It happened again today. Only worse.
I was running Code 3 on the freeway, with my lights blinking and flashing away and my siren blaring, and cars were yielding. Then I got behind an SUV that just kept cruising right along, not getting out of my way.
Finally she noticed me...
...and stopped...
...right in the middle of the fast lane.
Then all the heads in the car turned around to look at me, as I'm frantically pointing to the right, all the while yelling "TO THE RIGHT YOU FUCKING MORON! THE RIGHT!", and hoping I don't get rear-ended at seventy miles per hour.
Eventually she got the idea and moved her ass. If I didn't have more pressing matters to attend to, I'd have scratched her up for 21806 VC.
Head up ass should be a moving violation in and of itself.
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30 comments:
I agree!!! I always ask my SO if there is an idiot ticket.. He calls it careless driving ticket lol
breaks?!? I meant brakes....never comment within 10 minutes of waking up....*sigh*
Did any criminals escape at the Code Three scene because of the delay caused by the bad driver lady? What kind of criminals were they?
David,
Please go back to Officer "Smith"'s home page & read the paragraph under the title bar...slowly and carefully...
Blogger content policy:
Blogger is a free service for communication, self-expression and freedom of speech. We believe Blogger increases the availability of information, encourages healthy debate, and makes possible new connections between people.
We respect our users' ownership of and responsibility for the content they choose to share. It is our belief that censoring this content is contrary to a service that bases itself on freedom of expression.
I am always happy when Officer Smith chooses to leave my posts up. They are well within the scope of the kinds of communications that the BLOGGER software he uses wants to encourage. It should go without saying, but my posts here are always quite interesting, unfailingly polite, unremittingly respectful and, of course, totally harmless. My guess is that that is why Officer Smith so often chooses to leave them up.
Jay,
LOVE it! :) You had me laughing on that one. lol.
Heh, David, if BLOGGER is all about communication and sharing...then why won't you make your profile public so the rest of us can return the "courtesy" you seem to think you bestow upon Officer Smith?
FPS: Amen.
Moving on.
My husband and his fellow officer are always talking about passing out care required tickets. It's thier code for driving while stupid. Or just breating while stupid.
Since you keep bringing it up. I will mention that my blog is not at all hard to find.
David Woycechowsky said...
Since you keep bringing it up. I will mention that my blog is not at all hard to find.
But why would any of us want to go to it?
I don't think any of you would want to go to it. I think you would find it incredibly boring> I am not sure why it keeps getting brought up.
I am still curious about what code 3 call Officer Smith was going to. I'll guess "armed robbery," but hopefully he will tell us if he gets a chance.
21806 VC does not differentiate between types of calls. It simply requires drivers to yield to the right whenever an authorized emergency vehicle approaches, and is displaying a steady red light visible at least 1000' to the front and sounding a siren as reasonably necessary.
Where and why I was running code matters not. It makes no difference whether I was chasing a speeder or running to a fight with sticks and bats.
For those interested in failure to yield, the Oklahoma state police released a dashcam of a failure to yield about a month ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4G37Ouy164&feature=related
The failure to yield is at about 0:30 to 0:38 in the video. I don't know why the policeman was running code, but the video includes the code 3 situation. Worth watching!
Happens all the time. Lights and siren means slam on the brakes and give the cop behind you underwear stains.
I believe we should change the law here in the soon-to-be-not-so-free United States.
I spent some time in Germany and they handle the Code 3 situation much better there. Motorists on the right are required to pull to the right, motorists on the left to left. This leaves a "center lane" available to the emergency vehicle.
Running code through rush hour traffic will quickly show the wisdom of this approach. If we did it the way they do over there, you wouldn't end up the left lane, waiting for people to move to the right, or watching cars ricochet off of one another when some dumbass jerks his wheel to the right.
Just my .02
David,
We are unable to view your website because your profile is private, not public. You need to select the "public" option in your settings in order for anyone to view it. That is why we all keep bringing it up - because when we click on your name to go view your site, we are unable to.
Here is a link to my BLOGGER blog:
http://fedcirpatentcaseblurbs.blogspot.com/
Yes, David, we've all seen that video on the news. My point is stupid drivers who fail to yield to emergency vehicles, not unprofessional paramedics who insert themselves into situations that do not involve them.
We can all see that the OK trooper was pushed and prodded by the asshole paramedic into being just as unprofessional, which is why you posted that link, just like always. You can always be counted upon to find a video or "news" link that is somehow related to my post, and calls an officer's performance into question.
If I post about failure to yield, you post a link about a trooper who got in trouble. If I post about aggressive drivers, you link to a police officer who crashed off duty. If I post about speeders, you post about an officer in Florida who crashed at 101 MPH.
I honestly still have not figured out what your ulterior motives were for posting the link to the officer who was killed while riding his bicycle. It seems to be an article that calls the performance of the driver into question, rather than the officer... but I digress.
After you are called to the proverbial carpet regarding your posts, and as I'm sure you will attempt to do now, you play it off as "totally relevant to the post", and "informative".
David, people are getting fed up with you, and I'm not just referring to myself. You are trying very hard to be annoying, without being overt about it.
I dislike sneaky people. People who try to make their actions look innocent, when a little close observation will show their true intent. My kids try to be sneaky like that, and they learn quickly that it is unacceptable.
If you want to continue posting "informative comments" about cops who have made mistakes, and you have heard this before so many times, GO DO IT ON YOUR OWN BLOG! I really don't give a tinker's damn that your blog is not police related, or that nobody reads it. Your own blog is your forum for making your own statements.
And don't give me that censorship bullshit. Blogger is not censoring you, and neither am I. I am simply trying to get you to cease and desist with your blatantly anti-police sentiment on my blog.
If you do not have the decency to respect my request,as you have so far proven you do not despite your claims to the contrary, I will be forced to turn on comment moderation, and I really hate blogs with comment moderation because it completely screws up the flow of the comments.
So now, David, your true colors will shine through. Either you will back up your statements that you respect police officers, and people in general, and you will no longer post inanities on my blog, or you will prove that you are an inconsiderate ass who has no concern for anything but his own overinflated ego.
The ball is back in your court, David. What's it gonna be?
Don't forget you have the option of blocking a user, as an alternative to comment moderation.
As for your post, I hate the HUA drivers with a purple passion. I've recently been exposed to the rumbler units and have heard nothing but good things. The officers are saying people seem to hear them coming and while some are still idiots, more are getting the idea and moving. Hearing the cruiser over their own distractions for once.
But it wasn't that she didn't hear me or see me. She looked back at me while she was stopped in the lane...
I posted the link to the bicyclist story because I thought your post and the posts of some others were coming down too hard on bicyclists, and because bicyclists versus motorists is a two way street (as it were), and because the story seemed like the type of thing that could give a little pro-bicycle perspective to the group discussing bicycle issues on that thread. Ithought that was pretty obvious when I posted it, and there was nothing sneaky or disrespectful about it.
I posted the link to the failure to yield video for two reasons:
1. I thought the FTY was questionable at best; and
2. I thought running code to whatever was having code run to it (thus necessitating the yielding) was questionable at best. Look like code could have been called off earlier, and, of course, calling off code as soon as possible is an officer safety issue and must be a priority.
I did not post the vid for the hi-jinks that ensued in the later part of the video. I stated that I was posting the video link for its failure to yield aspects, and I clearly explained that that as why I posted the link when I posted the link. Again: (i) on topic; (ii) not sneaky; and (iii) not disrespectful.
I don't want you to see you turn comment mod on either, but I remain puzzled as to why you feel that you have the need to do so. What bad result occurs if you just let my posts stay up? Just let the discussion flow. It is what blogging is all about.
As of this past Friday, at about Noon (Eastern time), that woman's twin sister was -- quite miraculously -- alive on Long Island.
I was in pedestrian mode at the time, walking on the sidewalk along the commercial section of a busy North-South highway. I hear the loud horn of a tractor-trailer rig and see, not more than 75 feet away, the rig driver come to a rather quick stop as the driver of a car sat in the lefthand lane, waiting for a break in the opposite direction traffic so that she could turn into a small shopping center. The rig is stopped, blasting his horn, and traffic is backing up behind him.
Meanwhile, the driver of the car -- whom I strongly believe to be the twin sister of the subject of Officer Smith's post -- was oblivious to it all.
Oh, did I say that the car was stopped in the lefthand lane, waiting to do a left turn across the highway? Well, I neglected to mention that in the middle of the highway, to the left of the woman's car, was a center dedicated turn lane, with yellow striping and yellow turn arrows.
It was not four seconds that elapsed between the time the woman made the turn (crossing the center turning lane and the two lanes in the opposite direction) and another driver whipped around the stopped rig, in the center turning lane. But for a four-second time differential, there would have been a serious collision.
It's too easy to get a driver's license in the United States. Still, I understand people actually manage to fail the driver's license exam. That's a frightening thought, isn't it?
The drivers who fail to yield to emergency vehicles make me angry, especially when an ambulance is involved. The other drivers aren't thinking - this is only a few minutes out of the rest of your life, and clearly someone else has a desperate need for the right of way.
Worse, I've been caught in the left hand lane while the cars in the right lane refuse to let me pull over and stop. I've had others honk their horns at me for stopping, and seen other cars pull out in the wake of the emergency vehicle so as to take advantage of the cleared street.
Me, I favor writing them an expensive ticket.
Well, David, if you're not doing it on purpose then you must be too dense to REALIZE you're doing it, and I seriously doubt that.
I am not the only person who has commented on this blog regarding your pointedly anti-police commenting tendencies.
Nearly every time you post a link on here, it calls into question the behavior or ethics of a police officer.
Whether or not you are purposely doing it, I don't know or care. I have just asked you repeatedly to knock it the hell off, yet it keeps happening.
Mad Jack,
I love writing the ones that pull out right behind the ambulance too.
Here in California, they have to stay at least three hundred feet back. I can usually rag them for following too closely and speed.
I am not anti-police but I am anti-bad police work. I think and hope would hope that we are all anti-bad-policework here.
To get back to the failure to pull over discussion, I am for policemen ticketing people who really do fail to pull over. I am against policemen who say that a driver failed to yield when the driver really did yield, even if it took a few seconds more than the police officer might have liked.
So, when it comes to the FTY in the ambulance video, the questions I am tossing out are these:
Does that video show a true failure to yield of the kind that the driver should be punished for, or was it basically a bogus failure to yield violation?
When you and the other policemen here talk about your failure to yield experiences, are you talking about the kind of thing shown on the video, or are you talking about more egregious violations?
If a policeman says that there is a failure to yield does that mean that there really was one because the policeman says so, or might the police officer be wrong?
Does anyone have a video link to a better example of a true, clear failure to yield so that regular civilian drivers have a better idea of how quick they are expected to be out on the road?
Believe me, if I see a video with a clear failure to yield, I will be the first to chime in with: "Boo yah -- press hard, 5 copies!" Because I like it when the police punish lawbreakers in the correct circumstances.
And finally, I have two FTY stories that happened to me yesterday when I was out driving:
1. I saw several police cars with overheads stopped in the road ahead. I checked my rearview and saw another police car behind me in the distance with his overheads quickly closing on me. I immediately put on my right turn signal and turned onto a side street. The police car passed my location at a high rate of speed, but not until I was fully stopped on the right hand edge of the side street. In other words, I get it. I do yield.
2. About an hour later, I was again approaching a scene with three stopped police cars in a four lane road. There were two in the opposing lane with their overheads on, sort of blocking the right hand lane in the two opposing lanes. There was a third police car (no overheads) parked in the right hand lane of the two lanes on my side of the four lane road. In other words, the two outer lanes of the four lane road were blocked by police, but the two inner lanes on either side of the double yellow line were clear. I passed thru this gap at a greatly reduced speed, along with a couple vehicles in front of me and one or two vehicle(s) behind me. Was this the correct thing for us drivers to be doing, or is a driver supposed to stop when there are stopped police cars at opposite edges of the road? I had never encountered this situation before and did what "felt right," but was it correct?
Smitty, if you just delete his idiotic posts, he'll quit posting (sooner or later).
Censorship has to do with the government, not private citizens. It's your blog and you can censor anyone you want, including me.
Have at it, amigo!
David,
Laws vary from state to state. I can only speak for California.
I believe I was pretty clear in my description on my specific failure to yield situation, in that I said she stopped in the middle of the fast lane, with me sitting behind her with lights and siren going.
It was not my intention to get into a spirit of the law vs. letter of the law dialogue with you.
Different officers will handle this situation in different ways, I can only speak for myself.
As such, I have cars REGULARLY fail to yield, but not often as egregiously as her. I cite perhaps two drivers per month for failing to yield to ambulances or fire engines, and those are generally the ones that stop in the roadway, with a clear path to the side that they choose not to take, causing the emergency vehicle to stop.
One problem that arises when people stop in this manner, is that some operators will try to pass the stopped vehicle on the right while the siren and lights are still on. Should the other driver suddenly become enlightened, and move to the right thereby crashing into the emergency vehicle, one would be forced to find the driver of the emergency vehicle at fault, as the driver of the other vehicle was simply doing what they are required by law to do, albeit somewhat belatedly.
At any rate, this horse is dead. Let's stop beating it.
Thanks for the clear and helpful answer, Officer Smith.
WOW... what a "Rube" Hey David 9 posts in a matter of two days at all hours of the day and night... what kind of life does the rest of your family have? If you spent this much time on something productive and meaningful you would be the man!!! Did you ever think for a second cops respond to the human behavior of the person contacted? Stopping in the #1 lane when you see an emergency vehicle with lights and siren is idiocy no matter the reason. It puts themselves and the officer in danger as well as everyone else on the road. Your points make little sense and have little if any relevance to reality. Maybe you are stuck in bed or a chair?? It would explain clearly your anger and frustration with life and provide insight into your life and reason for finding fault with everyone else. I'm sorry for you... Live will soon be fair to you... we all die sooner or later.
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