Cops

There's an interview in The Daily Telegraph with a Stuart Diamond, a "how to get what you want" guru. You have to know what to say to people that you want something from. For example: one afternoon in New York, Diamond was pulled over for speeding; he didn't, like most people, stare bitterly at the steering wheel; instead he said: "Thank you so much, officer, for stopping me and doing your job. You probably just saved my life." The outcome? No ticket.
Brings to mind what I usually say to passengers, my wife for example, if I see a copper staring at my car or am travelling along with a police car on my tail: "If I'm stopped I shall say to him: 'Haven'y you got anything better to do with your time -like catching crooks?" I hear a "humph" from the next seat.
Also brings to mind a friend of mine who drove a Volkswagen "bug" (the best car he ever had, he said). He always drove fast. One day he was sailing along at about 50mph (or more, more likely) when he was stopped by a police car. "Do you know that this is a 40 mph limit?" the copper asked him. "My friend said: "Sorry officer, I was just slowing down." "From a 30mph limit sir?" What did my friend do? He laughed. He couldn't help himself. It was a genuine laugh not a mocking one and the policeman could see the humour in it. "Go on," he said and waved him on without charging him.
So humour also helps sometimes. But I was once told by a policeman that you might get away without a ticket from an ordinary cop by being nice to him or acting in a gentlemanly way but you won't get away with it from a traffic warden. It seems they don't have a sense of humour at all.