A Police Encounter Of Another Kind
Being in a small town and surrounded by local police officers can be a bit intimidating.
Last year, while on our way home from a fun weekend at the Autumn in the Mountains car show in Flat Rock, NC. We were going through the quaint little town of Inman, SC (Pop.3,054) and had the opportunity to experience such a scenario.
I was in the lead, driving our 52 MG TD, with Charlie Cashwell in his 69 MGB being the second car, followed by Bruce and Donna Edge in their 51 MG TD with Ron and Cyndi Platt in their first place award winning 53 MG TD behind the Edges. Vance and Robin Young were bringing up the rear in their 2019 Porsche. (Their 1952 MG TD was not drive-able at the time.) We were all stopped waiting for a traffic light on a slight hill, while sitting there the Young’s were tapped in the rear by a little senior lady in a large older American Sedan. Just a tap no one was injured.
By the time Robin sent a text to Donna to explain what happened, the group was a mile and half up the road. Donna informed the rest of the group. So of course, we all turned around and headed back to see what had happened. Donna spotted the two cars in a parking lot on the corner across from the traffic light. (How can you not spot a Porsche?) We all pulled in and saw things weren’t as bad as we had imagined. Vance and the little senior lady (who was a bit shaken up) had pretty much concluded their business of exchanging insurance information.
Charlie and I were out of our cars talking when I noticed a police vehicle going down the side street. I said, Hey Charlie look at that camouflaged police car, reason being on the side of the car it looked like it had the Police emblem and wording embedded under the paint. Kind of cool looking I thought. It didn’t pull in the driveway to the parking lot, but went down to the traffic light and turned right and then immediately turned into the parking lot, pulling up in front of Charlie and I. We exchanged greetings, and he got out of his patrol car and asked what was going on. We explained that it was a minor accident with the Porsche. Well by this time Vance and the little lady had exchanged insurance information and the little lady had left. The Officer then walked over to Vance to look at the car for damage and inquired about the other car involved. Vance explained she had left, and the officer immediately became a bit concerned, probably thinking it was a hit and run accident. Vance explained they had exchanged insurance information and all was well with them .
At about this point in time, another camouflaged SUV police car pulled up behind the first one again in front of Charlie and I. During a brief conversation with that officer, another camouflaged SUV police car drove in from the side street pulling in behind the Porsche. We were beginning to feel a bit intimidated at this point. But as it happened the officers were more interested in our cars, and started asking all the usual questions what kind of cars were they, what years, and of course where we had been and where we were from and where we were going. You know the drill.
Now to why all the officers showed up? No one in our group had called the police. It happens, someone called in to the police department and said a Porsche was blocking traffic on the Asheville Highway. The first officer was in the area, and heard the call and was heading down to the Asheville Highway passing by our group in the parking lot on the way. Seeing the Highway wasn’t blocked he pulled into the parking lot. He said later he really wanted to see what kind of Porsche it was. The second officer saw our cars and wanted to get a better look. The third officer came by just to see what was going on! I guess that early Sunday afternoon was a bit slow for the Inman police department. For about 30 minutes we all hung out talking about British sports cars and one German car, we didn’t talk about the German car much!
They were quite impressed by the cars and the stories we told about our cars and the journeys and places we have driven them. It was really a unique and pleasant encounter with the Inman police officers.
I guess it just shows that police officers can be regular people interested in our little British cars like the majority of people we run into on our travels. And believe it or not, not one of them said their dad or brothers college room mate or high school teacher or the neighbor had a little British sports car like that. (Now that’s something different.)
