I was walking on my way to work on Wednesday when I came upon an intersection I had to cross, like I do every day. As I was about 20m from the intersection I saw an SUV waiting for the light to change so he could make a left. Then just to my right a clearly marked police car (of the Crown Victoria Interceptor kind) passed me and stopped behind the waiting SUV.
As I took two more steps the SUV took off and turned left into the busy street. It took about a second for my brain to process what I had seen. I don’t remember the light turning green for him. Sure enough the light was still very distinctly red. I looked at the police car to see if s/he had noticed it too. The SUV’s actions must have surprised the police officer as well since it was good two seconds before the cruiser’s lights lit up. Even though the light was still red, the traffic was clear so the officer roared off to catch up to the SUV.
I was hoping the officer would catch the SUV just down the block so I could see the traffic stop myself but the cruiser was well out of sight by the time I was able to cross the street. I wonder how that conservation went between the officer and the driver.