I was driving home from a night out, still relatively early for a Saturday — well, just after midnight on Sunday, to be exact. It was turning out to be a particularly unpleasant drive through the western suburbs — and coming from someone who grew up in the western suburbs, that’s saying something! There was a surprising amount of traffic for that time of night — I think I had the misfortune of being on the road during peak hour for dickhead drivers. It was like every other driver on the road was either drunk or texting or handing over the wheel to their seeing eye dog. Actually, I suspect most seeing eye dogs could do a better job of driving than the people who were on the road that night. With all these cars around me swerving and careening all over the place, I was driving unusually slowly and carefully, so naturally I was being constantly tailgated. Cars would overtake me then speed off ahead of me, swerving erratically between lanes. Someone really needs to explain to these people that lane markings on the road are more than just "guidelines". It was getting so annoying that I decided to get off the main roads and make the last part of my journey home through backstreets.

All was good for a while, and I was enjoying the relative quiet and the lack of traffic as I leisurely made my way home. Then out of nowhere I notice a car right behind me — I’m being tailgated again!

"What the fuck is going on tonight?" I wonder. No matter where I go I can’t seem to escape dickhead drivers. And where did that car behind me come from anyway? There weren’t any cars anywhere near me a moment ago!

Then lights start flashing, and I realise it’s a police car. I pull over. What did I do? Did I forget to indicate somewhere? Oh the irony, if get pulled over for something as trivial as not indicating, given the sort of fucked up driving I’ve seen tonight. Or just a breath test? I’d had a couple beers very early in the night, but no where near enough to be over the limit, so wasn’t concerned if it was going to be a breath test.

The police officer comes to my window, flashlight in hand, air of stern, serious authority in full effect.

"Just a random license check sir," he says. "We’ll just quickly check your license and you can be on your way."

Really? That’s why they pulled me over? Then as I’m getting my license out of my wallet he asks: "Do you live in the area?"

"No, I live on the other side of town, but my meth dealer lives near here. The crystal meth is better on this side of town," is what I did not say.

"Yeah, I just live up the road," is what I actually did say.

That question really annoyed me. I actually don’t have a problem with being pulled over for a random breath test. Having lived in the western suburbs all my life, I’ve seen some fucked up driving in my time. Not the least from my next door neighbor, who just about every weekend stumbles into his car, already so drunk he can barely walk, half a stubby of beer in hand, and drives off — to the local pub most likely. He inevitably returns in the early hours of the morning, music from his car stereo going full blast as he somehow manages to miraculously negotiate his car into his driveway with a blood alcohol level most likely off the charts. Or his many visitors, who come over, drink all day, then get into their cars and drive off. Given these are the sort of people we are unfortunately sharing the road with, I am willing to sacrifice some of my civil liberties so that the police have the right to breath test drivers, and hopefully keep as many drunken idiots off the road as possible.

But I was not breath tested. I was pulled over for a pointless license check, and asked intrusive questions for no apparent reason. I do not appreciate being questioned about where I’m going — or why — while traveling on public roads and not breaking any laws. As a tax payer in good standing, it is presumably the exorbitant taxes we pay in Australia that fund the sadly sub-standard road infrastructure in this (nominally) free country. I feel I shouldn’t have to justify my movements to anyone — not even the police — when driving on public roads. If I want to drive through the back streets of an unsavory western suburb with a high crime rate at 1 AM on a Sunday morning, that is my right to do so.

Of course, the real irony of all this is that the reason I was driving through dark back streets of a bad part of town in the middle of the night is to get away from dangerous dickhead drivers on the well-lit main roads — and here I am getting pulled over by the police for no reason, while just mere kilometers away countless drunk/distracted/blind drivers are dangerously speeding and swerving all over the main roads.

I hand over my license, and the police officer asks me to state my full name and address. I’m guessing the reason for this is to catch out idiots with obviously fake IDs (or someone else’s ID), but it once again grated on me, given the tone of the interaction so far.

I tell him my name and address. The police officer goes back to his car. He returns soon after, without the flashlight, and without the imperiousness.

"Thanks mate," he says casually, as he hands back my license through the window, then walks off back to his police car.

His demeanor was so different this time I almost laughed out loud. In contrast to his stern authoritarianism the first time, it was obvious that by now he had completely lost interest in me. He didn’t even seem to be paying attention to what he was doing, his mind already elsewhere. I suspect he was disappointed the license check revealed nothing — he was disappointed I was not, in fact, a wanted drug-dealing people-smuggling compulsive litterbug the police had been hunting for decades.

Guess I dodged a bullet on that one.

Good thing they didn’t find the drugs and illegal immigrants stashed in the boot.