Have you ever been awarded a traffic citation you didn’t deserve?

Have you ever been awarded a traffic citation you didn’t deserve? In fairness and respect, law enforcement officers must hear every imaginable story and excuse. Being human is not limited to law enforcement officers. We cannot possess enough of the virtues of sympathy, a sense of humor, and courage. The following three incidents found myself and the officers involved lacking in these virtues.

It was 1988. My dad had just died. I was on emergency leave with a nine month pregnant wife and my one and a half year old son.

We were making our way from our home in Brooklyn New York to my Northwest Ohio hometown. It had been a long day and we were on an especially long leg of the Ohio turnpike. My wife said she had to pee. I spotted an exit, only too late! There was no place to turn around. I was trapped between the wrath of an uncomfortable pregnant woman, and the faceless, exit less stretches of the Ohio Turnpike. My only out was to go as fast I could safely go. I passed an Ohio state trooper at eighty miles an hour. I didn’t see him, and it was way too late. My wife was having a fit. I explained to the officer about my wife’s needs. I also showed the officer my emergency leave papers. He said he used to go to the races in my home town with his Dad. I said “I did too.” He then asked me, (since I had an out of state license), “Is this going to be cash or charge.” I gave him my charge card. I didn’t get much sympathy.

In 1990 I had been stationed in North Carolina for a year. As part of my job I had been tasked with getting up at 5:00 AM to drive a shipmate to the Portsmouth Navel hospital in Virginia. He had a surgery scheduled for 8:00 AM. It wasn’t an emergency, (some kind of nose operation), and I wasn’t hurrying. He was telling me all about how he had knee surgery scheduled several weeks from then. We suddenly came upon the town of Portsmouth and a thirty-five mph zone. I noticed this and slowed down immediately. The police officer told me I was doing 50 in a 35. I told him I wasn’t, and that I had to get this man to the hospital by 8:00, for surgery on his knee. He asked my shipmate if that was true and my shipmate promptly told him, “well actually it’s for my nose.” The officer frowned. My shipmate then said “we were doing 35” and that he had probably clocked that van that flew around us. The officer said he had clocked us at 50, and that he would show me that it was locked in on his radar gun’s display. So I started to get out of the car, to which the officer responded “get back in the car or I will take you to jail right now.” I got my Coast Guard uniformed self right back in that government car. I took the ticket back to work with me. Of course I informed my supervisor and was told it would be best to just pay the ticket. The police officer and I lacked a sense of humor.

This last ticket I really did not deserve. It made me feel as if I had been violated. It was 1997 and I was awarded a ticket for an illegal right turn on a red light (or so I thought). I had just left WalMart from the back way and came to a stop at a red light. I noticed a Sheriff car behind me. I looked around for a no right on red sign. There wasn’t a sign so I decided to turn. The Sheriff must have thought I looked suspicious for sitting there and than suddenly leaving because he stopped me. He informed me that the sign for not turning there on red was farther back from the intersection (before WalMart’s drive). I said I didn’t think so, and could he go with me to check and see. He said no, and gave me a ticket. I went back and found no such sign. I then went to the Sheriffs office and complained, and the deputy said I had a good case for court. He then asked if he could see the ticket. He told me that the ticket said I had failed to stop on red. I looked in disbelief. Of course I could still fight it, but I paid it. The officer lacked the courage to say he made a mistake. I lacked courage, or I might say I have learned not to argue with them.

Of course we don’t deserve every misfortune that may come our way. We run into unfairness on a regular basis. How else are we to learn sympathy, a sense of humor, and courage?