Over the last three years, I have been cited for speeding more than the previous quarter of a century since I have been driving as an adult! I am not certain what has caused this increase in apprehension, for I am neither alleging that I am a speeder, nor admitting my success at rarely being caught. The last two years have been the worst, and I have seriously considered that my right foot has turned to lead or my sore right knee has finally locked, as the doctor predicted it would nearly ten years ago. I have even contemplated I have acquired some sort of attention deficit recently or am entering the first stages of undiagnosed dementia or senility.
I have felt that certain tickets for disobeying traffic laws are utterly ridiculous. Stopping for three seconds at an intersection when there is a four-way stop and clearly no traffic is clearly one example. Unless there is something radically wrong with a person’s eyesight or hearing, ticketing a driver is ridiculous under these conditions and rather petty. Likewise, when most cars are speeding on an interstate freeway and traffic is running smoothly, singling out a driver and ticketing that individual for speeding is surely wrong.
On one occasion, I was driving ten miles over the speed limit along with three or four other cars. As I approached my exit, of course, I slowed considerably and eventually was moving near single digits as I reached the line of cars towards the end of the ramp awaiting a traffic signal to turn from red to green. When the light changed and it came my turn to move, I turned left at the corner onto the overpass, where I was stopped by a state police officer. After asking me for my license and registration and telling me I was speeding, I asked him why he chose to stop me when I was simply driving along with three-to-four other cars whose drivers were also exceeding the speed limit. His answer was that I decided to get off the freeway.
I was appalled. I was now driving most recently at 10 mph, while the vehicles going ten miles above the speed limit were allowed to continue speeding! It did not make any sense to me, for I was no longer speeding. The state trooper agreed with me, but indicated my easy accessibility, despite my currently snaillike pace, mandated I be cited.
In addition, I mentioned that I was only speeding on that freeway for about five minutes, and prior to that time, approximately another five minutes, I was probably going less than the maximal speed limit. During the ten miles between my home and the interstate, I never exceeded the posted speed limit. So, I asked him what constituted my getting a ticket for speeding. He told me that some aerial radar had clocked me going ten miles over the speed limit during a moment in time, despite the fact that others matched or exceeded my speed, for I was not ahead of the bunch. Needless to say, I was curious as to why I was singled out and why I was ticketed after I had significantly slowed and was awaiting a traffic light to change along with other drivers in their resting vehicles. I told the officer that I could understand it if I was apprehended while speeding, but I was being cited when I was no longer speeding while the other speeders accompanying me were still speeding the last I had looked!
It seems to me that speed limits are designed to promote safety among the concourse of vehicles. They are not primarily instituted as a source of revenue for the locality or state. There was no reason to ticket me in the above example, for I was not endangering anyone and I had stopped speeding anyway—and my speeding had only lasted five minutes of the twenty-five-to-thirty minutes I had been driving that day. I was topped because of convenience, and not because public safety was jeopardized. There was no lesson instructing the public regarding the “folly” of my five minutes of exceeding the speed limit. The ticket did not deter me or anybody else from speeding for a brief period of time with the flow of traffic.
Moreover, I am a teetotaler and I don’t do drugs. I was wide awake, having already been up for a couple hours and was not at all groggy or drowsy. I was alert and hardly distracted by the enjoyable tomfoolery of the syndicated broadcast on my local public radio station. Yes, my cell phone was with me, but merely lying dormant on the passenger seat. I was going to a restaurant to eat before my visit to the cinema to watch a just-out movie. The only thing my stoppage by the state trooper did was compel me to skip the meal and go directly to the theater, as now I was running late!
Although I am oft labeled a civil libertarian, I am far from an anarchist. I believe in certain controls as necessary by government and law enforcement. However, I am opposed to arbitrariness, and attendance to the letter of the law, while the spirit of the law is damned. I would not go so far as to say citing me that day was immoral; but I will insist that it was entirely unnecessary and purposeless, for no one was ever in danger and public safety was never imperiled by my innocuous, momentary speeding on a short stretch of moderately trafficked highway during a splendid Saturday morn.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
Raccoon Lampoon
I wouldn’t call myself a city slicker, but I did grow up in an urban area compressed with people. My developmental years were spent in an eight-story tenement building, one of sixteen, in Fairfield County, Connecticut, which at the time was the most affluent county in the nation. Of course, I knew what road kill was, but I did not encounter it nearly as much as I have in the Midwest. For the most part, I have been spared colliding with stray animals, until Thursday of last week.
Getting off the highway and onto a county road, I had slowed from 65 mph to about 50, when I entered an area that was pitch black. Before I knew it, two dark and thick animals scurried from the wire-fenced median and darted in front of my car. I realized it was impossible for me to stop, so I steeled myself for the bump: more concerned about injuring one or two of God’s creatures than the bloody smudge that might appear on my bumper. What actually occurred was a complete surprise!
You see, I had decided earlier this year to sell my Toyota Camry of eight years to someone in need of a vehicle. I had already determined I wanted to find a new car, one that was cheap and good on mileage and did not have the thrills to which I had grown accustomed with my sleek, six-cylinder sedan. I considered getting a hybrid, but finally settled on a Yaris—the two-door liftback kind. I took the car on the lot, which was white and without any of the electronic gadgetry I enjoyed with my Camry. It took some getting used to, but I was pleased with its simplicity, except for the exterior white.
I am not a small man. Needless to say, I encountered many people who simply got a kick out of me being cramped in the driver’s seat. Having not experienced the Yaris, they were unaware of the deceptively roomy interior. To make a long story short, I suffered from their attempts at humiliation with a secret pride that I had decided to opt for a bare-boned vehicle. No regrets!
Last Thursday night, my vehicular disposition completely changed. I heard a crack, then a thud, as I hit at least one of the animals in front of me and continued on my way to by traditional stop at the gas station a few blocks from where I live. I had thought the crack and the thud were a bit much for two trifling raccoons, but I had no qualms about my obeisance to traffic recommendations regarding deer and pesky vermin. As I exited my car, I cavalierly glanced at the front of my vehicle. Much to my surprise, the bottom of the fender was broken in two and bent inward, where the prongs had punctured the car’s radiator! Fluid from the radiator was pouring out onto the asphalt and the red pool at first made me think that the bloody raccoon was somehow still attached to my car’s underbelly. One of the brave clerks at the convenience store informed this automotive ignoramus that the redness was Freon and that I could probably make it home before damaging my car.
At the collision center where I brought my car, I was told that at least one car each day is brought in with damage from a sturdy, apparently well-fed raccoon. Momentarily relieved, I tried to convince myself that I had not gone wrong in my car selection in the late winter of 2010. After all, the damage was fixable and the bulk of the $1,500 would be covered by my insurance. However, when I was given a raggedy loaner vehicle for a day, because I couldn’t locate a rental car, and then finally found one with only 11,000 miles on it but still a clunker, my heart started to change a tad bit. What if it were a deer? Would my whole car split in two, with me standing on the concrete as if in one of Fred Flintstone’s motor-less contraptions?
Tomorrow, I am meeting with a car salesperson, a friend, to upgrade to some hybrid or other. At the very least, I got a poem out of the ordeal!
There once was a raccoon named Bud,
Who was ye old stick in the mud:
He and his mate, Paris,
Ran front of my Yaris,
And broke it in two with a thud!
Getting off the highway and onto a county road, I had slowed from 65 mph to about 50, when I entered an area that was pitch black. Before I knew it, two dark and thick animals scurried from the wire-fenced median and darted in front of my car. I realized it was impossible for me to stop, so I steeled myself for the bump: more concerned about injuring one or two of God’s creatures than the bloody smudge that might appear on my bumper. What actually occurred was a complete surprise!
You see, I had decided earlier this year to sell my Toyota Camry of eight years to someone in need of a vehicle. I had already determined I wanted to find a new car, one that was cheap and good on mileage and did not have the thrills to which I had grown accustomed with my sleek, six-cylinder sedan. I considered getting a hybrid, but finally settled on a Yaris—the two-door liftback kind. I took the car on the lot, which was white and without any of the electronic gadgetry I enjoyed with my Camry. It took some getting used to, but I was pleased with its simplicity, except for the exterior white.
I am not a small man. Needless to say, I encountered many people who simply got a kick out of me being cramped in the driver’s seat. Having not experienced the Yaris, they were unaware of the deceptively roomy interior. To make a long story short, I suffered from their attempts at humiliation with a secret pride that I had decided to opt for a bare-boned vehicle. No regrets!
Last Thursday night, my vehicular disposition completely changed. I heard a crack, then a thud, as I hit at least one of the animals in front of me and continued on my way to by traditional stop at the gas station a few blocks from where I live. I had thought the crack and the thud were a bit much for two trifling raccoons, but I had no qualms about my obeisance to traffic recommendations regarding deer and pesky vermin. As I exited my car, I cavalierly glanced at the front of my vehicle. Much to my surprise, the bottom of the fender was broken in two and bent inward, where the prongs had punctured the car’s radiator! Fluid from the radiator was pouring out onto the asphalt and the red pool at first made me think that the bloody raccoon was somehow still attached to my car’s underbelly. One of the brave clerks at the convenience store informed this automotive ignoramus that the redness was Freon and that I could probably make it home before damaging my car.
At the collision center where I brought my car, I was told that at least one car each day is brought in with damage from a sturdy, apparently well-fed raccoon. Momentarily relieved, I tried to convince myself that I had not gone wrong in my car selection in the late winter of 2010. After all, the damage was fixable and the bulk of the $1,500 would be covered by my insurance. However, when I was given a raggedy loaner vehicle for a day, because I couldn’t locate a rental car, and then finally found one with only 11,000 miles on it but still a clunker, my heart started to change a tad bit. What if it were a deer? Would my whole car split in two, with me standing on the concrete as if in one of Fred Flintstone’s motor-less contraptions?
Tomorrow, I am meeting with a car salesperson, a friend, to upgrade to some hybrid or other. At the very least, I got a poem out of the ordeal!
There once was a raccoon named Bud,
Who was ye old stick in the mud:
He and his mate, Paris,
Ran front of my Yaris,
And broke it in two with a thud!
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