Does this make you mad?

[Fin]

A fellow deputy & myself were running some errands this afternoon, off-duty driving his personal vehicle. We're on the interstate running with the flow of traffic when suddenly we are startled by a black late-model Mercury Cougar flying by us on the right side (we are in the center lane of the 3 southbound lanes). We guesstimated the car to be doing about 100mph or faster, so fast I don't even get his license plates. Coming up on a car in front of him, he slows down, only to pass in the emergency lane and continue to blast down the highway at an excessive rate of speed. I manage to make a quick call to our county's radio room to alert them to the speeding vehicle, & my friend & I rode the interstate for several miles hoping the car had gotten spotted by any of the law enforcement agencies that patrol this stretch of highway. I'm not upset at LE failing to catch this person, just frustrated that there was little-if anything-we could have done ourselves.

[replay]

After you alerted them, how did they respond? Did they act like they didn't care or act with concern? I would also think that there may be no highway patrol or local police in the vicinity.

[99TAC]

You mean passing like this?
http://pensacolastreetracing.com/VIDEOS/HOWTOPASS1.mpg

I hate these retarded ricers who disobey every known traffic law just to look cool. Well guess what, it aint working. You still drive a ****box with stickers and a ghey spoiler :mad:

[Fin]

They seemed to care, they even made sure they got the vehicle description right. We have a county sub-station just a few minutes from the interstate, so someone should have been able to get out there in a reasonable amount of time (even though the car would have been long gone). County, state trooper's, & some of the local municipalities patrol the area, since it's well-known there are alot of traffic concerns in that area. Also, there is road construction not too far down the highway (about 4-6miles), and state & local units often watch this area pretty heavily.

[Stump]

If you are an officer, and you could get the plate info, you could issue a ticket yourself, at least you can where I am from. It is difficult to trace a vehicle if you could not get a plate #, so the highway patrols hands are tied.
Speaking from experience, I get about 30 calls a day regarding reckless drivers, and most of the time, the officers are busy with other jobs and cannot break to chase a speeder/reckless driver.
Not all highway depts just sit around waiting for people to call in about speeders - if they were free, they would be sitting at the side of the road trying to catch idiots themselves.

[Fin]

I could have written the citation myself since I am a deputy & was within my jurisdiction. I was unable to get a plate (I was barely able to make out the state plates as it was). I'm sure I wasn't the only person who called to complain about a wreckless idiot that day, but it was worth a try either way. I knew I would have felt worse having not made any effort to begin with, though.

[realpolice]

How about when you're in a fully marked cruiser and they do it? I get passed a lot, and finally I started pulling people over for it. I wrote one guy a ticket for it for 5 over. He was only doing like 8 or 9 over, but my point to him was why would you do it where there's a police car. But in answer to my own question (partially anyway), where I work, there's not a lot of respect for the police.

[Stump]

We had a discussion about this at work today. Our official policy is to broadcast the information as a "special attention" to the area. If it is in an area the State Troopers cover, and there is one on duty, that will get "assigned" to him because that is their primary function on the road.
One major problem with people calling in reckless drivers is that they don't get enough information to really help us track the person down (direction of travel, description of vehicle, plate #, what the actual problem is *driving like an idiot is not reason enough*). Most of the people who call in reckless driver complaints are more upset than if they were shot - and I'm not kidding!


*** By the way, I got to ride in one of our trooper cars today - it was a Camero Z-28 ... what a sweet ride!! I love NY! ***

[Charlie]

Personally, I think part of this "phenomenon," (what else can you call it?), is due to the Hollywood a$$holes making the movies about this stuff. Ya know, something like the "Fast and the Furious" movie. Course, they glamorize this crap. I see it all teh time driving around the DFW area. And, the idiots on the crotch rockets is really bad sometimes too.

I know this sounds callous & cold but ya know, as long as the jackasses kill themselves and no one else, who cares in some respects. At the same time, when others get hurt due to the reckless disregard (and being too cool) of others, that's when it makes you mad!:mad:

Unfortunately, I also think you have to factor in the racial profiling crap too. Generally speaking, I have heard that a lot of cops across the US in varying degrees don't enforce traffic law as aggressively anymore. Some places traffic enforcement has dropped dramatically! In light of all the politically correct crap, the racial profiling issues we often hear about, etc. Do you blame cops for taking this approach? Some cops won't do anything unless they get a call or complaint. It's sad but, under the cir***stances in a lot of ways, I can understand why cops feel this way and take this approach.

To me, I think this is possibly part of the problem with the seeming increase of "aggressive driving" we all have seen.

Just my thoughts.

Charlie

[SS#1304]

Originally posted by Stump

*** By the way, I got to ride in one of our trooper cars today - it was a Camero Z-28 ... what a sweet ride!! I love NY! ***

I ride in one everyday, but it's a SS!. :D