Years ago I was stopped with my family for not yielding to a car entering the freeway. Since I had the right of way I thought that was odd, but I just shrugged it off at the time.

What I was really stopped for was “driving an old car.” You don’t want to be driving anything that attracts any kind of notice. To a cop, a dirty old car means that a drunk may be driving it, or better a doper.

The reason for the stop was bullshit. I was simply a victim of “profiling.”

Barry Cooper, the ex-Texas cops who runs “Never Get Busted” seminars, tipped me off on this little bit of cop psychology. Old cars mean easy prey; shiny new cars mean rich bastards; any bumper sticker can trigger profiling; frat decals are special triggers as most cops hate college boys; and so on. If you want to escape notice, make yourself un-noticeable. A second stop was more serious, and again I was driving an old car, but this time, I had one can of cold beer open, and another waiting on the seat. Before the readers of this start screeching about drunk driving they were 12 ounce cans of 3.2 Kansas beer. The first thing the cop said was: “I saw you drinking something, something in a paper bag.” I guess he expected me to say, “fuck no, it was beer.” Or he may have been trying to piss me off. Or maybe it was just how he did things. I don’t know. I had placed my coat over the beer cans, so he couldn’t see them. But he was convinced for some reason anyone driving the speed limit in an old car must be drunk, so he made me walk the line in a stiff wind, and did most of the other crap, but seemed to be losing heart fast. The whole time he was in my face about how much I had to drink. I lied. I told him I hadn’t been drinking. He then gave me the breathalyzer test, which I passed. “I don’t think it’s going to turn red,” he said. “Isn’t green the prettiest color?” I asked. That did it. “I’m searching your car.” And of course he found the beer and charged me with “open container.” I spoke to a lawyer about the search, and he confirmed what I suspected, that my rights had been violated and the search was illegal, but after reading up on the consequences of the charge, I decided not to fight it. The only real consequence to the charge was the fine. It did not affect insurance rates as even most lawyers thought. Not too long ago I was leaving the beach at Padre Island and I was stopped just as I cleared the pay hut at the park entrance. I was not off of park land. The cop accused me of doing 55 in a 45-mile-an-hour zone, but I had the cruise controls set the whole time at 43. “Bullshit,” I said. “Are you calling me a liar,” he asked. Realizing my tactical error, I just rolled my eyes. Let me add too, it was another old vehicle, an old pickup, and my hair is longish, and on beach days, a bit wild. He wanted to know if I had anything to drink, and I said I’d had a beer at the beach. So now we go through the drunk tests, but what was odd about this stop was two more vehicles loaded with police arrived. They mostly gathered around the bed of the vehicle and looked inside, but I couldn’t see what they were doing clearly because the first cop was looking at my eyes to see if they jiggled while following his pen. He shouted at me not to look at the other cops. As I am partially blind in one eye, it kept disappearing. “Look at the pencil,” he shouted. I got no ticket. As quickly as the cops arrived, they left, and I drove off shaking my head. “What the hell,” I thought. I’ve been stopped once more in Texas, this time for a school zone violation of some sort. The cop claimed I was doing 33 in a 20. I don’t think so, but I may have sped up just before reaching the end of the zone. I had stopped at a cross walk just a few seconds before and was simply following the car in front of me. This stop too started with a lie. “Did you know that you almost caused an accident back there?” Nothing like that had happened, but I’m wise to this gambit now, so I just sat silent. “Well?” I rolled my eyes. He checked my license, he checked inside the car. My grandson was safely strapped in his car carrier. He ran my plates and D.L. and that was that. The odd point at this stop, like so many others, began with an accusation that wasn’t true. Now I’m just a regular old white guy, and my only point is if they treat me this way, how do they treat black people, or Hispanics? All of these stops were made on the basis of no violations, or at best, really shaky violations. Just as an aside, I’ve never been stopped in my nice car although I drive it 30,000 miles a year as apposed to a couple of thousand a year in the beach and work beaters. But based on my experience I have to ask: When does a cop not lie to you?