Have Mercy, Officer: I Can't Think of a Good Excuse

Every time a cop pulls someone over, he or she is liable to hear an excuse. And every so often, a driver manages to surprise even the most jaded ticket-writer, the San Jose Mercury News reports. Like the pair of Frenchmen one officer caught speeding on Highway 101. They’d studied US driving laws and were sure speed limits were posted on white signs with black numbers—like the one reading “101.” The cop let them off.

Another woman tried—unsuccessfully—to wriggle out of a ticket by saying she’d “just had my breast implants done and they hurt.” Other excuses are less unusual; it’s common, for example, to hear that the driver was speeding to a bathroom. But one officer was still surprised when he returned with a ticket to find a man pointing to a wet spot between his legs. “Happy now?” he demanded. (More speeding ticket stories.)