The summer before I started medical school I was working for the forest service in Wells BC. Nice little town, you should visit there; I haven't been back, for no specific reason. There were 4 of us working up there and by accumulating overtime hours, which as casual staff we were supposed to take as time off, we were able put together a 4 day weekend, so we headed down to the coast where we were all from.
We left around 3 in the afternoon on a Thursday four of us in a beater car,and stopped for Chinese food in 100 Mile House. I had a beer with supper, I can't remember if the driver did; it wouldn't have been more than one. We kept on heading south passing Cache Creek on to the Fraser Canyon.
It was on the appropriately named Jackass Mountain that it happened.
As we proceeded on, going at or slightly above the speed limit, there was an RCMP cruiser parked along the side of the road. As we passed it, somebody, maybe me turned his head to look back at it. "Don't look back," said the driver, somewhat annoyed. We all knew you never looked back at police cars because it invited suspicion.
Now we were all university or technical school students. I became a doctor; I have lost touch with the other three, I am sure they all went on to become productive members of society. We were just a little nerdy. Our hair wasn't short but it wasn't that long. And we were all white.
Within a minute of the look back, the cruiser was on our tail with the lights on. We pulled over to the side and the driver got out his license and registration. As the cop walked over and stuck his head in the driver's side window I still remember what he said.
"You guys look suspicious, why do you look suspicious?"
He made us all give him our names. I knew that legally I didn't have to do that but it was getting late and we just wanted to get down to the coast. He asked a few questions about what we were doing and finally we were on our way.
At that time the Fraser Canyon highway went through rather than around every little town which of course meant slowing down from 80 km to 50 km, which most drivers didn't bother with. So about 30 minutes later cruising through Boston Bar going with the traffic flow, our car , of all the cars going the same speed, got pulled over for speeding. We figured the cop on Jackass Mountain had radioed ahead.
Because it was our driver's second speeding ticket that year, it cost him his safe drivers discount on his insurance, worth about $150 which he was a little pissed off about. The other three of us suffered no consequences other than getting home a little later than planned.
I have thought often about that incident, now almost 37 years ago, and how I felt and I can only feel sorry for those people for whom this is a weekly or daily occurrence.
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