Sammy Hagar Can’t Meet Cop Who Wrote ‘I Can’t Drive 35 Miles’ Ticket

Sammy Hagar’s hopes of meeting the state trooper who wrote his “I can’t drive 35 mph” speeding ticket appear to have been dashed after a former cop tried to solve the mystery.

The singer will bring his Van Halen-focused Best of All Worlds tour to Saratoga Springs, New York, on July 22. He’ll be near Albany, where he was pulled over one fateful night in 1984 and ticketed for driving 62 miles per hour in a 55-mile-per-hour zone. The incident inspired the song that became one of Hagar’s signature solo hits.

Local radio station Q105.7 tried to get to the bottom of the story with the help of retired trooper Mike Wells, to see if there was any way Hagar could reconnect with the officer who inadvertently changed his life.

LEARN MORE: How David Lee Roth Helped Sammy Hagar With His “I Can’t Drive 55” Video

Wells, secretary of the New York State Police Veterans Association, did his best: “I put the information out there on our network. The story started to get around; someone said it was this guy, someone said no, it had to be that guy. … I think we had it down to four.”

Sammy Hagar’s Post Writer Is Probably Dead

There was even a possibility that two officers were present. “If it was 2 a.m., the state police usually had two-man patrols,” Wells said. Regardless, identification was no easy task because things were so different 40 years ago: “The Department of Motor Vehicles may have recorded Mr. Hagar’s ticket (but) back then, individual tickets were all paper.”

Wells continued: “Of the people who may have been involved, they’re all dead… Nobody stepped up and said, ‘That was me.’ Nobody said, ‘I know it was that guy.'”

Hagar fans can catch the Red Rocker performing his classic hit on the Best of All Worlds Tour, which has dates booked through the end of September.

Watch Sammy Hagar’s “I Can’t Drive 55” Music Video