The law

I had my first proper encounter with the Danish police today when they pulled me over early this morning. Instead of flashing sirens and pincer movements, they used a small sign saying Stop Politi that was mounted on a rather long wooden stick, which they dangled into the cycle lane in front of me and my bicycle.

I duly stopped peddling, moved my bike to the pavement and lent it on the stand, while a uniformed officer got out of his car and made his way towards me.

“Jeg har et spøgsmål til dig”

Understanding that he had a question for me, I replied:

“Is it OK if we do this in English? My Danish isn’t very good.”

Then, as some Danes do when suddenly confronted to speak English to a native speaker, there was a very brief moment of self-doubt in his eyes, but it was enough to make him say:

“I’m a Danish police officer.”

I’m not sure if it was a desire to put him at ease, or because it was early in the morning and I was still quite sleepy with shower-wet hair freezing my scalp, but I instinctively responded in a rather offhand fashion.

“I can see that.”

It was enough to snap him back in a military-like professionalism and he started barking questions at me.

“Why are you biking so fast?”
“Um.. I enjoy it”

“Why do you have a girl’s bike?”
“It err.. matches my top”

“Where did you just get it from?”
“My back garden!”

As each answer came out I became more and more shocked with my apparent obnoxiousness. I couldn’t understand where it was coming from, but really I didn’t know what else to say. It was true that I was cycling a little faster than the other morning commuters, but I enjoy feeling a burn in my calves and arriving at work a little out of breath. It’s my daily exercise, but I was only a few minutes from my house and certainly wasn’t in danger of breaking any speed regulations. It’s also true that I ride a girl’s bike and was pleased that I’d coordinated my baby-blue hoody with it today. Some of the other reasons I opt for such a model, are that I don’t have to swing my leg over a bar when wearing tight jeans and there’s an excellent basket for carrying my shopping home. I was pretty sure that if I’d offered any of these as part of my explanation I’d only have made things worse.

So there I was behaving like a smart alec in front of a foreign authority and feeling like I’d been coerced into it somehow. I was trying to imagine what answers he really expected from such an odd questioning procedure when he demanded my CPR card (unique citizen identification in Denmark), read the frame number from my bicycle (all bikes are supposed to be registered to owners) and then radioed them into headquarters.

“There’s lots of stolen bikes in Denmark.”

It was only now that I realised I was under suspicion of robbery. I guess a grown man riding a teenage girl’s bike at some speed is prime stop-and-search territory. I struggled for something reasonable to say, but I was on a roll so I relaxed into my new temporary persona:

“I know, this is my third in two years, but you didn’t do a very good job of finding them did you?”

He returned to the car and sat with his colleagues waiting for the radio reply, while keeping an eye on me in case I tried to make a dash for it. I spent the wait being grateful that I hadn’t ended up knocking his hat to the floor and flicking the v’s in his face. Ten minutes later he popped his head out of the window, mumbled “have a good day” and drove off.

I feel sorry for them in a way. They’re either dealing with mass rioting or waving wooden signs at cyclists. Denmark doesn’t really offer them anything inbetween. Still, they really should have been preparing for the 6th instead of making me late into work.