Car tip: Behave is pulled over
Oh no! While washing the messy tree pollen and bird droppings from my car the other day, I chanced to glance at my state inspection sticker.
Uh, oh, It had expired two months ago. This most recent sign of senility, so vividly expressing itself to myself, made me thank goodness we older folks don’t often get pulled over by Sheriff Charlie Jett’s troopers for infracting the traffic laws.
For instance, I must confess my most common violation consists of speeding up to beat the red light. Seems that “yellow” for many of us means “hurry.” Yet, I’ve never been stopped for doing it. Admittedly I once got a ticket in the mail, back when Fairfax County was raising money by secretly operating red-light cameras at intersections. I coughed up $50 without complaint. At least no cop was there to check on my state sticker.
But now the state is permitting red light cameras again, so I’d better change that driving habit. Otherwise, I’ll be adding to the financial incentives our local governments now have to put traffic cameras everywhere. Down in D.C., it’s a major funding source.
All over Virginia, local bureaucrats are surely drooling over the anticipated loot. One idea for keeping them from turning the red light cameras into a money factory arose in a letter to the Washington Post the other day: Don’t fine violators in cash; add points to their driving records. Watch the bureaucrats squash that notion like a bug. The only time in recent years I got pulled over was late one night while driving through Stafford’s wayside area on U.S. 1. Slowing to a nervous stop, due to the flashing lights in my rearview mirror, I tried to imagine what I might have done to merit this attention, from a state trooper no less.
A pleasant young woman wearing that ridiculous cavalry hat shone her flashlight in my face and asked me if I had been drinking. Not a thing, I responded truthfully. Well, sleepy perhaps, since I had been observed weaving a bit in the lane? Maybe so, I responded. With a cheerful admonition to pay closer attention to the road, she waved me on.
I feel certain, in retrospect, that she was trooper Jessica Cheney, the young lady who later got killed by another driver just a bit further north on U.S. 1, across from the skating rink, while directing traffic around an accident. The Route 610 bridge over the Interstate was named in her honor.
What if it had been a male, black trooper instead who stopped me that evening? Or what if I had been the black? I suspect it would not have made any difference. Yet, recent stories about traffic stops being racially influenced make me wonder.
Although a federal study finds that police are equally likely to pull over drivers regardless of race, blacks and Hispanics are much more likely to be searched and arrested. True, the study doesn’t constitute “proof that police treat people differently along demographic lines...”
But we can guess, so let’s do. White folks live a lot longer than others, and when we older citizens get stopped, we react—from long training—with respect for the law; in other words, like sheep. Younger drivers and minorities with contrary attitudes invite closer scrutiny. They’re also more likely to be drinking or snorting (whatever that means), I’d guess.
Also, I suspect some ad-hoc profiling goes on among the law enforcers. And “driving while black” must be a particular burden, as claimed, along with the Hispanic accent.
But all that is hearsay to me. While I have had a few accidents over the years, the cops have been kind. They have earned my respect. I have nothing but good to say about Stafford’s deputies, maybe because I’ve never had reason to think otherwise. I understand our county has a reputation among I-95 drug runners for being mighty tough on their kind, so they tread softly (acting white?) while passing through.
Toughness can come in handy on occasion. In my family’s early years here in Aquia Harbour, a young man from outside was harassing my daughter. We had alerted our local police to the fact he might try to come to our house and harm her.
Sure enough, he was spotted entering our community and the patrol man on duty assured us he would be herded right back out. Soon the culprit drove slowly past our house, followed closely by a squad car.
Later I learned the cop had stopped him, pulled him from his car and slammed him up against the hood, with the gentle admonition that he’d be shot on sight in the future. Thanks, former cop; the culprit never drove by again. Overzealous enforcement tactics?
Whatever.
Uh, oh, It had expired two months ago. This most recent sign of senility, so vividly expressing itself to myself, made me thank goodness we older folks don’t often get pulled over by Sheriff Charlie Jett’s troopers for infracting the traffic laws.
For instance, I must confess my most common violation consists of speeding up to beat the red light. Seems that “yellow” for many of us means “hurry.” Yet, I’ve never been stopped for doing it. Admittedly I once got a ticket in the mail, back when Fairfax County was raising money by secretly operating red-light cameras at intersections. I coughed up $50 without complaint. At least no cop was there to check on my state sticker.
But now the state is permitting red light cameras again, so I’d better change that driving habit. Otherwise, I’ll be adding to the financial incentives our local governments now have to put traffic cameras everywhere. Down in D.C., it’s a major funding source.
All over Virginia, local bureaucrats are surely drooling over the anticipated loot. One idea for keeping them from turning the red light cameras into a money factory arose in a letter to the Washington Post the other day: Don’t fine violators in cash; add points to their driving records. Watch the bureaucrats squash that notion like a bug. The only time in recent years I got pulled over was late one night while driving through Stafford’s wayside area on U.S. 1. Slowing to a nervous stop, due to the flashing lights in my rearview mirror, I tried to imagine what I might have done to merit this attention, from a state trooper no less.
A pleasant young woman wearing that ridiculous cavalry hat shone her flashlight in my face and asked me if I had been drinking. Not a thing, I responded truthfully. Well, sleepy perhaps, since I had been observed weaving a bit in the lane? Maybe so, I responded. With a cheerful admonition to pay closer attention to the road, she waved me on.
I feel certain, in retrospect, that she was trooper Jessica Cheney, the young lady who later got killed by another driver just a bit further north on U.S. 1, across from the skating rink, while directing traffic around an accident. The Route 610 bridge over the Interstate was named in her honor.
What if it had been a male, black trooper instead who stopped me that evening? Or what if I had been the black? I suspect it would not have made any difference. Yet, recent stories about traffic stops being racially influenced make me wonder.
Although a federal study finds that police are equally likely to pull over drivers regardless of race, blacks and Hispanics are much more likely to be searched and arrested. True, the study doesn’t constitute “proof that police treat people differently along demographic lines...”
But we can guess, so let’s do. White folks live a lot longer than others, and when we older citizens get stopped, we react—from long training—with respect for the law; in other words, like sheep. Younger drivers and minorities with contrary attitudes invite closer scrutiny. They’re also more likely to be drinking or snorting (whatever that means), I’d guess.
Also, I suspect some ad-hoc profiling goes on among the law enforcers. And “driving while black” must be a particular burden, as claimed, along with the Hispanic accent.
But all that is hearsay to me. While I have had a few accidents over the years, the cops have been kind. They have earned my respect. I have nothing but good to say about Stafford’s deputies, maybe because I’ve never had reason to think otherwise. I understand our county has a reputation among I-95 drug runners for being mighty tough on their kind, so they tread softly (acting white?) while passing through.
Toughness can come in handy on occasion. In my family’s early years here in Aquia Harbour, a young man from outside was harassing my daughter. We had alerted our local police to the fact he might try to come to our house and harm her.
Sure enough, he was spotted entering our community and the patrol man on duty assured us he would be herded right back out. Soon the culprit drove slowly past our house, followed closely by a squad car.
Later I learned the cop had stopped him, pulled him from his car and slammed him up against the hood, with the gentle admonition that he’d be shot on sight in the future. Thanks, former cop; the culprit never drove by again. Overzealous enforcement tactics?
Whatever.
posted by Ben Blankenship at
8:53 AM
