Police Encounter

I had a visit from an old friend from Maine this weekend. Our play in the Hartbeat was a full weekend of one green (read: inexperienced) urban bicyclist showing a greener urban bicyclist "how it's done." She motored into town on Friday afternoon, and we pedaled down past Colt, over the Charter Oak Bridge, through floodwaters, and took an upland asphalt route to the Founder's Bridge.

After supper downtown, the fun with police began. It was raining. We bicycled up Asylum St., underneath the Amtrak rail bridge, and stopped at the light at the bottom of the hill. We held the left hand lane at the front of the lineup, waiting for the light to turn green, intending to ride up the hill and bear left onto Farmington Ave. The instant the light turned green, we heard honking behind us. We ignored it, headed up the hill, holding the lane, and with my friend riding out in front of me onto Farmington, I heard yelling behind us:
"You can't ride in the middle of the road like that!"
As I whipped around to deliver, "Yeah we CAN!" I realized it was a large Police SUV with a large Police inside.
"No you can't, I'll give you a ticket," he bellowed.
"Are you pulling me over, then?" I said as I stopped on the left edge of the lane.
"No, GO!" he yelled.
We continued on the short distance to the light at Broad St, and the police made a left while we continued down Farmington Ave.

I thought this was worth sharing since I have never had a police threaten to pull me over when I'm on my bicycle, and I grew up in a small town where a homicide is a once-in-a-decade event and they hand out OUI's to snowmobilers and tickets to senior citizens without governors on their scooters.