My Run-in with the Law

Anyone who knows me will agree that, aside from my curtailing of traffic laws when on my bike, I am generally a law abiding citizen. I am especially cautious when I'm in an area where I am unfamiliar with local laws and regulations. So you can imagine how I felt when I made a mistake that landed me in the back of a New Zealand police car yesterday morning.

It all started last week when I arranged for a shuttle company to pick me up from a trail-head at 8:00am on the 29th so I could get back into town to catch my bus back to Auckland. Feeling confident about the arrangement with the shuttle company, I woke up at 5:30 and hiked down from the hut to the car park, arriving a little before 8:00. When 8:30 rolled around, I realized that I had made a mistake in not calling to double check the reservation the day before. Not wanting to wait around any longer, I headed out to the main road to hitch a ride back into town. It was still early in the morning and this was a rural road, so not many cars were passing through.

After several minutes of walking, I noticed what looked like a white sedan with some sort of roof-rack coming down the road. I stuck out my thumb and started to slowly walk backwards. As the car came closer, I noticed that the roof-rack was, in fact, police lights on a sedan version of the Go-Go Gadget Mobile that I've mentioned before. As soon as I noticed it was a police car, I immediately dropped my arm and started walking forward. I cringed as the car came closer and started to slow down next to me.

"Can I give you a ride somewhere?" the officer called out the window.
I stammered for a moment, wondering what sort of a sting operation this could be. Although I knew hitchhiking was common in New Zealand, I was not certain of the exact legalities surrounding the practice.
"Um, yeah, sure," I replied and jogged across the road. The police officer didn't bother to pull off to the side and was in fact parked right on top of the centerline, blocking both lanes of traffic. This, in addition to some innate instinct, caused me to rush and throw my pack in the back seat and then quickly sit down next to it. This put me sitting directly behind the officer instead of the more logical position in the passenger seat next to the driver. It wasn't until we were driving along that I realized how awkward my sitting in the back seat was for both myself and the officer.

While Officer "Joe" drove 35 minutes out of his way to drop me off in Turangi, we talked about the interesting agricultural history of the area and then about American politics. Officer Joe, along with many, many other New Zealanders believes in the 9/11 conspiracy; a conspiracy in which the American government planned and implemented the September 11th "terrorist" attacks itself and used the opportunity to wage war against pre-planned enemies as well as restrict civil liberties. I never know how to respond to this argument. It's just so far-fetched and in a lot of ways, disrespectful, that I can't even come up with a sound reasoning against it. So I politely listened to the officer and then did my best to assure him that, to my knowledge, the conspiracy was untrue.

When we arrived in Turangi, Officer Joe was kind enough to pull into a busy gas station to let me out. This gave me the opportunity to step out of the car with my pack and call back, "thanks for the ride, officer," loud enough for everyone to in the vicinity to hear.