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Yesterday, I was stopped twice on the way from El Paso to Midland. The first stop was at MM 127 in Hudspeth County on I-10, the second was on I-20 near Toyah. I was taking me sons F150 Lightning back to Dallas (selling it) which apparently attrected the wrong kind of attention.

Something I did not notice and my son did not mention was that he lost his front plate... I was reminded of that during both stops.

The first stop was a complete surprise, I had the cruise set to 80 (speed limit) and was listening to the radio, when I was surprised to see a DPS car behind me with his lights on! Naturally, I promptly pulled over, put my flashers on, put the car in park, rolled down the passengers window and sat with my hands at the top of the wheel. The officer came up to the passenger side, and stood back sort of by the rear cab pillar until I rolled that window down, when he got a good look at me (pretty dark windows) he moved forward to the open window and asked for my license and insurance. I gave him my license and CHL and told him it was my son truck and I would need to go through the glove box to ge the insurance. He glanced at my license and the CHL, asked if I was carrying (no, as I had flown out on SWA to get the truck), and said OK, sure... He also had another officer (trainee I believe) with him who he gave the license and insurnace to and told him to do a 10-29. From the minute he got a look at me, and scanned my DL & CHL, he was very friendly. We talked about why I was taking the truck back to Dallas , and what a gas pig it was, and that my son (MP @ Bliss) would like the 4Runner he was getting alot better because of the gas mileageand room. He also promptly told me that the clocked me doing 84/80 and that I had no front plate, but that he was not going to ticket me, just issue a warning. All in all, a very professional stop, and positive interaction. Hopefully, the trainee will emulate the SGT doing the training.

The second stop was another 150 miles or so down the road. On the advise of the SGT, who felt the oversize tires were throwing my speedo off a tad, I eased the cruise back about 5 mph, and then some more as I came up on another DPS cruiser. As I passed the cruiser, I waved (didn't think that he probably could not see me though the tint), and passed the officer. About half a mile later, he zoomed up on me, lights goign. Another pull over, same actions, and he also did the passenger side cautious approach. When I rolled the window down, I got the same relaxation and move to the window. He told me I had no front plate, and I told him I had found that out from his compadre down the road and showwed him my warning. He laughed, looked at the warning, and I told him the very short version of the truck. He was also friendly, and just gave the warning back and said, "Have a good day!", and never saked for my insurance or license.

A co-worker who is a retired municipal officer from another state told me that he thought they we looking for someone in a vehcle that matched the description of my truckand pulled me over on the plate pretext to eyeball me. Maybe so... I did see quite a number of cars pulled over on the drive back to Dallas.

Whatever the story was, all three of the officers were very professional and after a minute, friendly. No complaints, except I began to wonder if I was going to get pulled over everytime I saw a police car. Thankfully, I pay enough attention to my surroundings and the posted limits to make a traffic stop a once in a decade occurence, normally.

Jeff B.