My chosen route was along the soon to be "toll road A22", mentioned many times on my blog, via Seville, going up through Spain to Salamanca, Valladolid, across the border into France, catching the ferry at St. Malo to the UK.
By the time I reached Seville at around 1pm, the temperature had risen to a blistering 35 degrees, thank goodness for air conditioning.
As is usual in Seville, the traffic is always heavy and today was no exception. I had successfully negotiated the first half a dozen lane changes before coming to a complete standstill as a number of lanes were converging on each other.
As each car was nose-to-tail, we all inched forward waiting for our turn and a clear break in the traffic to join our respective lanes on the next highway.
Unfortunately, the sign showing my next destination was on the far side of four lines of traffic, which meant that I had to cross a number of lanes to get in position.
When my time came and at no more than 10kph I eased across to my chosen lane, which I had only been in a few seconds, when all hell broke loose and some irate Spaniard was letting rip with the horn. I looked around knowing that I hadn't cut anyone up so it couldn't be me but could see nothing.
Suddenly, a police car appeared alongside, honking away and gesticulating at me. Thinking that I had maybe left an indicator on or had hooked up a dozy Spaniard on the rear bumper, I checked around but I could find nothing wrong.
El Cid, then wound his window down and was pointing furiously in my direction and I got the idea that he wasn't best pleased. He continued waving his arms around as if throwing a fit and I soon realised that he wanted me to pull over, which left me with a bit of a puzzle as traffic was coming in all directions by now whizzing past me at around 90 kph.
Then, as soon as the red, blue and amber disco lights started on the battle taxi roof, I got the idea that I should follow him. This turned out to be only a short journey as he with total disregard for all other traffic, pulled all other lanes and also across me coming to a sharp stop on the right hand side of the road. Fortunately I had ABS, so that I didn't end up with an angry Spanish bear mounted on my bonnet.
At this point the fuzz mobile was half in a lane and half in the gutter as there was no hard shoulder and we were both by now stationary(please note, stationary is when not moving and stationery as in envelopes, trust me I should know having sold millions of the dammed things and corrected many confused people in my previous life) on a blind corner.
The passenger cop opened his door like Dano on a drug's bust and made his way towards me.
He then realised that he was not fully dressed and returned to open the rear door of the police car to retrieve his hat from a plastic Carrefour carrier bag on the rear seat.
Now being fully attired, I realised that I must be in trouble, but what for I still had absolutely no idea, the tummy muscles wasn't even wobbling, I was convinced that I had done nothing wrong.
Looking splendid in his kinky calf length black boots, unhappy cop he made his way over to me and jabbered on for around 20 or so seconds in his native language, knowing full well that I was driving a British registered car.
When he had finished, I threw my arms aloft stating the famous no comprehendé, at which point he stormed off to speak to his buddy who was still sitting behind the wheel of the police car, seemingly uninterested.
Jackboot 2 then emerged from the police car dodging traffic and came along to join the party. He could manage some English and told me that I had broken a traffic rule.
Apparently, as I was feeding into the traffic at 5 - 10 kph, I fed in too soon, and crossed a continuous white line 25 metres before the allegedly continuous white line became a broken white line when is was then OK for me to cross it and join the rest of the traffic.
I told him that I couldn
't even see a white line of any shape or size, as all the cars were bumper-to-bumper and all I was concerned with was being in an unfamiliar place, my attention was drawn to the road sign on the opposite side of the road, which was the next point of call on my journey whilst waiting for a break in the traffic.After a little more chat he then told me that Jackboot 1, was going to issue me with a traffic violation ticket and that I had to pay a fine of €200, or if I pay now, I can take advantage of today's special offer and only pay €100.
I asked him what would happen if I didn't have €100 with me, to which he explained that they would escort me to a bank so that I could get the required amount to pay the fine, or I could choose to go on my way and pay €200 when they caught up with me.Feeling as if I was left with little or no choice, I found the cash and paid up.
This isn't a picture of either of the cops that stopped me( I had to Google for one), as both of them left sharply after I had paid the fine as they were already late for their personality therapy sessions.
Would they have pulled over a Spanish motorist in the same conditions, I really do not think that they would, miserable b_st____s.
