Attention: Chief Constable West Vancouver Police.
Dear Sir:
I write to commend in the strongest possible sense of the word, your police constable Mr. X. To my complete and utter surprise he pulled me over on the afternoon of Friday November 10th on the upper levels highway in West Van. At the time I could not for the life of me figure out why. I was not speeding and because I scan the interior mirror frequently, I had become well aware that a police car was behind me some in the traffic. No worries or so I thought!
Subsequently on coming to the realization that the officer, then with all his lights flashing, had moved into a position closer behind my BMW Z4 than one would normally expect, I pulled over and put my flashers on. The constable brought his cruiser to a halt behind my car, approached and asked if I was aware that I was uninsured? Hell no! I was blissfully unaware. Knowingly driving uninsured is not on my radar under any circumstance whatsoever short of perhaps war just having been declared and even then.
The constable I quickly determined, represents the epitome and then some of policing at its very best. From his calm, friendly but neutral approach, to his analysis of how best to proceed with a member of the public initially and genuinely flummoxed as to why he had been pulled over, he was professional policing personified at its very best. He checked all the excellence boxes and then some.
To these relatively latter days, as I have done since riding motorbikes from when I was sixteen (it does seem so long ago) I have relied on the usual annual mailed notice to tell me my auto insurance renewal is upcoming and hence due for payment. For reasons better known either to the post office or to my insurance provider, until the constable did his job, I was oblivious to the fact that the insurance on my Z4 had expired a few months ago. Thank God he stopped me!
In the strongest of terms, please pass on to your personable constable my deepest thanks for detecting my oversight and for guiding me through acquiring insurance on the spot via my cell. Also on his considerable patience. The person on the other end of the phone had very limited barely understandable English and the freeway noise of course did not do anything to help our communication. The deed finally done, I drove straight to the North Vancouver offices of the insurance seller and collected the paperwork now ensconced aboard the Z4. (In the passenger seat’s rear pouch as recommended to me eons ago by a policeman friend not in the all too readily ‘accessible to the wrong hands’ glove box.) All’s well that ends well.
Yours very sincerely, Barry Devonald.