Did I do the right thing?

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Chibibar

I know it suck to hear it, but you did the right thing. Honesty is the best policy even if feels bad. why? Cause I can almost assure you that you may get call into court (i.e. if they caught up to the Green car lady) and conflicting stories will only hurt people more.
 
Zappit

Zappit

Staff member
You may get called to testify at one point, but YOU DID THE RIGHT THING. You were honest with the cops, and you tried to assist everyone in the accident. How is that anything other than the right thing? It was a hell of a lot more than anybody else did.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Dave, you did the right thing.

You had two options, both in the right. Either give true testimony, like you did, or tell the police you ain't snitchin', and then drive off yelling fuck da po-leese.*

*No offense to our badged brethren on the board.
 
fade

fade

Staff member
Gared said:
I liken this to all of the people bitching right now about red light cams and speed cams. Think it's evil that cash strapped cities are turning to speeding and traffic law enforcement to beef up their incomes? Tough shit. Don't want to pay a fine for speeding and/or running a red light? Don't fucking run red lights and/or speed. Hell, some dumbass around here was bitching that he can't afford to go to Mariners games, and it's all the WSP's fault because they pulled him over and cited him for not wearing his seat belt in a construction zone. Take some fucking responsibility for your own actions once in a while, and maybe we won't have to pay extra for every single thing we buy because the companies that make them have to pay for an outside safety firm to put a warning on the item advising us that it's dangerous to stop the chain of a chainsaw with our bare hands. That being said, I can certainly see a caring person feeling bad for someone possibly getting dinged on her insurance, but lying to the cops is NEVER a good idea.
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This I do not agree with. Sure, some people who "deserved" tickets are getting them, but the very essence of "cracking down" implies that some lenience is being lost. That makes me ask why the law enforcement officers were lenient in the first place. Because in their practiced judgement, a few minor traffic violations didn't a) pose a danger to public welfare b) weren't worth punishing the citizenry over c) weren't worth damaging the relationship between the city/state and citizens over. In effect, there's almost an unspoken understanding that a few MPH is okay, or a u-turn on a completely empty street is fine. It does feel like a violation of that bond when suddenly we're being slapped with fines for 2 MPH speeding violations.

It's also bothersome because the purpose of law enforcement is to maintain public safety, not to raise money, and not to robotically mete out punishments. It's partly why we give our officers some autonomy in the first place. I might agree with you about warning labels and lawsuits, but I don't this as a subset of that.

If I seem irritated about this, it's because this state has put in loads of those red light/speeding cameras, which are completely non-lenient robots. There was a fairly large uprising against them, but it was quashed on the "shouldn't be doing it anyway" grounds.
 
Covar

Covar

I just hate the fact that in NC the owner of the car is presumed to be the driver, and declared guilty of speeding until they can prove otherwise.
 
Tress

Tress

Well, fade, where do you want them to draw the line? If I'm reading your argument right, then new methods such as cameras are bad because they catch people making minor violations of the traffic law. And you reject the idea that these minor offenses should be punished at all, and would rather have lenient police officers let it slide. But where do you draw the line? Five miles over the speed limit? Ten?

A principal at a school I was teaching at once told a story. When he was starting out there was an uproar over a new rule. The rule said that students couldn't go to their prom if they had 3 or more tardies for a single class. The problem came up because of a pair of siblings. Both rode in the same car every day to school. They had classrooms right next to each other. Both were sometimes late. The brother was able to go to his prom, because his teacher was lenient and never recorded tardies. The sister couldn't go to her prom because her teacher was strict and recorded every tardy. So two students who arrived at school at the exact same time every day (late) were being treated differently because the authority figures did not enforce the rules evenly.

I think traffic laws have a similar issue. Don't you think it would be a problem if the deciding factor of getting a ticket wasn't whether or not a driver broke the law, but rather how that officer felt that day?
 
fade

fade

Staff member
Actually, no, I don't reject that minor punishments should should be summarily ignored. I'm saying that's why we allow our officers to think. Sure, you could throw in the officer having a bad day issue, but that same issue would have to call into question the entire government system made of people, including the ones that set the speed limits in the first place.
 
Piotyr

Piotyr

I personally have far less of an issue with red light cams as speeding cams. Red light running can be hugely more dangerous than speeding, and even if it doesn't cause a collision, it can severely screw with traffic.
 
Tress

Tress

Okay, after a second read-through I see what you're saying.

To Dave's OP: I think that you did the right thing. Altering your story to cover for someone based on perceptions and assumptions would have been wrong. Just have some faith that things will work out as they should.
 
Gared

Gared

Ok, perhaps the red light and speeding cams were a bad example for personal responsibility vs. responsibility of the person making a statement to police... How about I just rephrase with "If you don't want to be held responsible for doing something wrong, you shouldn't do it," that better?
I know there've been a lot of complaints and issues with red light and speed cams, especially speed cams/zones associated with school zones. There have been a lot of tickets rejected around here because of illegally placed red light cams (cams are only allowed to be placed at 4 way intersections, but they've been placed at some 3 way and/or 5 way intersections as well). And, there have been a lot of complaints because of speed cams ticketing people for failing to slow down to the school zone limit outside of the hours posted on the speed limit sign (in some cases people were getting tickets between 10pm and 4am, when they were going the normal speed limit). I also remember a county I lived in in Oregon that passed a law saying that you must ALWAYS slow down to 20mph in front of a school, regardless of time of day or night - which is absolutely ridiculous.
And, I agree that the job of Law Enforcement is to maintain public safety not to make money for a municipality, county, or state; but to me, if revenue is generated as a byproduct of maintaining public safety, and public safety is still the main concern, I'm all for it. I'd be happier if the money generated by speeding tickets went into a budget for supplying better safety and other equipment for the department issuing the tickets, departmental pay, and/or a fund to support victims and victim families of speed related fatalities and injuries, but I don't see that happening in today's economy.
 
C

Chibibar

You know, I was caught in the red camera light. I saw the recording. I just plain didn't see the red light (was yellow) when I pass, but hey. I took a chance and got caught. Yellow doesn't mean SPEED UP AND PASS.

The laws are in place to help protect other drivers. Speeding generally is bad since higher the speed, higher damage it can cause if that person hit someone. Running a red light could hit another person. Now an officer could be lenient case by case depending on his day and situation, but if you are caught on camera, kinda hard to fight that since it is there, YUP you broke the law (in this case I broke the law) pay the fine and move on.

traffic law exist for a reason. I have been to China where driving is new and the traffic law there is not as heavily enforce as it is here and car go ALL OVER THE PLACE! It is scary
 
Null

Null

Dave, giving an honest statement to the police is the right choice. Being a credible witness helps everyone in the case - if you give a false statement in court, you're not helping the one you sympathize with and you're hurting yourself. After all, while you might be the only eyewitness, if you're called in court and red-light cam footage puts the lie to your testimony, how does that look? At best it makes you look like an idiot, at worst, it might be construed as perjury.
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

If you're talking about one of those red signs with STOP on them then you lying wouldn't have helped much because any traffic cop should be able to tell which car was on the road that had priority.
 
Officer_Charon

Officer_Charon

Good on you Dave for sticking to the truth. Bad things tend to happen to people who don't.

My department has a policy that whichever person is at fault in an accident receives the citation for causing the accident. This normally doesn't bother me, until I had a little old man driving his pickup truck that contributed to his livelihood fail to yield at a t-junction in the middle of the night, with almost no traffic. The other truck was speeding, the driver drunk, on a suspended license, and with an open container. The little old guy, whose truck was flipped in the incident, received primary at-fault. And only 1 citation, versus the 4 + jail time for the other guy.

As has been already stated, hit-and-run is bad ju-ju. This young mother's insurance premium will take a ding, but they'll also treat it as getting into an accident with an uninsured motorist.

As for the other woman, with her tag info in hand, the officers quite possibly made an arrest that night. Either that, or this woman later on attempted to report her vehicle as being stolen. Again, that doesn't tend to work out so well... heh heh heh...

Frankie Williamson said:
though, with all honesty, I could find a reason to pull over and ticket pretty much anyone on the road.
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Oh hell yes... my favorite? "Tag Light Required" or "Excessive Stereo Volume."
 
Tress

Tress

I got pulled over once because "the trailer ball-hitch partially obscured a number on [my] license plate." Then I was questioned about a truck the same color as mine supplying alcohol to minors.

So yeah, I've heard all the bullshit excuses.
 
Officer_Charon

Officer_Charon

License Plate Obscured is a legit charge.... just sayin'....

Mind you, in Savannah we have a city ordinance against spitting on the sidewalk... that's an AWESOME one...
 
Frank

Frank

That's one I pull people over with and warn them for ALL the time here in winter since people love to keep their license plates covered in snow to work against the cameras.
 
Tress

Tress

That trailer hitch has been there for 15 years, and it's only "partially obscured." It's actually below the plate. I've only been pulled over for it once and the officer immediately changed subject and told me that he was looking for some booze runner with a truck that looked like mine. It was bogus. :p
 
J

Jiarn

Yes Tress, but what they're trying to tell you is that they're legit reasons to stop you. Whether the real reason for questioning is different or not.
 
IronBrig4

IronBrig4

Yeah, you did the right thing. The lady in the green car fled the scene of an accident so she's in real deep regardless.
 
Norris

Norris

Right thing. You're the only motorist in that story who didn't FUBAR something (someone driving with a child should be extra careful about stop signs and such, you should never leave the scene of an accident, etc).
 
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