Have you ever unintentionally broken the law?
At seventeen I spent a summer working in a used car yard. I’d only just got my licence, so I was on my P plates—back when they were wired onto the number plate, long before magnetic ones made life easy.
The boss told me I could take whatever car the detailer was working on whenever I had to run errands. One day I needed to pick something up from a supplier a few suburbs away. I should have taken my own car, because swapping the P plates was a hassle. But I didn’t. I just grabbed the nearest car waiting to be detailed and took off.
Everything was fine until I pulled up at a set of lights and a police car rolled in beside me.
The officer looked across and said, “You’ve got no number plate on the back.”
My stomach dropped. I apologised and tried to explain—work car, used car yard, I hadn’t noticed. He took off when the lights changed… then I saw him glance in his mirror. A second later he pulled over, and I knew why: there weren’t any plates on the front either.
He asked where I worked and escorted me back to the yard. He went in to speak to my boss while I stood there feeling absolutely doomed. No excuses. I’d broken the law, and I was sure I was about to lose my licence.
When he came back, he asked for my licence and looked at it for a moment. Then he said, “You know you could lose your licence over this.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m really sorry.”
He paused, then said something I’ve never forgotten: “You’ve told me the truth, and your boss has confirmed it. Don’t do it again.”
I walked away relieved—almost shaky with gratitude—not because I’d “gotten away with it,” but because I’d been met with compassion I didn’t deserve.
From that day onwards, I used my own car for every errand.
The Afterword 
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