Last Wednesday, I had a hellish day. I’d been woken at 1am by a panicked call, the power went out, and one of my kids was unwell.
I was exiting the tunnel at that point, and I had to negotiate several lanes of heavy traffic to find a safe place to stop. This was not an easy feat. The police officer stopped too, and approached my window.He informed me that he had seen me touch my phone, which was secured in its cradle attached to the dashboard.“You’re not allowed to touch your phone while you’re driving.”I was already stressed, and now my brain was spinning. “Oh, god, I’m sorry,” I said.
Yes, I’d had a bad day, and yes, it has been a brutal month in NSW, but even on a good day, a police officer is intimidating. And if I feel disempowered as a white woman, I can only imagine how disempowered a person from a marginalised minority must feel. My elderly mother once tried to explain to a traffic patrol officer that she had used her phone in the car because her tyre had just blown. Instead of offering to help her, he threatened to haul her to the station. My cop may have been more reasonable, but was I willing to take the chance?
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