Racial profiling? You be the judge.

Coming home from work today I approached one of the busiest intersection I have to pass through. Like many other drivers I have to make a left turn here because of a railway underpass project & subsequent detour on the road I'd normally take. Because of the detour the traffic really backs up at this intersection. So many people want to make this left turn that the official left-turn lane fills up, and so people pull into the center lane behind the left-turn lane, and in doing so they free up the lanes going straight ahead. Makes perfect sense to me.

This afternoon I did what I've been doing almost every day for the last couple of years since the detour has been in place; I pulled into the center lane and drove down passed everyone to the end/start of the left-turn lane. Just as I got there I saw a bike cop ahead of me, also waiting to make a left turn. Unlike me he was still sitting in the left lane (but not the left-turning lane). Behind the cop was a car also waiting to make a left-turn, and also staying in the left lane. Being a courteous driver (most of the time) I stopped my car behind this other car, sort of, she was in the lane next to me, after all.

Just as I stopped my car the bike cop turned around and if he wasn't trying to look like the T-1000 then it was an amazing coincidence. He pointed at me and gave me a long hard look and I just stared right back at him and gave him a single nod, and he finally turned back around.

I was thinking, "This is it. My first ticket for a moving violation." I've been dodging them for almost 10 years now ;) but when we got our green left-turn arrow the cop made a left into the left lane and zoomed off, meanwhile I turned left into the right lane (of a three lane road).

So here's the deal. I live in a predominantly hispanic area, although lately the asians are moving in (driving up property prices) and forcing the hispanics out. But I'm neither hispanic nor asian, I'm just about as white as you can get, so when the cop turned around to eyeball me he found himself looking at a middle-aged white guy with an almost military short haircut (did I really just call myself middle-aged?).

Now either the cop was only interested in people running red lights or speeding (bike cops are notorious for giving out tickets), or it's not close to the end of the month and he's currently looking good to fill his quota...or he decided to "let me off" because he'd rather find a hispanic-american to give a ticket. Or some other reason, who knows. Maybe being 4:30pm he just couldn't be bothered writing out another ticket this close to the end of his day. All I care about is I dodged another ticket :) I know, I know, they'll get me eventually. It's bound to happen sooner or later, but it didn't happen today :P