“Two tickets in thirty years, and one was for “excessive smoke” (I’ll have to share that story some time).”
Must have been an “up in smoke” kind of moment! LOL!
Aw what the heck.
It was as a still silly fellow in my late teens. The old family car, which I had inherited as my personal vehicle while going to college (it was a 1968 Buick Skylark V8) had developed an engine knocking problem. One of the assistant professors of engineering that I liked to shoot the bull with suggested it might be a problem with carbon in the cylinder head, and recommended a product called Carbout. Consisting of chlorinated hydrocarbons (prolly banned now) it was supposed to be poured into the carburetor until the engine suffocated, then the engine allowed to sit a few minutes. So I did just that, at about 1 dark 30 in the morning, finally heading out onto a nearby 55 mph stretch of road to “clear out the carbon.” With grey smoke billowing for half a mile behind. I thought nobody would be out there then. Well that’s when the blue bubblegum machine appeared behind. Talked with an attorney who was a friend of my dad’s and he suggested speaking with the prosecutor at the traffic court. I did that, explained what had caused the smoke, and they canceled the ticket. Probably laughed at this silly redneck boy as I left.