I’m a police officer. One morning, I’m working patrol when my supervisor pages me on the radio and asks me to give him a call. It should be noted that one of my supervisor’s pet peeves is when people block fire hydrants.

Supervisor: “I got a guy in the lobby making a scene because his car got towed. He’s claiming it was racially motivated and wants reimbursement for the tow and to file a complaint. I checked the log and it looks like it might have been you. You tow any cars today?”

Me: “The only car I’ve towed today was a [Make] [Model] parked on [Street]. Is that the one?”

Supervisor: “That’s the one. So, why did you tow it? “

Me: “Well, the registration was expired since [date more than six years ago].”

Supervisor: “Okay, sounds like a good tow to me.”

Me: “And it was parked in front of a fire hydrant.”

Supervisor: “Oh, even better! Well, that settles that. Make sure you send me your body cam footage just in case he follows through with the complaint, though.”

Me: “Will do, but I never even saw him, so it’s all just of a car blocking a hydrant and previous damage documentation.”

Supervisor: “Perfect.”

The guy still wanted to file the complaint. My supervisor offered to sit down and review the body cam footage with him. He suddenly decided to drop the complaint, saying he must have mistaken this interaction for a prior one with a different police department.

One day, years ago, my motorcycle runs out of fuel on the motorway. In my defence, it is an older motorcycle without a fuel gauge, so there is a little bit of guesswork. I stop on the hard shoulder and call the breakdown service. They will be two hours coming, so I sit in the long grass and wait… and wait. It’s getting dark, and a beautiful clear summer’s night sky arrives.

An hour in, I see an unmarked car and flashing blue lights on the other carriageway and get a funny feeling. I see more blue flashing lights through the grass, hear an engine, and see a black silhouette standing pointing a flashlight at me.

Cop: “Hello. You all right?”

Me: “Fine. You?”

Cop: “What are you doing?”

Me: “Waiting on the breakdown. How about yourself?”

Cop: “I’m a traffic cop, Officer [Surname]. Is that your bike?”

Me: “Aye.”

Cop: “I had a call from an off-duty colleague. He said, ‘There’s this motorcycle sitting on the hard shoulder of the [Road] outside [Town #1]. I don’t see the biker but there are two legs sticking out of a hedge.’”

Me: “Oh? That was kind.”

Cop: “Would you be happy to stand up so I can see you clearly?”

By now, I’m lying on my back, hands behind my head; I made myself comfortable while I waited. I do as he has asked.

Cop: “Can you fill me in here? Where are you coming from, and to?”

Me: “From [Town #2], heading home to [Town #3]. Ran out of fuel. Yes, I’m a muppet. The breakdown is coming. Do you need my licence?”

Cop: “No, we’re just checking you’re okay. It looked like you had crashed your bike or something. You don’t look like you’re drunk or otherwise impaired.”

He’s right. A parked motorcycle and two boots in long grass look like something is very wrong.

Cop: “How much charge have you on your phone?”

Me: “Plenty, thank you.”

Cop: “You see the bright orange emergency phone booth, 50m? If you wait over there, people will see you’re fine. Stand off the hand shoulder. If the breakdown doesn’t come, call us again and we’ll sort you out for petrol.”

The breakdown came, I got home, and I never ran out of petrol again.

This story begins about ten to twelve years ago. I was in my late twenties and I had bought a secondhand car at a car dealership. For a while, everything seemed fine, but then the car started revealing some issues.

First, after about a year, there was a wheel bearing problem (they were worn out) that I had to pay to have fixed. I was a little annoyed that those got worn out so soon after buying the car, but worse was yet to come.

About three years after buying the car, alert lamps started going off on the dashboard. I brought the car into a local workshop, and they diagnosed it as an ABS module failure. Basically, the control unit for the ABS brakes had to be replaced.

At this point, I should explain that in my country, we have a very good Consumer Rights law. Among other things, it states that if a product has a longer life expectancy than two years, then you can automatically expect it to last at least five years. If it doesn’t, the seller (if it’s a business) will be obliged to either repair the item for you or give you your money back. This applies to most items that cost a certain amount of money, and cars are certainly on the list. Not everything is covered (for instance, normal wear and tear), but something that is expected to last the car’s lifetime is.

Knowing this, I decided to contact the dealership to arrange for them to repair the ABS module. I drove for three hours and entered their shop, found the seller, and explained the problem.

Salesperson: “Well, that’s not really our problem, sorry.”

Me: “But… it’s only been three years since I bought the car. I bought it from here, and you’re a business. That means issues like this one are covered for five years.”

Salesperson: “Sorry, we can’t take responsibility for that.”

And that was pretty much the end of the conversation. Talking the matter over with my dad, we were both sure that we were right and that the seller was trying to pull one over on me.

I went back home (another three-hour drive) and double-checked the law. Then I wrote a very lawyer-like email to the dealership, quoting the correct sections of applicable law, which also specified that the seller of a faulty item needed to repair it with little to no inconvenience or cost to the customer. Obviously, travelling for hours would be quite inconvenient and cost me a bit of money, too.

I ended the email by saying that since I had already been to see them and been dismissed, I could get the car fixed myself and send them the bill. This would be much more costly for them, but that wasn’t my problem. They’d had their chance.

The next day, I got a response — not from the salesperson but the company manager. It was a full retreat, claiming that there had been a misunderstanding; they thought I was talking about a different car. I suspected they were lying. There was no way they didn’t know which car I was talking about; I had only bought one car from that company and they have complete records of all the cars they buy and sell. Still, the manager offered to have the issue repaired post-haste, as soon as I could make my way back there. I decided not to press the issue, as I was essentially getting what I wanted (even though I should have been given it earlier).

I went back a while later and they fixed the issue without any cost to me. The car had several other problems later: the ESP module went, and the servo pump also needed changing… but the dealership never tried to argue with me again.

A few years later, I saw the salesperson on TV. It was one of those shows that help people who are struggling with legal issues. Apparently, this particular car dealership had been trying to cheat lots of customers for years using the same sort of tactics they had against me. They were telling customers who reported problems that it wasn’t their responsibility (despite the law saying otherwise), hoping to get away with it if the customers didn’t know their rights. The TV journalist tore the salesman a new one, listing case after case where they had broken the law, forcing the company reps to make a meek apology. They looked pathetic. On national TV.

I had already cut ties with the dealership at this point, never doing any sort of business with them again. My dad (who had previously bought four different cars from this dealership) also blacklisted them. The dealership is still in business, but from what I’m told, they made some changes to their personnel after that TV show’s visit.

Know your legal rights, people!

I work in commercial insurance for a large, national insurer. A customer is passed up to me from our personal insurance side. He has a personal auto insurance policy with us but no commercial policies. He is passed to me because he has some questions on the functioning of commercial policies that the other agent can’t answer.

Me: “Good afternoon, sir. I understand you had some questions about commercial auto insurance, is that correct?”

Customer: “Yes, can the owner of a company be excluded from coverage on a commercial policy?”

Me: “Are you trying to start a policy without being listed as a driver?”

Customer: “No, I just want to know if it’s possible.”

Me: “That’s not something we offer at this time.”

Customer: “But is it possible? Is it legal to have a commercial policy that excludes the owner of the company as a driver of the vehicle?”

Me: “I don’t know if there are any laws that specifically prevent it, but I also don’t know of any companies that offer that.”

Customer: “So, it is legal?”

Me: “Possibly. As I said, I don’t know that there is a specific law against it, but I am not a legal professional; I am an insurance agent.”

Customer: “I was kind of hoping you would tell me it was illegal.”

That is a new one for me; we don’t get a lot of people hoping the answer to their question is “no”. My curiosity is piqued, to say the least.

Me: “If you don’t mind my asking, why are you asking about this? It’s a pretty specific concern to have.”

Customer: “I was involved in an accident a couple of weeks ago. I already reported it to your claims people when it happened, but it was pretty clear the other driver was at fault. He blew a red light and hit me in an intersection, and he was in a company vehicle. I reported it to his insurance company, too, and I got a letter from them last week saying they aren’t going to cover the accident since the driver wasn’t covered by their policy. How does that even happen?”

Me: “Well, there is something called a ‘named driver exclusion’ that specifically removes someone from coverage on a policy, but it is very unusual that the owner of a company would be excluded.”

Customer: “I just don’t know what to do. I don’t want to claim against my own insurance and risk my rate going up when someone else hit me. What should I do?”

Me: “Did the letter you got from the other insurance company say that they were denying liability on behalf of the driver, or did it say that the driver wasn’t covered under that policy?”

Customer: “Hold on, let me check. I have the letter here. It says that they are denying the claim because the driver is not covered by the policy.”

Me: “Okay. I want to reiterate that I am not a legal professional and can’t give you legal advice, but that letter is only saying that the insurance company is not covering the claim, not that they are denying that the driver was legally liable for the damages.”

Customer: *Pauses* “So… you’re saying that I should take him to court.”

Me: “I can’t tell you to do that, sir. That would be giving you legal advice. What I can tell you is that just because someone doesn’t have insurance, or doesn’t carry enough to cover an accident, that doesn’t remove their liability; it just means that an insurance company isn’t going to pay for them.”

Customer: *Pauses again* “I think I understand. Thank you so much for your help. I’m going to call my attorney.”

When I am in high school, I take the public bus to school every morning as it is about a ten- or fifteen-minute ride in a straight line, and it stops very near the school.

One day, I’ve left home and am walking to the bus stop as usual when I notice two shady-looking guys my own age walking behind me, looking a little suspect. 

Realizing their intent, I walk the rest of the way to the stop as fast as I can. Fortunately, a bus has just pulled up, and a queue of people is waiting to board. Seizing my chance, I jump in front of the queue and into the safety of the bus, leaving my would-be muggers disappointed.

This, however, sparks the ire of the people in line, many of whom are elderly. They start loudly complaining about young people cutting lines and how I have no respect — all the usual stuff. Being mature for my age, and having recovered from the stressful situation, I turn to them and politely explain.

Me: “I’m very sorry for cutting the line, but those two guys over there were following me and were going to mug me.”

I pointed at the two guys as I said this, and the message got relayed down the line. Cue an instant change in demeanour from everyone waiting to board, as they went from berating me to wanting to know if I was okay and telling me I had made the right decision cutting in front of all of them!