When I first took The Boy to his new school, I was told to watch out when crossing the Willey bridge (part of Chippenham Pkwy.) "It’s a 45 road but it feels like a highway and the cops know that," was how one person put it.

I was extra careful for the first few weeks going either way on the bridge, but I realized that I was "that guy" going 45 or 50 when everyone else was hitting 55 or more. So I began keeping up with traffic instead. Hitting 65 on that stretch seemed about average many mornings.

Today, though, I noticed immediately when getting toward the bridge that the traffic was behaving oddly. There was a lot more bunching of cars, especially in the left lane. When that kind of pattern emerges it’s almost always because of a cop. (The guy in front doing 65 sees the cop and hits the brakes. Idiot tailgators do the same, and suddenly everyone’s in a wolf pack.)

Sure enough, motorcycle cop on the other side with someone pulled over. Oh! Also an unmarked car with him. (Hmm… and I noticed an unmarked Camaroish cop car in one of the school zones I drive through, too.)

Normally when you see a cop has someone pulled over it’s safe to maintain your normal speed — he’s not going to suddenly drop what he’s doing to chase you unless you’re hitting triple digits. But the cars weren’t speeding up when they passed the cop.

"Speed traps," I thought immediately. There are probably more cops ahead. Bingo; cop in the median. And a quarter mile beyond him, another. Wow.

On the way back over the bridge (going no more than about 48) there were no cops on the side, but I saw three Henrico County cars zip past going the other way. No sirens or anything, just patrolling or whatever. But I had never seen so many of them buzzing around.

Finally, as I neared my house I saw another Henrico County cop on the side of the road, radar at the ready. At this point I was still in speed trap mode, of course. Can’t be too careful when the cops are hunting to meet their quotas!