When I am fourteen and my sister is ten, our family has a very busy day scheduled. We start at my sister’s soccer tournament, then we go to my orchestra competition, and we leave from there to go to our family reunion, hosted at my grandfather’s house. My grandfather is a former Chief Of Police.

As we are en route to the reunion, everyone is starting to get cranky, including our parents. Mom and Dad start arguing over who was supposed to bring the food for the potluck, as it has been forgotten. Dad, irritated, begins to speed by quite a bit.

When we get pulled over, he is going seventy-five mph in an active construction zone that is also a school zone. That school must be hosting a sporting event, as the light is on. The inside of the car feels like it’s humming with tension as we await the officer with the window down.

Officer: “Sir, do you know how fast you were going?”

Dad: “I’m afraid I wasn’t looking.”

At this point, Mom starts to bend over from the passenger’s seat to better see the officer.

Officer: “Well, I clocked you going a bit north of seventy, and that’s—”

Mom: “Wait, is that [First Name]? [First Name] [Surname]?”

Officer: “Um, yes, ma’am, that’s me.”

Mom: “It’s [Mom] [Maiden Name]! [Dad], girls, this is who I used to babysit! The kid who’d always tattle to my daddy if I tried to sneak out! Boy, Daddy always said you’d make a great cop. Guess you went and did it, huh? How’re [Family Members]?”

The officer goes to the other side of the car to talk to my mom. She was his babysitter every day after school and all day during breaks for six years when she was in high school and college, and his brother and my aunt dated seriously for quite some time. As they seem to be running out of small-town gossip to catch up on, my mom continues.

Mom: “Oh, and I can tell my momma and daddy you said hi if you want. Heck, I could stop off at your parents’ place across the street, since they’re still there! See if your mom won’t still make a batch of snickerdoodles, since my doofus husband here left the potato salad at home.”

Officer: “Oh, is this the big [Family Surname] reunion? Too bad I’m on the evening shift and can’t stop by. I better let y’all get going, though. Wouldn’t want to make old Chief [Grandfather] upset!”

He gets back in his patrol car and leaves. He never even took my dad’s license and registration from him.

After we have driven — at the speed limit — in very subdued but tense silence for about five minutes, Mom finally speaks in a low, somewhat strangled voice.

Mom: “If he’d ticketed you to the full extent, in [City]? You’d have your license suspended. And probably about five grand owed. Don’t do that again.”

It has been twenty years, and I have not seen my dad speed once since that evening.

Over the past few weeks, I have been receiving many calls from a drug rehabilitation center trying to get in contact with a person whose name isn’t even close to mine who happens to have absconded from the center. I keep telling the rehab center that they have the wrong person but they don’t believe me.

Over the past week, the calls have turned to outright harassment with the person from the rehab center stating that they will call the police, have them trace my phone, and have me arrested for refusing to return to the rehab center.

My husband and I finally get sick of this due to the fact that they have called me on my cell phone fifteen times in one day, and we decide to get the local sheriff’s department involved. I make sure to bring the four forms of government-issued photo ID that I possess to the sheriff’s office, and we talk to a very nice deputy who decides to call the rehab center. The following conversation happens when the deputy calls the rehab center.

Deputy: “Hello, this is [Deputy] from the [County] Kentucky sheriff’s office. I have just been contacted by a citizen who claims that you have been repeatedly calling her cell phone insisting that she is [Person]. Is this true?”

Rehab Employee: “Yes! She is lying about her identity, and we were about to call you to have her arrested because she has absconded from our facility!”

Deputy: “I have just looked at her four forms of government-issued photo identification, including a federal military dependent ID, a driver’s license, a passport, and a Kentucky Concealed Weapons License. She is definitely not who you are looking for, and I demand that you stop calling her, or harassment charges will be filed against you!”

Rehab Employee: “NO, I WILL NOT STOP CALLING! She probably forged those documents! I demand that you arrest her for fraud!”

Deputy: “All of her identification looks legitimate. She has also shown me her Social Security card, several credit cards, a checkbook in her name with her current address, and a Kentucky-issued hunting and fishing license. I also looked her up on Facebook, and the photos of her match up with the forms of ID she presented and what she currently looks like now. You definitely have the wrong person, so I suggest that you stop calling her!”

Rehab Employee: “But she must have forged everything! Arrest her now for fraud!”

Deputy: “If she did forge her identification, she must be a real criminal genius, because her identification 100% matches the security features put in each respective piece of ID! She is not who you are looking for! Can I speak to a supervisor, please?”

The employee begrudgingly puts a supervisor on the line. The deputy talks to the supervisor and asks for identifying details for the person that they are actually looking for and runs those details through their system. Lo and behold, a mugshot for the person that they are looking for shows that I look NOTHING like her. The deputy is very angry now.

Deputy: “How dare your employee keep calling this poor woman over and over again insisting that she is [Person]?! I ran the person who you are looking for through our system, and the mugshot that came up definitely does not match the woman who is here with me! What is your response to this?”

Rehab Supervisor: “We thought that we were calling the right person because [Person] listed this phone number on her profile shortly before she absconded. How were we to know that we were calling the wrong person?”

Deputy: “If she kept insisting that she was the wrong person, why didn’t you notify the police so we could look up who her phone number is registered to? I just checked, and her cell phone number has been registered to her for the past five years! Your client gave you a bad phone number and your employee decided to harass this woman for the past three weeks! I am going to ask her if she wants to press harassment charges on your employee!”

I did decide to press harassment charges on the employee who kept making the calls. The employee ended up being fired from the rehab and had to pay a fine for harassment AND restitution to me for blowing up my phone for those weeks. I hope that the rehab decided to give their employees better training on how to handle absconders who list a bad contact number.

I drive a big rig for a living. The hours can be long, and with the assignment I’ve been given, I pretty much have to drive until midnight to get to my delivery, after which I have to find my own parking space for the night. Thankfully, there is one place I know close to delivery that normally has spots where I can park, even late into the night, and they have a shop where I can get my burnt-out lightbulbs replaced anyway, so it’ll be a convenient stop for me.

Unfortunately, tonight, I’ve drawn the short end of the stick, as just about every spot that I can find a place to park is full. I start driving all the way back to the lot, seeing if I can find SOMETHING back there. Then, I feel my truck lurch as I’m making a turn. Looking at my mirror, my trailer’s tire hit another truck that was in the way!

After parking my truck, I get out and investigate the area of impact. Thankfully, neither party has taken damage; their truck has a deer guard set up, and I was driving slowly enough that my tire didn’t deflate from the impact. For all intents and purposes, nothing ultimately happened.

While I am investigating the “damage,” I see the person in the truck I hit getting out and running toward my cab. Figuring that they want to talk, I walk back to my cab to start talking… only to find that they are reaching into my truck, taking my only key out of the ignition.

Me: “Hey, what are you doing? Get out of my truck!”

Driver: “No, you were trying to run away!”

I just plead on until he finally gets it out before turning to me and demanding to see my insurance. On edge, I tell him no, instead demanding that I get my key back. He vehemently refuses on the grounds that I was “trying to run away.” I try to deescalate the situation, but he insists that he calls the cops because this was an accident, and “that’s what you’re supposed to do.”

Eventually, he calls 911, and I call my company’s accident hotline since he’s escalating this enough for a police report. I give them the details of what’s going on, including taking a picture of the impact for them to see, but before hanging up, I tell them that he got into my cab and stole my key before getting aggressive with me.

Normally, they don’t tell us to call 911 when another party is doing that for us, but after hearing that last bit, she insists that I call the number and tell them my side, as well. Once I call 911 and tell them what I told my company, they ask me to get in my truck and lock it if I feel like I’m being threatened, something I do. I’m only able to get one picture of the accident before getting in, but the other driver is marching on the outside of my truck, so like h*** am I taking that chance.

The police eventually arrive, and the dude starts going on about how I was trying to run away. I try to clarify, but considering how loud we are starting to get, the officer tells us both to quiet down. They eventually get to examining the damage, and I’m told to wait away from the incident. It sucks, but I need to catch my breath anyway.

Once the officers finish up, they ask me to get my papers. I get back to my cab and give it over to them, handing over my registration before looking for my company’s insurance. My company is self-insured, so they don’t have a paper in there stating that insurance, something I completely forgot, but searching through my papers gives everyone enough time to cool off enough for me to say:

Me: “Oh, by the way, Officer? The other driver there got into my truck and stole my key. It’s in his back left pocket.”

Officer: “Is this true, [Driver]?”

The other driver eventually pulls my key out.

Officer: “Give him his key back.”

Driver: “N-no, see, he was trying to run away! I can’t give it back to him!”

They had to settle on the driver giving my key to the officer, who asked me to confirm that this was, in fact, my key. Lo and behold, it was the very one he had taken, so the officer gave it to me. I was given permission to go back to my truck, and I revved my engine before shutting it off to confirm to them that it was actually my key.

After some more waiting, they came back around and told me that they were not going to write it up as a reportable accident. Eventually, they had the other driver move so that I could safely move again.

I found myself a parking spot to bunk down for the night. I walked to the shop and got set up for later repairs, gossiping to them about what just had happened (since they were right next to where we were), and headed back to my truck.

The other driver called back to me since he was on the way over, trying to be friendly (but STILL insisting that I was running away). I had none of his s*** and shouted at him before walking back, getting into my sleeper cab, blood boiling, and trying to pass out.

All in all, it was a completely unnecessary hour spent trying to clarify an event to the authorities over something that REALLY didn’t need their time. Good night.

CONTENT WARNING: This story contains content of a legal nature. It is not intended as legal advice.

I’m a lawyer. A client comes in with a seemingly simple auto collision. The client was hit, and the other driver got out and said something like, “Oh, my God, are you okay? I’m so sorry! I dropped my phone and reached to get it…” The client had a dashcam that recorded the whole thing, including the admission of guilt. Easy client, right?

It turns out that the admission was really important because the type of accident didn’t make a “determination of fault” easy. (Imagine a rear-end collision at a red light as an easy determination, but a collision at a four-way stop sign as a hard determination.) When the cops showed up, the police report found both drivers at fault AND did not mention any statements from the other driver.

But we have our admission, and my client’s damages are above the other guy’s policy limit. So, I send a demand to the insurance company for policy limits. Note that the insurance company has an obligation to negotiate in good faith, which becomes important later.

The lawyer from insurance reaches out and says (basically):

Insurance Attorney: “Look, my client says they were driving safely, and the police report says shared fault.”

The initial offer is like ten grand.

Me: “Yeah, but my client had a dashcam and it recorded your client admitting fault.”

It’s important to understand that this is before dashcams are common. It isn’t my first case with a dashcam, but it might be my third or fourth. No mention of the dashcam was made on the police report.

The insurance attorney says (I imagine while twirling a dumb mustache):

Insurance Attorney: “Interesting, can you send me a copy of the video?”

I say sure and send it over.

Insurance Attorney: “I can’t open this!”

I send him a link to VLC Media Player.

Me: “It’s a weird extension, and Windows Media Player won’t play it. But VLC will. Just follow the installer instructions and it should play with no problem.”

Insurance Attorney: “I’m not installing something to watch your alleged dash cam video. Send me a file I can play if you want me to consider it.”

This makes me unhappy, but I try again.

Me: “It will take less than a few minutes to install, and then you can watch the video and listen to your client admit fault.”

Insurance Attorney: “We are done here until you send something I can play.”

Cue malicious compliance music: “Country Grammar”. Start a super cool montage of me going through other client files. Stop the montage as I open a file and my face is bathed in a golden light radiating from an old Memorex CD.

I’ve found a DIFFERENT dashcam video that does not contain any sound but can be played with Windows Media Player, AND it is close enough to my current client’s facts that if you weren’t paying attention, it could pass. [Insurance Attorney] just asked for “a file” he could play, right?

I send it over.

Insurance Attorney: “Wow, no sound. Guess you’re done, buddy.”

So, I sue. During discovery, I send a CD over which included the ORIGINAL video AND a copy of VLC. He must ignore it because he doesn’t say anything about it.

During a pretrial motion hearing, I play the video for the judge. The judge might have heard the other lawyer’s jaw hit his desk.

Insurance Attorney: “Your honor, this is not the video he sent to me!”

In my mind’s eye, I see the malicious compliance death star preparing to fire.

Me: “Judge, I thought he might say that. Here is a copy of our emails where I described the video, provided the video, and sent instructions on how to play it. Here is a copy of the CD I sent with discovery, which also has the video and a copy of VLC. Finally, here is a copy of the unrelated video which I sent to fulfill his request for ‘something he could play’.”

[Insurance Attorney] asked for a recess. Because he refused the initial demand of policy limits, I told him I would argue that he did not negotiate in good faith. We settled for well above policy limits. The client was very happy.

I’m a woman in my early thirties and have been driving for over seventeen years. I have a pretty good driving record, only getting pulled over four times.

The third time I was pulled over was when I was twenty-four. People in Michigan like to speed. Most people go over by at least five miles an hour, and it’s so common that the police won’t pull you over unless you’re going ten miles over. Usually.

One day, I was driving in an area I was not familiar with in southeast Michigan, close to the Ohio border. I was on the highway in the right lane, going about seventy-three in a seventy. The person in front of me was going slower, so I went into the left lane to pass them. I sped up, as a courtesy to other drivers in the left lane, though there was no one super close to me.

I saw that I had driven right by a police officer while I was passing the other car. His light flicked on, and I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. I pulled over.

Officer: “I pulled you over because you were going seventy-nine in a seventy.”

Me: “Okay.”

Officer: “Do you have any speeding tickets on your record?”

Me: “No, officer.”

He gave me a clearly disbelieving look.

Officer: “License and registration.”

I handed them over and he went back to his car to run my information. He was there for a few minutes before he came back.

Officer: “Since you don’t have any speeding tickets or points on your license, I’m going to give you a ticket for impeding traffic. That won’t give you any points on your license.” 

Me: “Okay, thank you, Officer.”

I found out later that the speeding ticket would have only been something like a point and a $150 fee. The impeding traffic ticket was about $300. I should not have been speeding, but holy cow, paying that $300 was not fun.

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