I got pulled over for playing my guitar at a red light in my car and made a cops day

As the title states, very true story. I'll keep it short and sweet pretty much for everyone since a ton of people complained about "too much detail" in my other threads.

I have a Digitech RP500 and a Digitech JamMan looper, one is a multi-fx pedal (Digitech RP500) and the JamMan is a looper, which will loop anything I play on guitar and record it (great for making rhythm patterns and overdubbing a melody, it gets pretty intense at stop lights sometime) Here are some photos of the pedals just encase no one knows what the hell I am talking about:

Digitech RP500:


Digitech JamMan Looper:


The JamMan Looper is connected to the Digitech RP500 and they both run off 2 12V adapters (to power them) which are plugged into a 12V port in my car. I use a green 1/2 inch speaker cable and hook that into my Digitech's RP500's headphone jack, then run the other end to my AUX input in my car, which then allows my guitar to be played through all my speakers in my car.

You're probably wondering.. where the FUCK do I keep this stuff in my car? Simple, since I own a 2002 Ford Taurus, there is a large amount of floor space in the front, so I bolted both the pedals down to the floorboards and put the looper in the center of the floor in this picture below (same car I have..):



See that big hump right in the middle of the floor? I bolted my looper to the top of that, and my RP500 sits down near the pedals, but not too much to effect my driving. I made sure I kept it as legal as possible. So now for the story.

I was sitting at an intersection (I don't play the guitar every time I'm stopped, if I'm waiting for traffic or an extremely long light, I'll play around with my guitar) and normally all my windows are open and the volume is up half way so it isn't too loud, but isn't too quiet and I just jam.

Anyways, the light turns green and I start to go and I put my guitar down by the passenger seat floor (I was doing this like 2 seconds after I took off) and I didn't see the cop beside me watching the entire thing.. so I speed up (minding you, I had no weed on me or anything) and the cop comes into my lane and flicks the cherries on, I pull over into a random side street and the conversation went a little something like this:

Cop: Hello, license, registration and proof of insurance please (had it all ready for him to begin with)

-I hand it to him-
Cop: Do you know why I pulled you over?

Me: No sir, I do not.

Cop: Do you realize what you were doing back there at that **** (street name he said) - why are you playing an instrument in your car?

Me: Because I can't really practice at my apartment due to the noise, so I drive around and purposely get stuck in traffic so I can play my guitar

Cop looks at me for a few seconds and then busts out in the biggest amount of laughter I had ever heard from a cop (I didn't expect at all..)

Cop: -hands back information- Sir, you have a nice day, That absolutely made my day, That is one of the funniest things I had ever heard and seen in my whole 10 years on the force..

and as he's walking back to his car, he's still laughing, gets in and drives off..

I'm sitting there like "Uh... why the hell wasn't I given a ticket or something?" - does anyone know if there's any laws out there that prevents you from playing an instrument while waiting at a stop light? (obviously not, haha) Anyways, I drove off and just went home and wrote this thread.

I've been playing my instrument in my car for like 6 months now and never experienced anything close to a cop pulling me over, then laughing hysterically at what I do to get a little bit of practice in.. - if anything, people actually turn down their music and listen to me play (one of the reasons why I keep my windows open, so others can hear!)

Once again, long fucking detail..

Edit: Guitar I use (Schecter Diamond Series Gryphon) - maybe it got me out of the ticket for looking so glossy:

 

Damn you! Haha.

 

I can, but really low, so what's the sense in jammin' if I can't play a little bit loud..

Yeah, people always tell me "that's very clever, I would of never thought of that" - haha.

 

No need to be, I'll sell them to you if you want. I'm getting all new gear for my car soon. I'll give you both of them for $200 even (RP500 retails at what, 300 - 400 dollars new?) and the JamMan I believe is still $300, so there's a deal for you.

 

Great!