there was a direct correlation between an officer waking up on the wrong side of the bed and you being on the wrong side of the law.

Once we’d talked it all out and I was satisfied, we negotiated. Which is to say, he offered me a reduced fine, and I took it. And with that, we shook hands, walked out and I headed to the counter to write a check. Two hours and $51.67 later, it was over. I was free to go, hop back on the highway and, at the risk of running into a cranky popo with a quota to fill, push the 70 mph speed limit as far as my conscience – or schedule – would let me.

No. 1: The Popo Saved My Life

They say you never find a cop when you need one
This is my lucky day I guess I got one on each arm and
I think we might start dancing til they turn to me and say
What’s a nice girl like you doing shoplifting, such a shame
I’m on vacation from the measurement of quality
backing away from sleepy hollow front lawn of tranquility
Just singing in my head and wreaking havoc with authority
I’ve fallen out the window of opportunity
Falling – – Sorry
Falling – – From grace
– Window of Opportunity, Meryn Cadell

They’ve been called every name in the book. Fuzz, copper, law, heat, smokey, feds, five-o, pigs, bacon or my personal favorite, popo. Yes, popo. Plain and simple. No punctuation. No capitalization. Trust me, I’ve thought about this. I picked that spelling from a choice of at least six, according to the Urban Dictionary (popo, po-po, po po, PoPo, Po-Po or POPO). And don’t even get me started on the 88 different shades of meaning.

That’s a lot of fuss for a four-letter term inspired by one of the most feared and reviled public positions on the planet, don’t you think? Even meter maids don’t command that much ink.

Then again, these are the defenders of society we’re talking about. The keepers of the peace. The sometime superheroes. I mean, to be fair.

Which is what I set out to do with this story. Be fair.

After all, I believe the popo may have saved my life. But only after they slowly, systematically, killed my joy.

I’m now convinced that’s what they’re best at. I mean, c’mon. They pack heat. They break up the party. They have no sense of humor. And they’re never there when you need them. Everybody knows that. And yet, they’re everywhere when you don’t need them. Everywhere that I am, anyway.

No, I haven’t shoplifted. Nothing so Hollywood-glam as that. I simply had the audacity to take a job 99 miles from home. That’s right, 99 miles each way, up and down Route 93 in New Hampshire, five days a week. Or, to put it another way, three hours a day, 15 hours a week, 720 hours a year.

I’ve never had a commute like this in my life, I should add. I actually spent the first 30 years of my adult working life walking, biking or riding public transportation to work. Driving was for suburban zombies.

And now, suddenly, I have a relationship with the popo. A love/hate relationship, to be more precise. As in, they’re on my mind all the time. Just singing in my head and wreaking havoc with authority.

It starts every morning at Exit 27 south in Campton. I drive by him, with his menacing black-green front end facing the highway like a poison dart frog ready to pounce, and, downshifting furiously on my cruise control, I flip him a below-the-radar bird and mutter, Fuck you, popo. Fuck you.

I should be grateful I haven’t seen one for 10 exits until then. But I’m not. The fact that I see them at all is an affront to my freedom, my joy, my oneness with the road. I own a car designed to drive. It’s turbocharged, for pete’s sake. I can brush against the gas pedal and hit 90. It’s diesel, too, so burning fuel isn’t really an issue. That’s why I bought it. Because it goes.

So I have to be careful, because the damn popo are everywhere. I start seeing them again around Exit 25, where there’s road construction for miles. I catch a glimpse of the gyrating blue lights on the northbound side of the highway, and I flinch, downshifting instinctively on the cruise control. You suck, popo. You suck.

Occasionally, I have the good fortune to feel one slither up alongside me, quietly, stealthily, tauntingly. I know he’s just pacing, no real threat, but it kills the joy for another few miles, before he decides to move on.

If I’m lucky, I don’t see another one until around Exit 20 in Tilton. But then they start to show up in force for the next five exits until Concord. I’ve now entered the lair. This is where they like to hide out. This is where they make their killing. This is the five-mile money show.

And this is where, on the northbound side one drowsy evening, the popo just may have saved my life.

It was about 5:30 on a Tuesday evening, and I was headed home from Manchester. I was driving with the flow of traffic, right around Exit 18 in Canterbury, fighting fatigue and the urge to go faster. What happened next I’m not entirely sure about. I must have dozed off for a split second or two, because the next thing I knew

I was blinking back to consciousness with the neon-blue lights flashing wildly in my rearview mirror. They had woken me up, and now I was being pulled over.

I turned off my engine and waited for the popo to show up at my window.

“License and registration, please.”

“I’m sorry, officer.”

“Do you know the speed limit here, ma’am?”

“Yes. 65?”

“Do you know how fast you were going, ma’am?”

“No, I don’t, officer.”

“I clocked you at 81. Where are you going in such a hurry?”

“I’m going home, but I’m really tired and I was trying to make it to the next exit, so I could pull off and get some coffee. I think you just did me a big favor, actually.”

He had, and he did. The ticket he handed me 10 minutes later was for $183. But it could have been $283, apparently. Because as soon as you go above 80, they tack on another $100. Had I been going 90, it would have been $361.

So he had saved me a ton of dough. And quite possibly my life.

Less than a week later, there was a fatal accident in that same area, a rollover on the left-hand shoulder during the evening commute. I drove right by it, as it turns out, without realizing at the time that it was fatal.

I learned later that speeding on this particular stretch of 93 has become a serious issue for New Hampshire state troopers.

According to NH State Police Capt. John LeLacheur, troopers stop someone driving 90 to 100 mph at least once a day. And once a month, they pull over somebody driving 120 to 130 mph or more.

LeLacheur believes the situation is getting worse, thanks to distractions like texting and phone calling. Midway through 2013, nearly 50 people had been killed in crashes on New Hampshire roads.

State police aren’t sure how to account for the increase in speeding cases, but suspect the increase in fuel-injected, turbocharged vehicles on the road may have something to do with it. They’re also concerned some drivers may push the boundaries even more once the new 70 mph speed limit from just north of Concord to the Franconia Notch goes into effect in January.

Clearly, it’s not easy being a popo in New Hampshire.

And, so with all due respect for their lives and mine, I’ll be setting my cruise control at a steady 74 mph from now on. Or at least until January 2014.

Thank you, popo. That could just be the best $183 I’ve ever spent.

Addendum: Curious about the Urban Dictionary’s 88 different definitions of popo? Here’s a small sampling (sic) to whet your appetite for more fun:

1. POPO

A Police officer. especially the ones that rides on bikes.

Origin: California late ’80s

Police officers that patrol certain beaches on bikes wore a vest that said PO in huge blockletters on each of their chest, which means Police Officer. They usually ride around in group of two’s. When you see them coming by, you see the word “PO” “PO” when they stand next to each other.

Man…here comes the PoPo to tell us what to do again.

2. po po

the cops, the police

oh shit! the po po is after us!

3. Po-Po

the cops.

if you hear some one yell the po-po’s comein RUN!!!!!

oh snap! it’s the po-po!

4. PoPo

Street slang for the cops, a police officer,the police.

Gangsta: Oh snap, the popo are now carrying a fofo….

Gangsta: And to us, that’s a big nono!!!

5. Po-Po

the police

Originated in California where bicycle-mounted cops travel around in sets of two. They wear vests with giant POs written on them, thus the name po-po originated.

look out the po-po is coming

6. po po

Short for pissed off police officer

Shelley, why did you kick that riot gear cop in the shin and then spit in his face? Now we’ve got the po po after us.

7. Po Po

Stands for the Police

Everyone hates the cops until someone steals your car see would Jesus microwave a burrito?

pothead 1: “Man, the po po be a bunch a losers”

pothead 2: “Dude, someones stealing your car!”

pothead 1: “Shit man, call the police!”

8. po po

fucking cops

run nigga!, its the po po!

88. Po-Po

Police. Good name to call them because they don’t know what it means!!

‘hey, what up, Po-Po’