Sammy Hagar Will Likely Never Meet the Officer Who Wrote the Ticket That Inspired “I Can’t Drive 55”

Sammy Hagar wrote “I Can’t Drive 55” after getting a late-night speeding ticket on his way home. The song went on to be a hit and a cornerstone of his discography. As a result, he has often talked about wanting to meet the patrolman who wrote the life-changing ticket. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that is going to happen.

At the time, the national speed limit was 55 miles per hour. Hagar was famously driving 62 miles per hour when a New York State Patrolman pulled him over near Albany and wrote him a ticket. Then, he went home and wrote what would become his signature song. With his Best of All Worlds Tour heading to the Albany, New York area, a local radio station teamed up with a retired NY State Patrol officer to try to track down the officer who changed Hagar’s life.

[RELATED: Sammy Hagar Reveals Why His Favorite Van Halen Song Pissed Him off at First Listen]

Tracking Down the Officer That Wrote Sammy Hagar’s Life-Changing Ticket

Q105.7 teamed up with Mike Wells, a former State Trooper to track down the officer that wrote Sammy Hagar a ticket all those years ago. “I put it out to our network,” Wells said. “The story started going back and forth. Somebody said it was this guy. Somebody said no, it had to be this guy,” he explained. Wells added that they narrowed it down to around four officers.

Unfortunately, the record-keeping practices were much different in the ‘80s. All of the tickets were paper and they didn’t transfer traffic tickets over to digital records. “The Department of Motor Vehicles may have a record of Mr. Hagar getting a ticket but back then the individual tickets were all paper,” Wells pointed out.

However, that’s only the beginning of the problem. The interaction happened forty years ago. As a result, many of the officers who were on patrol at the time have either retired and moved on with their lives or died. “Of the likely people, they’re all deceased,” Wells pointed out. “There wasn’t anybody that stepped up and said, ‘It was me.’ There wasn’t anybody that said, ‘I know it was this guy.’”

Featured Image by Geoffrey Clowes