Have you ever been pulled over by a police officer for an unusual reason?
When I was early twenties, my dad had a ’69 Ford flat bed truck. It was mud brown, the front right fender flapped a bit at the bottom and the driver window didn’t have a crank so the only air flow on that side was from the little triangle wedge.There was a long stretch of a Farm to Market (FM) road to connect the our community to the highway. During my time working at the airport, there were times I had to drive this vehicle to work. Usually because my dad needed to borrow my car. It was usually because he’d forgotten to put gas in it and didn’t leave enough time to fill up on his way to work.Sometimes he remembered to warn me and give me cash, sometimes I would have to walk a ways to fill up the can he kept behind the seat.When the stretch of land between our main road and this FM road began to be developed, we started having problems with the new PD for this new community. It was filled with upscale luxury homes and apparently, our ratty but serviceable vehicle wasn’t bougie enough to drive on that country road anymore. I will say that I was never pulled over, but all of the men in my family got pulled over on a weekly basis. The stops were mostly at night or early morning. The accusations were usually regarding littering. They couldn’t cite us because the officers couldn’t prove how litter could pass through a permanently closed window. it also shows that none of these officers talked to each other about the shenanigans they were getting up to.After a year of this harassment, my Dad went to talk with the police chief of this new community. He called and made an appointment then hobbled in with his cane and oxygen, asked the man to come look at his truck and then proceeded to explain the harassment our family had been subjected to. We also had accounts of others we knew who had received similar treatment. My co-worker would drive 10 miles out of the way to avoid passing through this town.The harassment stopped.tldr: A luxury community developing along a country highway didn’t like the idea that normal folk can use the road too…