Much has changed since Mike Weisz joined Renton Police Department in 1989. Speeding excuses aren’t among those changes.

“Those things never change,” says Weisz, 41, a Renton motorcycle officer.

“I’ve heard every excuse in the book,” he adds. “Some are pretty entertaining.”

He often hears, ‘I really have to get to the bathroom.’ He’s also heard fake medical excuses from people driving away from the hospital, and claims that “rock music makes me go fast.”

A woman once offered to cook him dinner to get out of a ticket. But for Weisz, there’s no way out of a speeding ticket. Not even a woman crying.

“That may work for some officers, but typically not for guys like me who are out there doing it as a living,” he says.

As a motorcycle cop, Weisz’s primary job is traffic enforcement. That means red-light violations, speeding, neighborhood complaints and accidents, when the accident car isn’t available.

Curtailing speeding takes up most of Weisz’s time, and he’s good at it. He can give out about 10 tickets in two hours on 140th Way Southeast, the big hill up to Fairwood. He typically sets his radar gun at 15 mph over the 40 mph posted speed limit on the hill.

Although Weisz doesn’t call the police job difficult, he has had some scary experiences, like when he was hit by a car while on a traffic stop and when he almost had to shoot a drunken driver who pulled a gun on him.

Weisz started at Renton as a patrol officer. He has also worked as an accident investigator in addition to his 7 1/2 years as a motorcycle officer. In his early days as a motorcycle cop Weisz worked alongside the pictured Mike Glenn in the now-defunct Ernie program. Ernie was a talking motorcycle (controlled by an off-stage officer with a walkie-talkie) who warned school kids of stranger dangers and educated them about other safety topics.

The workload of Renton’s police officers has increased since 1989, when the city’s population was just under 50,000. (It’s now about 80,000.) But Weisz loves his job.

“It’s the best job I’ve ever had,” he says. “I’ve been riding motorcycles since I was 8 years old. I’ve always had that passion. Now I’m able to take my career and pair it up with that passion. It’s the best of both worlds.”