Those Police Officers...

I am a good driver.  I think.

Of course, everyone thinks that.  But I really think I am a better driver than the average person.  Sure, sometimes I do stupid things, most of the time I'm safe, defensive and aware.  Before my mission, I received one traffic citation for speeding.  I was on my way to a flag football game at the U, and I thought I was going to be late.  Well, I got pulled over, written a ticket, and I still made it to my game on time.  So that was a pointless ticket that I should have just been more careful about.

Well, since that time I've had a clean record.  No tickets, not even having been pulled over.  In August, I had a sweet idea to do a Meteor Shower Hike!  I can't believe I haven't written about it yet!  It was an awesome night.  We hiked up to Sunset Peak at the top of Little Cottonwood Canyon, ate dinner at the top and watched the show!  Then we hiked down.  Well, on the way home, it was 1:00am, and I wasn't paying attention and... you guessed it: I got pulled over going 10 over the speed limit.  Luckily the officer dropped it down to a 5-over, which is the least expensive ticket you can receive.  However, I still had to go in and pay for the ticket.  Then I got the chance to go to traffic school!  That was just on Saturday.

So Sunday night, I was taking Kimberly home after a night of doing homework (again), and I got pulled over again!!!  This time it was for not stopping completely at a stop sign, and not signaling for long enough.  Apparently I didn't learn my lesson at traffic school.  Luckily, I got off with a warning and went on my way.  Anyway, I had officially decided at this point that I should be a more careful driver.

For ease of description, two diagrams have been provided.  The gray oval is my car, the red ovals are police cars, and the blue is a Ford Expedition.
So I was.  Last night, after dropping Kimberly off after (you guessed it) homework, I was pulling out from her apartment, when I saw a police car coming toward me with its lights on.  It turned right (see the little red line I drew?

So after the police car had turned, I decided it was clear and I turned to follow it (because that's the way to go home).  As I drove, I looked to the right and saw now two police cars (one from before and one other) following a blue expedition in the parking lot of an assisted living center there.  I watched and expected the expedition to stop, but he didn't, he just followed the parking lot around as if everything was normal.  The cops didn't have their sirens on, just their lights.

Anyway, there were no police cars on the road I was now on, so I continued on my way, expecting everything else on my drive home to be normal.

Well, as I drove, all of a sudden I look in my mirror and see flashing lights - "Again?" I thought, even though the lights were far behind me.  I hadn't sped or done anything wrong though, so I just pulled over and waited.

I didn't have to wait long.

All of a sudden, the blue expedition FLEW past me at about 65-70 mph on a 40 mph road, and the police cars were close behind.  I stayed pulled over for a bit, wanting to just stay out of the way.  It was pretty crazy to be watching a real high-speed police chase!  That wasn't all though.

After all was clear (for the second time), I proceeded on my way home, just wanting to go to bed.  I approached a stop light at the intersection shown in my second picture (1):

I could still see the police car's lights flashing and their sirens blaring about a quarter mile down the street (not shown).  I stopped at the stop light and watched as the expedition took a corner really quick into the neighborhoods on his right (left side of the figure) (still not shown).  A few moments later, a police SUV turns from my right onto the road in the direction I'm facing.  Just then, the light turned green.  As no police cars were behind or to either side of me, I proceeded to cross the intersection behind the SUV.  But as I neared the middle of the intersection, a bunch of things happened all at once.  The expedition came flying out of the neighborhoods in front of me and turned toward my car, into ONCOMING TRAFFIC (2)!  There was a raised median, so he was stuck going the direction he had turned into. Luckily for me, the police SUV was in between the expedition and myself (3).  Again, trying to stay out of the way of everything, I pulled over as soon as I crossed the intersection (4).  I watched as the police SUV pulled in front of the expedition while the other two police cars tried to hem him in (5&6).  Well, this guy wasn't stopping, he ran right into the police SUV!!!  Then, he went around on the shoulder and kept heading, STRAIGHT TOWARD ME (7)!  The two police cars behind him kept chasing, and he had enough room to pass me, but as he did so, a fourth police car (8) came around the corner behind me, almost hit me and tried to block the guy again!  He peeled out and flew across the intersection again, this time behind me.  All of the cop cars, including the SUV in front of me that had its front end smashed in on one side now, continued the chase and just drove around me!  For the final time, I pulled out and cautiously drove home - unscathed.  I'm just glad not to get pulled over, let alone escape being in the middle of a high-speed police chase without getting smashed between a police car and some psycho.

All-in-all, I think I've had my fair share of experiences with police officers lately...