Cop Tailgates Left Lane Driver, Tickets Her For Not Speeding

...how do you cope when you're doing the speed limit in the left lane and the tailgater is a cop?

That was the dilemma facing Dave Ballou's daughter on a trip from her Wyckoff home to college on the New Jersey Turnpike. A state trooper stayed less than a dozen feet from her bumper, according to Dave, while the 20-year-old maintained the 65-mph speed limit.

Why didn't she move to the middle lane?

"There was a tractor-trailer truck right next to her, and she didn't know what to do," dad explained. "Instead of … passing the truck … and risking a speeding ticket or [signaling] and slowing down … to move behind the truck … she maintained her speed, thinking this was OK."

It wasn't. The trooper pulled her over and issued a summons for failing to keep right. The cop wasn't interested in her fear of moving to the right. And he sure didn't want to hear complaints about his own driving.

"Too bad," he told her, noting that he gave her "three miles" to find a way to yield.