“When seconds count, the police are just minutes away.” How many times have you heard that phrase used by gun-rights advocates? It’s a catchy but glib way to characterize the role of police in American society. The courts have ruled time and time again that the police have no duty to protect an individual citizen, and you should have no expectation of that individual protection.
The problem with the deduction that comes naturally from the above statement — therefore, I had better protect myself — is that very few of us are prepared to exist in what the late Colonel Jeff Cooper called “Condition Yellow” all the time. “Yellow” means that you are mentally alert and prepared to use force in your own defense. “Condition White”, on the other hand, is what happens when you’re asleep, daydreaming, using both hands to repair an automobile or tie your mistress to the hotel bed, playing Lumineers tunes on an Adirondack-topped acoustic guitar, or making your way through the tenth “Challenging Stage” of Galaga. Chances are that you’re in “White” right now. To test for this, have someone in the same room with you, no matter how large that room is, point their finger at you and say “Bang” quietly. If you weren’t prone on the floor with your personal weapon out before they finished the word, you’re in White. Congratulations! You’re not paranoid.
The fact of the matter is that most of the safety that most of us enjoy comes from making intelligent decisions about where we live, work, and travel. In the small town I call home, I’ve often left my wallet on the drivers seat of my Boxster, with the top down on said Boxster, overnight. (Maybe I’ll stop doing it, now that I’ve told a half-million people.) Between the years 2009 and 2014, I never knowingly locked the front door to my house. In fact, I’d lost the key. Contrast that with a town like Baltimore or Chicago, which usually account for a few hundred murders each every year. Where do you think there are more police: Powell, Ohio or Baltimore, MD? Hey, maybe the existence of police causes crime, the same way the existence of Batman in Gotham seemed to increase the number of super-villains.
If you correctly identified that last statement as ridiculous, you’re a more useful and intelligent citizen than every single person who has ever posted an “Upworthy” link on Facebook.
Unfortunately for me, however, I can’t spend my whole life at home with my son building LEGO kits. I have to travel on the Interstate system. The safety of motorists on the Interstate system is the responsibility of the state highway patrols, and as I recently discovered, it’s not a responsibility that is taken very seriously.
It was a late night on Route 70, somewhere east of Laramie but definitely west of Washington, PA. I was driving a modern entry-luxury sedan with LED headlamps back from a racetrack on the East Coast. Next to me, reading her Kindle and definitely in the aforementioned Condition White, was a young (compared to me) woman in a North Face jacket. Behind her, in the right rear passenger seat, was her tween-aged daughter. We were doing about 70mph, not in any hurry, with the expectation that we’d be home by 1am or so.
I saw the dual-rear-wheel, current-model Silverado HD coming at me from maybe a thousand feet back, bullying traffic out of his way with his high beams and what looked to be about 90 miles per hour of three-and-a-half-ton momentum. The problem was that I was passing a line of semi-trailers who were doing, at best, fifty miles per hour up a hill. So unless I wanted to play Freightliner Sandwich I was still doing to be in his way when Mr. Silverado got to me. I flicked on my right turn signal and brought the pace up a bit so I’d at least be on my way to getting clear by the time he got to me.
At this point I should mention that the behavior described above is the product of middle-aged cowardice/caution. For most of my life I’d have dawdled in the lane and waited for the guy, then made it my mission to ruin his attempts to haul ass in his empty-bed cowboy Cadillac. Having been run off the road by a jacked-up truck at least twice in my life, however, I’m no longer inclined to make a personal statement about this sort of thing. So I was trying pretty hard to get out of Silverado’s way.
It didn’t matter. Though I had my right signal on, he closed at 90mph or more on me, with his high beams on, swerving back and forth. He was close enough to me that I could see each headlight in a separate side mirror. Fuck this. I dropped three gears and ran up to the next open spot in the right lane. A few moments later, he went by and swerved into my lane as he did so. I expected something like that — the tinky-winky antics of this kind of driver have passed into the realm of stereotype — but I was surprised at just how hard he went at it. Then he pulled back into his lane and slowed down to about seventy miles per hour, a few hundred feet ahead.
Had he seen a cop? What was going on? I knew one thing: I wasn’t going to get anywhere near him. So I stayed back, cursing the very distinctive headlamp arrangement on this particular automobile, even as he slowed to 65, then 60, then 55, then 50. A few times he would swing to the next lane and slow down farther; wary of being swerved at again, I stayed back.
Then it happened. Ahead of me in the right lane, he simply stood on the brakes in the middle of the freeway and brought his truck to a halt. There was actual smoke from the rear tires, something I thought modern ABS didn’t permit even in an unloaded dually. I flashed over to the shoulder of the left lane, knowing what would happen well before he swerved back over in an attempt to catch the nose of my car with his bumper.
I tossed my phone to my companion. “Call 911,” I said, and I took the sedan up to about 100mph, aware all the time that there was a child in the car and that I wasn’t even close to a major city or anything besides empty freeway. Tractor-trailers blocked both lanes ahead. Behind me, the Silverado was closing the gap.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“I am heading west on Route 70, at mile marker xxx, and there is a drunk or enraged driver in a large commercial pickup truck attempting to kill me, my passenger, and the child with us.” The Chevrolet loomed large in the mirrors. The truck ahead of me finally moved over and I floored it, but I wasn’t going to drop the truck with the 50+mph closing speed he had on me. This wasn’t an Aventador or a superbike. All I could do was to get past the nose of the truck that had just moved over and swing over just in time to miss the swerve from the Silverado, which then locked brakes again and tried to hit me a second time. The tractor-trailer hit his horn.
I had an idea; I dropped onto the right shoulder, tapped the brakes, fell three or four trucks back, then shoved my way into a gap where I had trucks on three sides. Yes, I got this idea from watching Burt Reynolds do it. But now the Silverado couldn’t find or get to me.
“Pennsylvania highway patrol,” my phone said. I recapped my story. “We’ll send a unit,” the dispatcher said.
“Okay, we are now at mile marker xxx. Maybe fifteen miles to the West Virginia border.” The Silverado had decided to sprint ahead but when I edged out to take a look I could see him shoving traffic out of the way a quarter-mile up the road.
“We need a license plate.”
“It’s the only Silverado dually with Texas tags in the area, I promise. I didn’t get the plate number because he was trying to kill me for unknown reasons.” Then I gave the dispatcher my full legal name, my phone number, and a description of my automobile.
Five minutes later, I saw a PA State Police trooper on the right side of the road, with his lights on. “Here we go,” I told my companion, but when the Silverado went by the trooper didn’t move. He was busy writing up an Avalon for a traffic violation. “Google the number for West Virginia highway patrol,” I instructed, then dialed that number. I gave them the full story, including the fact that I could see Mr. Silverado swerving at people from half-a-mile back. Then I gave them my full contact information.
Nothing happened, and we entered Ohio about three-quarters of a mile behind the Texas dually. I called Ohio with their 1-800-GRAB-DUI number. “This guy’s drunk, or high, or aggressive.”
“We’ll send a cruiser.” And sure enough, there were two cruisers in the median a few miles up. They did nothing. Then we passed an Ohio patrol Charger with its lights on… handing out a traffic violation. Then another one. I called the number back.
“Hey, I’ve seen four troopers and nobody’s done anything.” The dispatcher took that amiss.
“Sir, we’ll handle this situation appropriately.”
“Hey, you know that this guy’s speeding, right? You can get a ticket out of it.”
“Thank you,” she replied, saying it to mean Fuck you, “we’ll call you back.”
“The hell with this,” I said to my in-car audience, “nothing’s going to happen. Let’s get off at the next exit.” Which was ten miles up. And wouldn’t you know it, we pulled up at the same Pilot station as Mr. Silverado, who was exiting. Five foot nine, maybe, chunky, twentysomething, dopey-looking, wearing an actual mesh-backed baseball cap. Unless this guy was just coming home from a stint in Seal Team Six, there was no universe in which I was not going to end up kicking his manlet ass from here to Amarillo. No matter how middle-aged and arthritic I was. I was going to have a thorough conversation with this inbred Dust Bowl hick, preferably by bouncing his face off the fake-ass stupid plastic intakes that the heavy-duty Silverados have for no reason other than Ford envy. Then my phone rang.
“Mr. Baruth?”
“Yes.”
“This is the Ohio Highway Patrol. I assume you’ve lost contact with the drunk driver you reported?”
“No! Not at all! He’s walking into the Pilot station at Exit xxx. I’m going to sit right here and when your trooper gets here I’ll point him out.”
“We’ll send a car.” And I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And watched Mr. Silverado get back in his truck and drive off.
And went in, used the restroom, bought myself a Coke Slurpee as a calming measure. Then came out and filled up the car with fuel. Then called 1-800-GRAB-DUI back. “Hey, I filed a report on someone and gave you his whereabouts twenty minutes ago. He’s back on the road,” and this last was perhaps unnecessarily spiteful, “probably ramming a fuckin’ schoolbus full of disabled kids.” Then I hung up and drove out of there.
Over the course of the next eighty miles, I saw five Ohio State Patrol vehicles doing traffic enforcement. None of them had managed to notice a dual-rear-wheel truck doing ninety miles per hour and swerving at people. They were pulling over regular people in sedans and SUVs. It’s a personal gripe of mine that the Ohio cops won’t pull over a pickup truck, ever. When I drove an F-150 XL as a company vehicle, I’d test that by blowing down I-70 at 85 in a 55 and get away with it every day. Do that in a Porsche and they’ll put you under the jail.
We were home by two AM. I never saw my friend in the Chevy truck again. If he managed to hurt anyone, it wasn’t between the border with Pennsylvania and Interstate 270. I’m still not sure what I did to upset him, other than sitting behind him on the freeway with my very bright LED bulbs (on, I must note, low beam). I’m not sure how I can avoid doing it in the future. Basically, because I was driving a vehicle that was sensibly sized for the task of transporting a family across the country, I was at the mercy of this piece of human garbage and his shiny-bed pickup with the un-scratched Class IV receiver.
Meanwhile, three states’ worth of highway patrol officers ignored the situation so they could make their ticket quotas and avoid the hassle of having to deal with an out-of-state criminal. You can’t fill your quota if you’re busy booking a guy for assault. You can’t make revenue waiting for a very big tow truck to impound a very big pickup. No wonder nothing happened. Nobody really cared.
Of course, if I’d been killed, if my passengers had been killed, then the highway patrol would have ostentatiously man-hunted for the person responsible, they’d have issued a statement, some progressive blog somewhere would have run the usual copy-and-paste bit about “rolling coal”, and I’d have been too dead to notice. In the end, what saved me was the fact that I’d watched Smokey And The Bandit a bunch of times as a kid. By doing nothing about that kind of on-road aggression — by choosing to focus on revenue activities — the police tacitly encourage bullying behavior from people who think their Silverado makes them judge, jury, and executioner. Don’t look for that to ever change. When seconds count, the highway patrol is busy counting dollars and cents.
TLX, back from your R&T story?
Saving you gets no publicity; you can’t prove a negative. Finding some black kid with an ounce of marijuana and putting him in a cage for 5 years? Winning!
Yep that about sums up my experiences on this topic also.
The irony is if you had proceeded to curb-stomp his ass then you’re the aggressor. :/
Truth MK. Absolutely true.
Another reason I don’t care to be in a car, when you can do as much damage as they can, they think twice no matter how dumb they are. What gets me is the people in double turning lanes that can’t pull in in their lane, gets real close to side swiping.
Granted I have had a 18 wheeler try something similar, though less aggressive, plus you can get away from a tractor trailer.
You can’t get away from a tractor trailer if you’re driving a 1970 Dodge Dart sedan with a slant six.
1971 Plymouth Valiant.
Ah, that’s somehow an even more depressing ride! Unfortunately I only have that movie on VHS, and I haven’t had a working player in years.
Except that you absolutely can, but Spielberg.
You can’t beat me on the grade. You can’t beat me on the grade!
And what have you learned? Best thing is to remove yourself from the situation. If you really want to get the guy, call him in to the DWI patrol on the way out. But get out first.
I have to ask, did you read the article? He called it in numerous times, to at least 3 different state Highway Patrol agencies. He also did try to remove himself from the situation by pulling into a gas station, where he ran into the guy again.
“In the end, what saved me was the fact that I’d watched Smokey And The Bandit a bunch of times as a kid.”
I’d said the same thing to myself. Thank you Hal Needham.
Called 911 on a wide load semi going as much as 90 swerving in and out of the left lane on 95 (illegal) with a “saftey” car. Because it was so big it wasn’t hard to keep him in sight w/o going too fast for 30+ miles, never saw a cop. This was in Virginia, where there are literally cops every 50 feet.
Commercial vehicles like that usually have “How’s my Driving?” with toll free number. I’d call that before calling cops.
I called in a school bus once after it passed me (going the limit+4-5 mph) on a 2 lane road adjacent to a school zone. The person who answered dutifully took my call, but it was pretty clear that nothing would happen to the bus driver.
Silverados are light in the rear, having 68% of their weight in their upper 1/4 section alone, and have a high COG.
You should have put a pit maneuver on him like a boss, BTSR style, and then, after he careened into either the concrete divider or ditch/gully, put the flaming wreckage off his cab out with a solid urine steam, marking your territory at the same time you saved him from immolation (a two-fer).
Only one oversight – should’ve been ALL CAPS
I was just thinking that, especialy at the locking rear wheels part.
Jack, that was gripping!
I have long felt that the police could do much more for public safety by just driving the highways in unmarked cars, and pulling over the no-signal traffic weavers, left lane bandits, texting-while-driving types, etc. Plus of course taking notice of the true maniacs like the one in your story. Sitting beside the road with a radar gun, pulling over every 127th car going 75 in a 65, on a road where 75 is the average speed of traffic, is useless. We really should demand better.
This is a timely complement to the red light camera article that’s posted four down.
It’s eye poppingly expensive to put a trooper on the road. In Maryland it works out to around a million dollars (!!!) per patrol year. (2015: 343 million dollar state police budget, 1500 troopers on payroll, about 1150 of whom are off duty at any given time.)
Pennsylvania or Ohio surely budget more responsibly than we do. Perhaps those troopers only cost three quarters of a million dollars a year. Two thirds, even.
But the bottom line is that whether it’s two thousand bucks a day or three, there isn’t money for very many of them. Putting that limited resource on highway cashier duty when a camera could do that job for what rounds to free ought to be criminal.
I’ve never heard of a camera getting jumpy and shooting a customer either.
I don’t get this math at all.
1m per year: divide that by 365 you get $2739 divide that by $200 (average fine?) you get 13.7 tickets a day written to pay fully for each trooper. This of course is assuming you/we are expecting a ROI from our highway patrol, I am not but your desires may differ.
I loath aggressive drivers about as much as the clueless ones who are impeding traffic with their hollier than though desire to drive the exact speed limit in the left lane while creating a half mile long back up behind them.
Ohio must supplement its cost with tickets. I drive from Maryland to Ohio frequently on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. I rarely, if ever, see police in MD or PA. Went I went to OH for Thanksgiving, I saw 9 Troopers between the border and Akron. I saw 1 in PA, 0 in MD.
When I was in California I had a similar experience with a taxi cab. Even though I had the cab’s plate number and cab number the CHP told me they were not able to do anything since they didn’t witness it themselves.
The El Centro police on the other hand are pretty responsive.
You made the right decision not to confront this guy. Sure, in a fair one on one fight you might well have kicked his rear. But if he’s packing, you’re gone.
I have real trouble keeping a low profile when someone jacks with me… but so far it hasn’t gone bad… but I recognize I need to dial down my response-aggression before someday it goes really bad. Up here in New England it’s one thing, people are mostly wimps, but in other parts of the US a confrontation like that could get you dead really fast.
Dan was an enthusiast.
Waves of light washed over the shiny black plastic of the Chevy’s dash from the overhead streetlamps. All six of the Silverado’s oversize tires droned along in a soothing lullaby of road noise. Dan rubbed his face awake and readjusted the brim of his free hat. “Aaaarggh!”, he grunted in an attempt to stay sharp. He turned on the MyLink system, and tapped the touchscreen until it produced some Country at a full volume.
We’re just hanging around
Burnin’ it down
Sippin’ on some cold Jack Daniel’s
Jammin’ to some old Alabama with you baby
Laying right here naked in my bed
Dan got a semi out of thinking about that last line, and had to adjust his lap belt accordingly. With any luck, he would be naked in a bed with Janice in just over an hour. Primal urges and thoughts of a$s took hold of the young man. “Some cold Jack Daniel’s could do me good right about now. You know? Take the edge off a bit?” He reached into his new trucks vast center console, and spent one of the three tiny bottles inside. He chugged the coarse liquid, yelled “Whaoooo!”, then pitched the empty out the window into the cold darkness. The bottle shattered on the hard shoulder, and bits of glass showered the front wheel of the Dodge Charger. “What was that?”, the officer inside thought, before getting back to the matter at hand on his Samsung.
Some strange headlamps appeared in Dan’s rear view mirror. There was nothing obtrusive about them, but they were unusual enough to steal his attention. His outermost tire caught the rumble strip. He slowed and allowed this, newest of cars, to pass him. He observed the person’s within as it did so. The woman in the passenger seat had her feet up on the dash, rubbing the vent sensually as it warmed her finely manicured toes. The Kindle on her lap illuminated her southern belle features with an alien glow. This made him take note of who was behind the wheel. “Who deserves this?”, Dan thought subconsciously. “He’s like an animal man.”, he thought, “…and who the hell wears sunglasses at night?”
“Wait…a…minute…”
“That’s Jack Baruth!!!”
“HEY JACK!!!!……”
Crab ;
Brilliant as always .
Jack : glad you did the right thing with Lady and Child in the car it’s not always easy being responsible .
-Nate
“Wait…a…minute…”
“That’s Jack Baruth!!!”
“HEY JACK!!!!……”
Nice!
Of course, if you were going for realism your story was missing a large amount of meth…
Too new of a truck for meth. I’ll learn you one of these days if Murilee produces the right example.
Didn’t you cover meth with that old Buick Skylark about a year ago?
That was crack.
Oops, my bad
The words on those dudes’ uniforms should be transposed vertically.
While I agree with many of the points made here, I think Jack (or the editor) made a really unfortunate choice of picture. This was taken during the search for Richard Frein, the guy who murdered a State Trooper in cold blood and seriously wounded another.
Oh, it wasn’t a mistake. It’s become trendy for little nerds who have barely seen real danger on tv, much less experienced it, to hate on police.
I assume you are a police officer of some kind, so do us a favor and share this with your co-workers:
When you treat law-abiding, tax paying, productive citizens like criminals eventually we will find a way to rein you in. When you give chickenshit tickets (right on red, the cop thought he didn’t stop long enough before he turned) to people like my 70 year old, retired full bird Colonel father-in-law, don’t be surprised if the people who used to be your biggest supporters turn on you.
There’s very little that’s rational…or even defensible…about the way “traffic enforcement” happens in most of this country.
The days of them being able to pull that crap are numbered. Somebody will post a compelling dash cam video on YouTube and embarrass the hell out of them. Unfortunately it will have to end in tragedy, not an excellent rant on a car blog.
Doing nothing will almost never get a police officer in trouble. Remember that.
+1 1911.
Nor will being an asshole to women in an office. If feminism has taught me anything is to go negative and tell a girl she looks like shit. Fucked up world we live in.
I used to work a moderately dangerous job, and once had what I thought was a credible death threat to me and my family from an Aryan Brotherhood/Ku Klux Klan member. Police did nothing. Police are great for prancing around in tactical vests carrying M4’s AFTER the violence has gone down. Learned nobody cares as much about your safety as you do, and you need to own your safety.
Am I the only one that thought for the better part of the story that the guy in the truck was going to turn out to be the trooper, or am I just that jaded?
Yeah ;
Me too until the crazy bit started…
I’ve had friends get pulled over for no reason in non California States , hassled for nothing then told ‘ we don’t want Mexicans (or whatever) here , I see you have sufficient fuel to leave the State , don’t let me see you stopped anywhere in this one ‘ .
-Nate
I’ve only ever called the police on people a few times, because there was no other way to get the neighbors to make their yappy little toilet brush stop barking at the wind.
But literally every time I did it, I was filled with this sense of failure and shame.
I’ve always thought there was something completely passive-aggressive and chickenshit about calling the cops, like an adult version of your little sister tattling on you to your mom when you were eight years old.
Fine. The police have no responsibility to protect me. I’m okay with that. But if the police have no obligation to protect me, then I have no obligation to call them for assistance.
The most appropriate response to this guy in the brodozer is to just run for it. Firewall the throttle and get so far ahead of him that he’s never going to catch up with you. If that means getting on the shoulder to go around the rigs locking up both lanes, so be it.
As far as you know, you’re in a survival situation. The sedan has a higher top speed and better agility than the dually, so use them.
No need to call the cops. No need to make anything official. No need to document anything. You’ve fixed your own problem, in short order.
Look, the law of the modern world is set up to accommodate the least amongst us, and I don’t mean the weak and helpless – I mean the fearful and the incompetent. It sure as hell isn’t there to encourage people to act autonomously. In this world, those who play dumb and scared to manipulate the system get the farthest.
I’m not advocating violence, but rather a measured, sensible response to the circumstances. In this case, speed up and lose the guy, even if it means using the traffic as slalom cones.
But of course, the law (who wasn’t there and didn’t see what happened) will try to punish you for acting technically out of bounds, even though that was the only way to resolve the conflict peacefully.
Hey officer, I thought you didn’t have an obligation to protect me. What was I supposed to do, sit there and get killed?
Yea, though my daughter driveth down the valley of Louis Botha every day to varsity
Shall she fear no idiot Toyota Hi Ace taxi driven by someone with an IQ of 66
For she driveth an old w126 Mercedes
Which masseth very large in terms of metric tons
And therefore winneth all its fights except with 18 wheelers
Someone’s sure grumpy :)
The only thing I can add is put an app on your smartphone to record such hijinx, then post his a$$ all over YouTube with a disguised account name so you can’t be sued for ‘violating his privacy’.
As mentioned above the best thing is to remove yourself from the situation. We saw that from the shooting of a mother last week when she went back out to find the kid who bruised her ego – although all the details aren’t in on that bizarre incident.
…i used to organise back-country canyon runs for the local sports car community on a regular basis, and have twice been assaulted by mister-pickup-truck-with-an-attitude; one of my buddies was indeed run off the road and fortunate to come out of his ditch with nothing worse than a cockpit full of grass…a few weeks later another friend on a bike was killed in a similar fashion: his ditch wasn’t so fortunate, and sadly, he was neither the first nor the last…
…police response was always negligible, so i quit running the drives mostly out of concern for confrontation with the sizeable contingent of our group who conceal-carry; i didn’t want that blood on my hands…
Cash is KING…anyone that thinks State Police on the interstates are there for YOUR safety are simply ignorant on the subject. In NY, it is all about local jurisdictions getting $125-$175 per vehicle pulled over (disguised as 2 non-moving violation parking tickets + driving school)…The State gets their $25 surcharge and all is well with the world.
Yep, pregnant wife gets off of I-88 at an unfamiliar exit in need of a bathroom since Albany closed the damn rest areas, gets busted for not seeing there was a turn lane and making a left from the travel lane in the middle of an otherwise deserted highway.
Cop hands her a ticket for a 2-point moving violation and paperwork for an automatic appeal process, you complete the form letter then they send you back a form letter offering to exchange a $125 bribe cunningly disguised as “court costs” for a lesser non-moving violation charge.
Nice work if you can get it, I guess.
“Get up a-get, get get down, 911 is a joke in yo’ town. Get up a-get, get get down! Late 911 wears the late crown!”
Still true today after, what? 25 YEARS.
Public Enemy will be true 100 years from now.
Public Enemy had it right.
I honestly believe you could fire half of the Highway Patrol and nobody would notice (except the state treasury)
The last time I had a run in with the Highway Patrol, Barney Fife pulled me over for having a radar detector. I wasn’t speeding and it was legal in my state, but he said he could make a case that it was blocking my vision (on the bottom near the passenger side)
He let me go with warning after doing a background check for about 20 minutes on the side of the road.
“Officer, somebody in a VW Phaeton just passed me at over 120 miles an hour, then swerved between a couple of other cars before speeding off. That Jackass is going to kill somebody!”
Hmmm, who could have caused that scenario a few years ago?
TTAC in 2009: https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2009/02/editorial-the-truth-about-driver-training-and-the-myth-of-active-safety/
Shoe, meet other foot. As every uploading Facebook idiot knows, Karma’s a bitch.
I doubt very much that Jack ever tried to run another car off the road by swerving at it or locking up the brakes in front of it.
This is a fair point to make. Except… had the guy just blown by me I’d have written it off.
None of the times I’ve exceeded 100, 120, or 170mph on public roads have led to me instigating a confrontation with another motorist.
And — I HAVE been called in and roadblocked for simply going quickly on a mostly abandoned freeway. Happened to me in my Lotus Seven clone fifteen years ago.
George Carlin: “Did you ever notice that everybody who drives slower than you is an idiot and everybody who drives faster than you is a maniac?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWPCE2tTLZQ
It’s kind of funny to read about a person who publicly writes about driving like a 98th percentile maniac complain about a 99th percentile maniac. Welcome to 2015, the craziness has just been amped up a bit. Damn kids today.
Doing 70 in probably a 65 is the 98th percentile? Re-read the article, he was seeing the guy barreling down on him in his truck. 70mph is rather below average actually.
Troll troll troll your boat…
Re-read the 2009 TTAC article I linked to. My point was that anybody who drives over 120mph on the public streets (with some publicly self described regularity) is a 98 percentile maniac; committing reckless endangerment (with a pickup truck no less) just moves a driver into the 99% category.
If the police did their job more aggressively Jack would probably have been legally relegated to a Vespa years ago. Pointing that out may be inconvenient but it is not intended to be trolling.
Great read – I gave up calling in aggressive/drunk/reckless drivers about 10 years ago because no one ever does anything. I’ve had the exact same experience.
The last time I ever called was when a wrong way driver on I-5 took us on head on at highway speed. I decided to hold the lane and slow down to keep the closure speed and impact to a survivable level, they swerved and went into the left hand median continuing at full highway speed the wrong way on I-5 in moderate traffic.
Hit the OnStar emergency button, got transferred to WSP and the dispatcher. “We know sir other people are calling,” in a f-u voice that said, “why are you wasting my time.”
The next day we dug through the news, as wrong way drivers attempting to kill people on I-5 in moderate traffic in the Seattle burbs is, well, even on a busy news day – news.
Nothing.
Zip.
Nada.
So I’m suspecting that drunky Mcdrunkenstien or Little old Lady Confusenstein or Angry McCrackhead found a way off the Interstate and didn’t have any consequences from local law enforcement. Thank God they didn’t ask me for a license plate or I’d of lost it – I could see it because of the 100 MPH combined closure speed and their headlights coming right at me.
Highway “law” enforcement is a joke – it has zero to do with safety or serving and protecting the public interest. Lets call it what it is – random shake downs of motorists for revenue enhancement. At least in Mexico the police make it very clear that is what their role is in traffic enforcement.
I have a friend who also had a very similar experience, and he is local police officer who was off duty when it happened. When he called it in, they blew him off as well. He then stopped behind a troopers giving a ticket and told him. That guy blew him off too.
Money is all they want. The government is a corruption machine.
I called 911 to report a huge 4″x4″x8′ piece of lumber on the highway and the lady snapped that they already knew. How f’ would I know that?
They did make a big deal out of that wrong way, repeat drunk driver that killed someone (more than one?) on 520 though… I guess that was a bit more high profile.
I once briefly felt a moment of embarrassment went a co worker stated that most owners of full size pickups own them mostly for the image.
Until I remembered that owning three ranches and more trailers than I can count and using them frequently, often at the same time the pickup beds are full, brought me back to realizing I’m not that “most” group, and the guy is correct. I own pickups because I need them.
Full size pickup drivers are the most arrogant, aggressive drivers on the road. I’ve often wanted to publish a book: “How to drive your car in an environment with full size pickups”. It would caution you that you never change lanes in such a way as to end up in front of a pickup, never, repeat, never, even remotely tailgate a pickup, never cut them off, antagonize them, etc. In fact picture in your mind the driver as a huge crying baby in diapers with the strength of a gorilla and probably armed (frequently also intoxicated). A huge, spoiled, undisciplined baby that cares for nothing except itself. And not limited to the male sex by the way.
Now you fellow pickup drivers, don’t chew me out for this. I have a 3/4 ton and my wife owns the 1 ton dually. But the vehicle you see me in most often on a day to day basis is a 2004 Mustang GT.
Yup. And in my area at least it is the guys who drive Dodge/Ram that are the worst. Because Hemi and “aggressive” styling/dual exhaust appeals more to that demographic I guess.
I also have a truck that I use as a truck. Its not my daily driver.
You win this thread. Every time I’m closed on at more than 5-10 mph by a 4×4 pickup, I think to myself that its driver is going to do something meatheaded. And at least three-quarters of the time it happens. Sometimes it’s just garden-variety tailgating, sometimes it’s going around on the right *as I’m already signaling to move right*, sometimes it’s very personal gestures, sometimes it’s not directed at me but at the next guy.
There is something going on that has made a huge number of men extremely insecure about their masculinity. They act out by driving cartoonishly masculine pickups, and by looking for confrontation. Often at the same time.
Dal,
They’re all cartoonishly masculine looking.
@ Pesky ;
No , you are 1,000 % correct .
I own a full size albeit small , old American Pickup and I like to drive it but I am also aware it’s a deathtrap if I do anything stupid .
BTW : I am _LOVING_ the stories , keep ’em coming .
-Nate
Really, Jack? The police are all lazy-asses because they didn’t drop everything to respond to one 911 call about an aggressive driver?
First of all, those calls are a dime a dozen. Your situation, while critical to you at the time (and to me too if I had been in your shoes, with my children in the back seat), was in fact no different from thousands of others that get reported every day. It barely makes the radar, unless it attracts many calls or involves an actual collision.
Second, you make it sound like all the cops were on doughnut breaks. But handing out speeding tickets is part of their job. So is pulling over suspected drunk drivers, armed robbers, child abductors, etc. Sounds to me like they were being anything but lazy that day.
Finally, I come from a police family (surprise surprise) and have never known a cop who enjoyed traffic duty. Most of these guys LIVE to catch the bad guys who threaten your family. I think it’s grossly unfair – and factually inaccurate – to imply otherwise.
If it was one of your “police family” members calling in about an overly aggressive driver, do you think it would have been treated as “a dime a dozen”?
Have you ever known an off-duty cop who got a break when stopped for a traffic violation due to “professional courtesy”? Ever used any of your family connections in an encounter with a LEO?
Nobody is suggesting that cops don’t extend professional courtesies to each other. Name a profession that doesn’t “take care of its own”.
What I am suggesting is that the cop-bashing threads are getting a little tired, and increasingly reliant on bias and speculation as opposed to facts. I admire Jack’s writing for its objectivity – for getting the other side of the story or at least speculating on what it might be – but some of these cop pieces fall short of that standard.
The thing that gets my goat is, if the likelihood of this being followed up on is zero, why make noises that it will be rather than correctly set expectations from the start?
I may not like a sh!t sandwich but if I gotta eat one just tell me so and hand me the ketchup, don’t tell me it’s steak and think I won’t notice.
I’m sure dispatch can’t always know for sure while they’re on the phone with you whether there will or won’t be follow-up, but this seems to indicate that standard operating procedure is to say someone will be sent regardless of what will really happen, which I think you can agree is disingenuous.
” bullying traffic out of his way with his high beams and what looked to be about 90 miles per hour”
That’s pretty close to how many cops seem to drive these days. There’s a Michigan State Police post near my house and it’s not unusual for me to get onto the freeway behind a state trooper and watch him take it up to about 85 as people notice a cop in their mirror and get out of the way. If they come across a car that doesn’t get out of the way, there’s a good chance it will get pulled over for doing less than the cop was doing.
It’s almost as if their strategy is to be the second fastest car on the road, speed limits be damned (well, for them).
The only time that I see police officers obeying traffic or parking laws is when they are doing just less than the speed limit in the right line, trolling for speeders. Otherwise, they drive at least 5 mph faster than most anyone else on the road. If you watch a cop drive for any length of time you’ll invariably see them do stuff for which they’d write you up.
The law is pretty specific about when cops can break traffic and parking laws but most cops seem to think they can do it whenever they feel like it.
Is it too much to ask that the people whose job it is to enforce the law actually, you know, follow it?
Couldn’t agree more. Many cops I watch on the road set a lousy example. No turn signals, lights off during dark, rainy days, speeding when they’re often going nowhere that requires it. I’ve had a number come up on me very aggressively without giving a reasonable chance to pull over. And I’m no slow driver nor hugger of the fast lane. Not by a long shot. On the other hand. I’ve watched troopers on the interstates drive very slowly and force all the cars behind to slow way under the speed limit for fear of passing. I’m no cop hater, for sure, but a lot set a poor example.
Around here there thing use to be briefly flipping on lights w/o sirens to drive through red lights when the roads were uncrowded at night. Used to see it all the time until finally a cruiser caused an an accident that resulted in someone winding up in critical condition. I remember from the news that no charges were filed, but it seemed to put an end to it at least unofficially.
When I was growing up in Massachusetts there was the “Registry Police.”
These guys were like feckin’ robocop. There was a kid in my high school who got pulled over by one and made the mistake of mouthing off to him. $510 in tickets later (in 1984) for every possible thing that could be piled on.
Registry police would, as part of their duties, pull over other police officers including the state police, and cite them for violations. In the days of drive 55 to stay alive and a Mass state trooper every 10 miles on the interstates, the registry cop was the feared hand of God on the highway – the “boss” in the video game. An achievement you didn’t want to unlock.
The registry police were done away with decades ago.
If you can’t bring the mountain to Mohammed, bring Mohammed to the mountain.
When I encounter these guys I call 911 and ask where the closest police station is. Then I start driving there. Either the guy loses interest or he’s mad enough to follow me into a cop shop where they’re waiting for him.
I’ve never found this to be the case on Ontario; the OPP and the few city departments I’ve interacted with have, generally, been responsive and helpful.
Now, the OPP marine patrol, especially on holidays. Those fellows don’t endear themselves to me one whit. I still get annoyed at being fined $400 (for four separate fines!) because someone wanted to meet their quota early on the long weekend. Four fines: no bouyant heaving line, no flashlight, no whistle and (this one I’ll admit to) no lifejacket). Did I mention I was in a one-man canoe. In knee-deep water. At 7am.
Marine patrol is a great gig: ride around in a boat and stop anybody you choose with no need for probably cause. Bonus points for lots of young, attractive, and nearly naked people to look at. Plus extra duty on weekends and holidays equals more overtime pay.
Local law enforcement marine patrols are an entertainment and revenue enhancement program for law enforcement, nothing more.
_ABSOLUTELY_NOT_TRUE_ ! .
I saw this cool Bruce Willis movie about Marine Law Enforcement and .
Oh wait .
Nevermind =8-) .
-Nate
You, sir, are the only person who saw “Striking Distance”! Great reference.
I admit it :
I like watching him beat up bad guys in his wildly improbable action flicks .
” Cop Out ” was awful , I’m glad I didn’t pay to see it , I found it on Cable and turned it off after a couple moments .
-Nate
My dad took me to Striking Distance when I was 10. I didn’t sleep for a few weeks.
worst part about that movie was the fact that they cast the painter from “Murphy Brown” as the villain.
I’m confused. Are you saying are, or are not, down with OPP?
Right on the mark there, psar.
Here in our nation’s capital the police are generally well-regarded, but my boating friends agree quite unanimously that the marine patrol are a humorless bunch who carry a big stick and seem to enjoy using it.
My personal experience has been different solely due to the primary purpose of state-level law enforcement. I’ve called in 2 drunk/diabetic shock drivers, both in Indiana.
The Indiana State Police – to their credit – were on like donkey kong. Both times, I was following at a safe distance wildly swerving drivers on 2 lane state roads late at night and the drivers were putting oncoming traffic onto the shoulder. In both cases, the dispatcher stayed on the phone, relayed where the cruisers were and approximate ETA to intercept. It was satisfying to see the cruisers streaking up to pull over/get medical help for obviously impaired drivers.
But the Indiana State Police’s primary job isn’t highway revenue generation, it is policing and they don’t have the same, er, progressive reputation as their Ohio compatriots regarding traffic infractions.
ISP is usually pretty decent honestly. They’re running F-150’s and Ram 1500’s that are marked as INDOT trucks, until they hit the lights. They’re used primarily for speed enforcement in construction zones, and aggressive driving.
I once called in for a drunk driver who tailgated me down I94 and into a town a few years back. I refused to hang up with the dispatcher until I was greeted with a squad car. Lucky for me the driver pulled into a gas station and I waited at the bank across the street. Two minutes later 3 local cops and 1 county cop shows up waiting for the guy to exit the gas station.
Great story. And, alas, all too believable.
Great story! Nice take on the short story “Duel” by Richard Matheson that I read back in high school
Police don’t seem to want any help doing their jobs, as that places added pressure to do things that taxpayers think they should do. I was once at the scene of a hit and run in Charlottesville, VA. A cop was on the scene pretty quickly, as C’ville has more police officers than sane residents. His initial pronouncement was ‘don’t get your hopes up,’ to the owner of a previously nice collector car. My friend and I described the car we saw. He didn’t care. We pointed out the paint transfer, providing him with an accurate color for the hit and run driver’s car. He didn’t care. We picked up a broken headlight bucket, ran the part number on our smart phone and told him the model of car to within a 3-year range. At this point, the cop was getting angry that we hadn’t accepted that there was no hope of locating the responsible party, and he wasn’t going to do anything about looking for a particular model of car in a particular color with extensive right-side damage. On the positive side, crime is down. How much of that is due to people learning not to bother reporting crime is another matter.
That last sentence is probably accurate, unfortunately.
Reminds me of an experience I had–not a dangerous one, but hugely annoying. I was driving east on the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut, when I encountered a pair of somewhat beat-up pickups driving side by side (the Merritt is two lanes in each direction), probably a bit below the speed limit, and well below the normal speed of traffic. I must have been behind them for at least 15 minutes–considering calling the cops–before they got a bit careless about their formation and I was able to get around them.
Dashcams, man. I’m gonna get one myself soon.
Record it put it on youtube (if you survive the encounter) WITH his license plates, and let the world be the judge. There is actually precedent for dashcam videos leading to police action. Bonus points if you get audio recording of you calling Super Troopers half a dozen time with zero results.
The Russins have it figured out already.
With all the safety crap that keeps getting mandated, integrated front/rear cameras that record when the car is in motion should be on the short list anyway. Voluntarily, of course.
Dash cam set ups are getting pretty cheap also.
I have a GoPro I got for my birthday – I guess I should just start using the darn thing.
Cell phone video. Jack had two passengers to record video while Jack focused on driving. Extra content for The Truth About Cars.
“When seconds count, the police are just minutes away.”
I read this one on TTAG:
“Seconds count, misses don’t.”
I have a problem with the new school militarized police. I long for the return to Peelian ideals.
Knowing the sh1t my poor mom went through trying to get her husband off her back, I can relate. Almost nothing she reported him doing made a lick of difference to the police. We lived in terror until the bitter end.
violated restraining order? nothing
harassing phone calls? nothing
death threats? nothing
stalking his children at school? nothing
killing her? GOD DAMN, there were a lot of cops at my house that morning!
If there was a way to monetize crimes other than traffic stops, we’d be a safer society.
Now that a lot of the illegal property seizures have been outlawed, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a marked increase in traffic citations to make up for lost income.
them dang revenooers!!!
I wouldn’t be so sure about that. If you’re referring to the recent DoJ ruling on seizures under federal law, from what I’ve read, they left enough holes in it to drive a dually through, but time will tell.
Jack’s story continues to drive home how I’ve felt for years. It’s incredibly sad that I’ve reached a point where I dread ANY interaction with US law enforcement at every level. Far too many times even the most innocent, simple inquiry or conversation has only been met with annoyance, suspicion or even outright hostility. Bad for motorists, terrible for everyone.
My faith/trust in LEO’s is pretty much where yours is. Drawing from even more anectode, about two years ago this punk stole my wallet out of my house. I had let him in as he was one of the kids in the car when my girlfriend’s son was visiting.
I called the police in my city, as well as the city where he used my stolen credit card. Several days and multiple phone calls later… nothing. All the hassle I had to go through cancelling credit cards, getting a new driver’s license (pure HELL in this state!), missing work, and everything else, and this piece of trash never got questioned, visited, anything.
Name was Avery Wood. Google “avery wood jacksonville” to see how he turned out. Wonder if two other young men would still be alive today if any of the pigs in virginia would have put the donuts down long enough to even shake him down a little bit. Nah, he wasn’t speeding. Not worth the time.
Police are 100% reactive, 0% proactive.
Avery wound up with a hung jury and no further court date set. Looks like he’ll get another chance to kill soon.
Are you SERIOUS?!? That piece of SHIT walked? Oh my god.
What an asshat. I wonder if bear repellant would flow through the HVAC of a pickup?
Probably hard to keep the aerosol dense enough at those speeds. However, I bet caltrops would do the job effectively.
Caltrops! You beat me to it (seriously, I was gonna get done reading the comments and post it).
I loathe I-70, especially east from the PA line to the PA Turnpike. Marked for 55, traffic is routinely 70 mph. The on/off ramps are too tight, with little or no acceleration lanes. It’s two lanes, each direction and those 90mph cowboy Cadillacs are everywhere in that section of PA.
For me to avoid 70, Pittsburgh towards DC for instance, I will take a totally under utilized toll road that takes me to I-68 outside Morgantown. The hills are a bitch, but it’s not as heavily traveled as the PA Turnpike and mostly 3 lanes wide. But the hills, wow. I’ve driven many cars on this route and I swear they are all panting by the time I get to the end of I-68 near Hancock MD.
I thought by this point(nearing 40) I’d mellow a bit on the road. I’ve stopped flipping the bird (mostly) and much of the other dumb stuff I did below 30. But with all the distracted driving now, the annoyance factor for any drive is much higher.
Entering Pennsylvania is always depressing. Crossing into PA from the MD border on 70, you’re greeted with a sign, “55mph next 28 miles.” Until the beginning of the Turnpike, basically. I think they put it up during construction years ago, and just never bothered to take it down. They must be making money off of it.
68 is a great route though. I always consider taking it, but then I always decide against the extra hour and 2 gallons of gas it will cost me.
I haven’t driven much in PA for many years, but I recall in the 80s and 90s they were particularly notorious for coning off “construction zone” lanes for miles and miles, even on weekends with no work, or you’d finally see one small crew on the shoulder several miles after the lane closure started. So annoying.
Naturally, it looks like my job will soon take me to Pittsburgh quite regularly. So excited to return to those phantom lane closures and nonsensical 55 stretches…
I’m not sure what’s worse, no police or too many police.
I live in a town with a violent crime rate so low that it’s probably not even reported, and yet both local police and PA state troopers are both constantly patrolling around, spending taxpayer dollars (I refuse to believe they fill those gas tanks out of pocket) and accomplishing nothing.
In re-reading this article and playing the devil’s advocate, there could have been a lazy dispatcher simply not giving a rats a** about his/her job or taking it upon themselves to separate wheat from chaff. If the call never went to the cops or was given a low priority rather than an attempted murder in progress, the cops may very well have been unaware of what happened.
Cops especially love when you explain to them their job. Except the dually driver hardly fit the profile of a drunk or moving large amounts of cash or drugs. Priorities.
“When seconds count, the police are just minutes away.” How many times have you heard that phrase used by gun-rights advocates? It’s a catchy but glib way to characterize the role of police in American society.
It seems catchy but optimistic to me. “Minutes” would be a distinct improvement.
Situations like this are one of the reasons I bought a dash-cam. It is a whole lot easier in a He said / they said situation to just “go to the tape”, If jack had a video of the aggressor with a good picture of the license plate ( mine does full 1080p HD ) then he could definitly do a better job of shaming the State Police forces involved. Bought mine on Amazon for $68, Cheap insurance for many situations.
This is the one I got, great video even at night.
Black Box G1W-H Hidden Dashboard Dash Cam – WDR 160° Wide Angle 4X ZOOM – Full HD 1080P H.264 2.7″ LCD Car DVR Video Recorder – Night Vision Motion Detection G-Sensor – NT96650 + AR0330 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HMNFWYW/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_Gcp8ub0XTPSTS
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HMNFWYW/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_Gcp8ub0XTPSTS
The couple times I have tried to do this it was dark, and by the time I fumbled around in the dark to find. My phone the situation had passed. Guess it wouldn’t have mattered.
John
Yet another reason why I never travel, even to the store, without my dash cam on.
The highway patrol are utterly useless in my experience. Over the years, I’ve called 911 at least a dozen times to report drunk drivers. Usually this is on Sunset Boulevard or Pacific Coast Highway, where I’m following these public menaces for miles and miles. Never once — not once — have I seen a police cruiser or motorcycle respond.
I last called 911 a few months ago to report a drunk driver on PCH. I stayed on the phone with the operator as I followed the very unsteady driver of a Jaguar XJ from Santa Monica through Pacific Palisades into Malibu. As we approached Carbon Beach, 15 minutes and 10 miles into this nonsense, the operator asked me to put on my hazard lights so an officer could find us easily. Not long thereafter I reached my destination and rang off, still no cop in sight.
A couple years back, after a bad month on the road (including having my parked car sideswiped by a car that took off, while I was standing at the trunk, and having two separate cars simultaneously trying to merge into me while I was on my motorcycle), I wrote a terse, bitter letter to our local police, complaining about the lack of actual traffic enforcement in place of numerous speed traps. In turn, they replied with a long, rambling nonsensical reply in which, among other things, they suggested that there may be an increase in aggressive driving thanks to the then-impending release of Grand Theft Auto 5. I responded, asking if they also expected a similar increase in hooker stabbings and government-mandated torture. I never received a followup reply to that, and had my (lack of) belief in police efficacy solidly enforced.
On the other hand, in a separate incident, my reporting an elderly man for nearly causing an accident eventually got his license revoked (more likely, multiple complaints), so at least a few of them are still slightly competent.
https://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/655x498q90/673/5LmLRh.jpg
Wow, I kind of have a similar story, with a better ending, from Friday morning, on the way home from work. I was going East on the “Westbound” side of Angola Road. West of where you can see on the map, a light green Lexus RX-320 flew by me, then had to slam on the brakes when a semi pulled out of the trucking company. The cars behind me forced him into getting behind me, and he wasn’t happy about it at all. Once the truck pulled out. He was on my ass until we got to the sharp left turn. As soon as I began to make the turn, he pulled into the left lane, passed me, and the Semi, then had to slam on his brakes to keep from hitting the woman in a little car who got the crap scared out of her when he came around the corner in her lane. He somehow managed to end up behind a dump truck at the light at Reynolds road. The ahole in the Lexus stopped for about 3 seconds, drove around the dump truck as he started to turn, and hauled ass to the light for the Eastbound side of Angola Rd. He slowly crept through the light and was almost on the other side of the intersection, and finally blew the light, about 1 second before it turned green anyway. Reynolds is very busy at 9am, and he began changing lanes and was just super aggressive. I called 911, and the call dropped almost instantly. I called again, and again, it dropped. My phone seemed to be having issues. I tried to stay close as I rebooted the phone, and soon caught up with him at Glendale, where I pulled up next to him and he looked at me, and I mouthed “What the F*** is wrong with you?”, and shook my head. He flipped me off, and I gave him the finger back, frustrated at not being able to actually make a call. We went Southbound down Reynolds to Maumee, where it turns into Conant St, and I went into a store’s parking lot and saw a police car and told him about it and gave him the plate number. He said someone had already called it in. After I went into the store for a few things, I went to the post office, and i was so happy to see him pulled over, getting written up. I wish I could see what all he was charged with, but he didn’t look happy as I passed. I suppose I should watch out for a green Lexus RX-350 for a while.
The Perrysburg and Maumee (OH) police are reasonably good at following-up on citizen reports. I’ve even been the subject of one of those, though way overblown by the busybody, holier-than-thou “other driver.”
First, one of the Toledo Blade’s reporters wrote about an experience on the Ohio Turnpike here: http://toledoblade.typepad.com/roadwarrior/2013/12/911-this-is-peggy.html
I’ve mellowed quite a bit over the years, but I still have little or no patience for people who play judge, jury and executioner by religiously obeying the underposted numbers on some sign! As @nrd515 is likely aware, Northwest Ohio (at least where all freeway lanes are open; literally 80% of I-75 from the state line to Findlay, OH, if not further south, is under widening construction) is rife with these types of drivers of every sort — they plod down surface streets at velocities where they are overtaken by kids on bikes on adjacent sidewalks; accelerate down freeway onramps into the traffic lanes at 50mph; and, of course, park in the left lane, again religiously hewing to the damn numbers uber alles.
My own story: several years ago in Perrysburg, I followed a Jeep Grand Cherokee down Front Street heading towards the Maumee River crossing. For several blocks, this woman didn’t exceed 20mph in the 35mph zone. (This after having followed this vehicle for several blocks down Louisiana Avenue into downtown Perrysburg at ten under the posted limit — unfortunately, there was opposing traffic in the “broken yellow” areas preceding the Indiana Avenue intersection.)
So when I finally had a break on Front Street, I executed a safe pass (including a horn blast and an obscene gesture), and my car didn’t hit 45mph before I set my cruise at 40mph for the rest of the drive down Front Street; I then proceeded to make a stop in Maumee before heading to a friend’s house to accompany he and his wife to dinner.
Imagine my shock, then, when a Maumee cop pulled me over as I was pulling into the driveway of their apartment complex; apparently, a vehicle matching mine was called in for reckless operation. Of course, I denied any knowledge — must have been someone else. The cop was rather young, with a “piss and vinegar” attitude, and even threatened me with a seat belt ticket after he had clearly seen me unsnap the belt in order to get my wallet out!
I’ve always said that it’s not the job of anyone WITHOUT a gun and badge to do police work! I don’t go much over ten-over on the freeway (except longer drives, where 80mph or so is my personal Vmax), and five-over in town. But good God almighty, the left lane is used to PASS, if you’re going to insist on being a slave to the sign, do it in a driving lane; that person behind you may have a reason for hurrying (though certainly not the way that Silvy was going–get the license number, stay on with the dispatcher, and threaten to go over their head, if only to feel a little better)! And learn to use the acceleration lane of an onramp to..ACCELERATE!
(Oh, one more thing..most drivers in NW Ohio have no conception of what the primary function of the lever on the left side of the steering column is! :-p Including COPS, who, the instant they see a civilian doing the same thing, will mess up their insurance rates for the next three years in short order!)
And an example of “mellowing quite a bit”–several years BEFORE the incident I cited above (in my late 20s, IIRC), an entire section of NB I-75 was doing 60mph (posted 65mph), including the ubiquitous single left-lane bandit a quarter-mile ahead completing the rolling roadblock.
I was later than I wished to be for work, and ready to go apoplectic, so..I went for the hard shoulder on the right and got around the entire “pack”..
..while hitting a buck-ten in the process! (Yep, on the shoulder!)
I wouldn’t be so stupid as to do that now, but I’ve seen folks do more outlandish things to get around these types of “rolling roadblocks,” and sometimes, I don’t blame them a bit for doing so!
Crazy stuff. My buddy had an experience on the highway here in Saskatchewan with some young males in a half-ton who were bothering him in a similar way for no apparent reason. He was driving a 3/4-ton crew cab and is a very competent driver so I’m sure he wasn’t terribly worried, but he did call the cops because they clearly needed to be removed from the road. The RCMP had them pulled over just a few miles ahead.
There’s nothing I like more on this site, than an editorial which sums up my personal experiences entirely.
The New Zealand Police seem to constantly hound everyone here over speeding (they enforce a ZERO TOLERANCE limit over public holidays, warrant of fitness and/or registration being expired (even by as little as several days) and other offenses that can accurately be described as “misdemeanor”. They lurk on the side of the roads right over rises, on the downhill stretches of passing lanes and even set up checkpoints on motorway offramps early on Monday mornings. If you’re young, drive a car which looks even lightly aesthetically enhanced or (God forbid) faster than standard get ready to feel bullied.
You’d think the NZP are very efficient at road policing, especially since they constantly come under criticism for incompetence in dealing with real crimes such as burglary, domestic violence and public disturbances from drunks or other aggressive individuals… you’d think all their energy is spent dealing with road-related “crime.”
I’ve called in quite a lot of dangerous drivers, a few of which came pretty close to killing either myself or other road users around me. There was the time two kids in an AU Falcon blasted past the car my brother was driving, probably 50kph over the 90kph limit and proceeding to stay on the wrong side of the road for the next half-kilometer until a toot from an oncoming vehicle made the driver remember he hadn’t yet pulled back into his own lane. Then the time I was in a line of cars following a tanker down a hill, and instead of waiting for the next passing lane 200m down the road a Primera driver went to overtake the tanker (and three cars behind it, mine included) with a blind corner about 50m ahead…. a poor guy in an XJ40 locked all his wheels up trying to avoid him.
Both times I called *555, gave a description, registration plate number, details of the driver et al. Both times I stayed on the phone for at least 30 minutes, with the dispatch officer assuring me they would be pulled over and taken off the road before any real harm was done to anybody. Needless to say no help was forthcoming.
Once I called in a man who had been doing burnouts in a public carpark for at least 20 minutes straight. I gave them the plate and the car had been reported stolen. It was a pretty funny call actually, because when I gave the plate (XZ5886 I think it was) the dispatch lady, surly an experienced official trained in the use of the phonetic alphabet, had repeated back to me “so that’s X for X-Ray, Z for Xylophone?”
I stopped laughing when I realized no cops were going to show up.
Ah, another bi-monthly “F-the Popo” piece by Baruth. These ramblings always result in clicks and comments. Oh how the commentators ramble on too! Notice that about half the posts,have no reply and some ask us to suspend some (or a great deal)of our belief. These unanswered posts basically give the poster a chance to complain that the police in no particular order are: 1. Lazy 2. Fat & Lazy 3. Income Generators. 4. Fat, lazy, income generators or the most horrendous of all: “they didn’t immediately capitulate to my every whim regardless of what else they may have been doing; bad, bad police officers!!!!” Cops have civilian bosses. Take it over a cops head if you’re not satisfied. I doubt that many complained to an elected official or contacted a “department of public safety” or such; it’s soo much easier and very cool to snark and make unprovable remarks.
You would cry too if it happened to you!
Not to diminish the tone and substance of the article, but this would have made an awesome two-part episode of CHiPs.
Notice how nobody on this thread recounts a story about calling in a drunk driver and having the cops make a bust? That’s because its almost impossible to make a bust that way. Road rage bust would be even more difficult, since the cop is unlikely to witness the bad driving and the driver would deny everything if confronted at the truck stop.
Passengers as witnesses? Sure, but they are from out of state, biased, and now the guy is making his own accusations of crazy driving on your part. Most cops would check carefully for DWI, run a warrant check on all involved and sent the drivers off at ten minute intervals.
In Jack’s case a bust would have been doable, maybe, but 99 times out of a hundred it would be a wild goose chase.
Police coverage isn’t as thick as we imagine. In my rural area, its rare to see more than three cops registered in a sixty mile radius on Waze. No doubt that’s partly a matter of market penetration of the app, and it doesn’t take into account cops on the move, but its pretty thin out there.
I’ve had at least one 911 call turn into a traffic stop. But it’s not typical; there aren’t enough cops for that to happen all of the time.
I noticed the comments about Cops showing up and taking action….
I too notice ever more @$$hats running stop signs and so on , my elder brother is getting grumpy in his age so he’s begun flipping off lots and lots of them , I’d rather he not do this when I’m in the car because so many are white trash knuckleahds who carry Firearms….
Not fair to cause another’s death / injury even if you’re in the right .
-Nate
I guess I’m in the minority, but my reaction to your story is basically: next time, get out of the (fucking) way sooner!!
From your own words it is clear 1) you saw the truck coming far enough behind you that you were able to assess his driving demeanor, and 2) in the past, you have made a point of making faster traffic wait on you because you decided you were somehow the authority on how they should drive. And yet, somehow, you were unable to pass 55mph traffic efficiently enough to get back into your lane before this pickup truck reached you…and had to slow for you.
When people think of using the passing lane to make a pass, their consideration should include can the pass be completed without getting in the way of faster traffic…if your pass couldn’t, you should have waited. It’s a faster traffic has the right of way concept…one that Europe seems to have no trouble understanding, but the frail egos of America can’t quite handle.
I usually enjoy your work, but this sob story wasn’t convincing…try writing about how Ohio has 5 times the number of highway patrol pensioners as Indiana with 50% more highway. Now that is a compelling story!
I looked at Jack’s story again, and I’d have to agree somewhat. Depending on conditions and the HP under the hood of that Acura (and why I literally PRAY that Honda doesn’t dump their Accord V6s, as I’ve used that power to get out of the way of enraged drivers before, though in my past Accords), Jack may have not had the opportunity get around that line of semis; I will exceed the posted limit by 20mph if necessary to get beyond a line of traffic and practice good lane discipline. As I know, and as I think as the a$$hat in the F-150 with B747 tires drives past, it’s your ticket, not mine, and I sure as hell don’t want to get in your way!
And as stated, the V6 makes quick work of getting into triple-digits quickly to get away from a rager if need be!
Politicians – Cops – Siverado Psycopath
They are all soulmates.
Do you even understand your role as tax cattle?
I’ve gotten myself chased twice in the past year or so. Both times for what I call “calling someoneone’s idiocy out.”
First time. I am driving the speed limit in my neighbourhood. A pickup (yes a pickup, of course) pulls out right in front of me causing me to brake hard. I flash the brights to say, “don’t be an idiot.” He brake-checks me. I have no problem with this since I’m awake and I drive a car of roughly half the weight, on good tires. He pulls over. I see he wants to put me ahead of him. I actually lock my passenger door (proud of that), pull up right next to him, wait until he gets out with fists up. The moment his door latches closed I peel out of there. He chases for a brief while but thankfully not long. But even if he’s come to his senses, I’m not sticking around. I don’t slow down until I know there are several cars between us.
Second time. A Jeep Liberty is pushing me. I’m in the left lane going as fast as I can with a safe following distance from traffic ahead. I am going faster than right lane traffic and don’t see why I should move over. Liberty Dude gets on my tailpipe and hangs there a lot closer than I like. I gently left-foot the brake pedal as I keep my right on the gas. It works – he brakes hard. Then he sees what’s happening and charges even closer with high beams on now. I’m getting pissed. Logic out the window, it’s my turn for a nice satisfying brake check. I downshift to 3rd to get in the powerband, then light up his grille with my taillights. Now the fear kicks in and it’s time to get out of here. With nowhere to go forward, I merge into a tight spot in the right lane… but it’s now the middle lane because another has opened up. An exit is coming and there’s also space to play because of the extra lane. I signal and deke right then floor it straight. But this isn’t a fast car, and as Liberty guy closes the gap I kick myself because I know there’s a roundabout back there and I should have run for it. Another exit is coming though. I take it because it’s the last one before my regular exit. This time, he doesn’t follow, and I take the back way slowly to work as I try to un-tense the muscles in my back.
When people are in a rage there is nothing wise to do except try to keep yourself safe. I didn’t follow that principle in my second encounter and have regretted it since.
Preludacris :
The _ONLY_ idiot on your story is -you- ~ by intentionally being a left lane bandit , _YOU_ created the entire problem , no one else did .
If anyone sees an over taking vehicle and refuses to yield , that person and NO ONE ELSE is the full culprit for whatever happens next .
I drive faster than most but I also keep a sharp eye on my rear view mirror and when I see someone coming up , I get my happy ass the hell out of the way .
YOU were not only no better that the many asshats described here , you are worse because you knew the possibility of consequences yet you decided to be righteous and created a road rage fight when you should have yielded .
Then you have the temerity to come here and complain .
I’m glad you didn’t hassle some fool with a gun , who’d be feeding your Family now if you had ? .
Ludicrous indeed ~ you should be ashamed .
-Nate
See my reply above–I will go up to 20mph over the limit to get around traffic if necessary; I get angry enough when I’m forced to sit behind a left-lane bandit, and I don’t want to be guilty of same!
@Nate,
I’m not sure “left-lane bandit” is a fair remark, considering that the OP was passing traffic when the trouble started. The asshats are the ones who think they have the right to tailgate people who are lawfully passing other cars.
Granted, what followed was stupidity on both sides, but the OP has admitted that. You’re preaching to the converted.
I am 100 % correct as I can be going 80 and if I see someone closing , I get the hell out of their way , that’s what you’re supposed to do .
-Nate
Nate:
I don’t think it’s being a “left-lane bandit” when there’s dense traffic ahead in both lanes as far as you can see, and you’re matching pace with the car ahead of you.
More importantly, I clearly stated that I’ve regretted it ever since and that I recommend NOT to do that. I don’t appreciate your self-righteous attempt to shame me, but since as mentioned I’ve learned to get out of the way of idiots, I have nothing more to say about it.
“If anyone sees an over taking vehicle and refuses to yield , that person and NO ONE ELSE is the full culprit for whatever happens next”
I think people should get out of the way, but I think it is INSANE to believe that the faster vehicle is faultless for “whatever happens next”. A left-lane bandit making it so I can’t go 90 doesn’t give me license to lose my mind or turn into a Highwayman. You need to learn to relax on the road.
As long as you’re traveling at the speed limit or higher, and are going faster than the vehicles to your right by at least walking speed – or the same speed as the person in front of you, if that applies – then you’re doing everything you need to be doing to accommodate the person behind you. They do not have the right to drive at any speed they want on North American highways, and it would be illegal to exceed the speed limit just for their convenience. This is not the Autobahn we’re talking about here.
If I’m in the left lane and driving in a reasonable manner, I will yield that lane to a tailgater, by slowing down and going into the right lane when I find an opening behind the vehicles to my right. I don’t like to “hang out” in the left lane, or any lane, bes1de other traffic, so I’ve only had to do this a few times in my life.
Wrong. That’s exactly the attitude that creates freeway traffic jams. Pull your ego and your car to the right.
What I typically see is one car moving slowly in the left lane…and 6 cars of zombies trailing happily behind them because “hey, I’m just following at a safe distance”. The people tailgating are tired of waiting for your timid little self to get around that slow lead car, and the only option left to them is to intimidate you out of the way…one by one…until they can finally pass the cork!
@baruthfan3, I’m right there with you. So many people’s lane discipline sucks so bad that I don’t have the patience to wait for them to get over. That’s not to say that I drive or behave aggressively around that line of 6 zombies, as you describe (so true!); I drive “purposefully” around them ;)
“Wrong. That’s exactly the attitude that creates freeway traffic jams. Pull your ego and your car to the right.”
Quite the opposite. Unnecessary traffic jams are incurred by those who can’t maintain a reasonable following distance without using the brakes.
You’re the one with the ego problem if you think trying to intimidate other drivers by driving in an unsafe manner is socially acceptable behavior, and that the only reasonable response is to elevate the danger by increasing velocity. You’re just not important enough to be thinking that everyone should yield to you for the sake of your convenience. You won’t get any positive reinforcement out of me for that behavior.
There’s nothing even remotely timid about the way I drive. But I accept that sometimes there’s just too much traffic to be able to drive at whatever speed I want, and I’m intelligent enough to understand that putting myself at the mercy of the vehicle in front of me does nothing to improve traffic flow.
“Quite the opposite. Unnecessary traffic jams are incurred by those who can’t maintain a reasonable following distance without using the brakes.”
Um, not exactly. It’s those who constantly hit their brakes for every slightest thing because they are not paying attention- they only look just in front of their car instead of well ahead to what traffic is doing and/or they are too dumb to drive smoothly.
I’m sure there’s nothing timid about the driving of someone focused on “socially acceptable behavior”!
Just move over.
Move over where? There are vehicles to my right and in front of me in the situation I described.
Timid, eh. You should be ashamed of your lack of self control if you drive any less timidly than I. You are truly a sociopath, and the only difference between us is that I have no expectation that any other driver should tuck tail and submit to my whims when I’m in the mood to drive like a maniac. I just go around them, any way that I can.
My own experience getting police help has been generally good. On one occasion I reported a drunk driver, and on another I followed a hit-and-run suspect for ten suspenseful minutes. In both cases multiple police cars quickly converged and made the arrest.
In another case, however, some creep had stolen a cell phone and was trying to lure a young female friend of my daughter down to a local mall without revealing his identity. I sped down to the mall in the hope of finding the guy, but when a cop finally showed up 45 minutes later he wouldn’t even get out of his cruiser. He told me to report the phone as stolen, and go home. In fairness his radio was crackling with accident reports and other drama, and we probably never had much chance of nabbing the guy. But still it was frustrating that the situation drew so little concern.
I’ve had two people chase/harass me on the road.
One was a 1st-gen Chevy Avalanche in Kentucky the other was a ’96-ish F-350 in Florida. The Avalanche gave up after about 5 minutes but the Ford followed me many miles all the way back to my neighborhood. My solution to that wasn’t to call the police, but to actually drive to a police station. Once he saw me turn in there, he gave up.
That’s one scary story. I too once had someone act like they were going to swerve into me, which was laughable as they were driving a lot nice car then mine. (Mine had a lot of hail damage if they had looked closer!) I didn’t flinch.
This Baruthian story left me nonplussed. I know that stretch of I-70 from Washington, PA to Columbus, OH quite well. I grew up in Pittburgh and we used to take I-70 to Wheeling to visit relatives. Later, I used it to get to college in Indiana and after marriage, my family and I would visit my wife’s parents in Indy.
I don’t understand why Baruth, carrying a woman with her young daughter, didn’t just exit the interstate after the initial encounter. Call the police at that point, then be done with it. Don’t go after the guy hoping to be a hero. It’s not like there aren’t frequent exits on the entire stretch from Washington to Columbus. Plus there’s bypass (I-470) around Wheeling — if Mr. Silverado goes one way, Baruth could have taken the alternate route.
I also don’t understand how the guy made a full stop on the interstate and managed NOT to get creamed by all the semis. Talk about bone-headed.
As for those criticizing Baruth for not accelerating fast enough when the truck first nearly rammed him from behind, I’ve been there. Even after 46+ years of driving experience, sometimes I misjudge the approach speed of vehicles when I pull into the passing lane. It happens, despite my attempts to make sure I don’t impede their path. I will speed up but only to a point, say 65 mph in a 55, because I don’t want to risk a ticket AND I will pull back into the right lane ASAP.
BTW, why the secrecy on what make/model Baruth was driving? Inquiring minds want to know! I suppose some of you figured out that it was a new Acura (RLX?).
When calling 911, remember to always include a racial element. Perhaps inject a hate crime or civil rights issue into the description.
If I were alone I probably would’ve just tossed my “cash tray” contents out of the sunroof, peppering his hood with pennies and nickels, and then took off. If my family was in the car I like to think I’d have just pulled over. Maybe he would’ve pulled over with me, in which case I would’ve called the cops. Then maybe he would have decided to get out of his vehicle confront me, after which I’d again call the cops let them know there was no longer a rush to get there. When seconds count…