Sure feels good to get that out!
As I write this I am supposedly taking the online Florida Driver Improvement course (in another window). What a waste of time and money ($20), you have to be logged in for 4 hours, but you can just skip to the quiz at the end of each section and guess at answers. If you get one wrong, it just lets you guess again. However, so far I was able to guess all correctly without even reading the text. I do have to wait until 25 minutes expires though before I can submit that I completed this particular section (just checked, still 18 minutes to go!).
So why am I taking this class? Because I was caught in a set-up by GPD that was supposedly to reduce pedestrian and bicycle accidents. Obviously I do care about this, as I ride my bike or walk as often as I can. I even read the article in the paper about this ticketing operation the morning of my ticket. So what happened? I was driving out to go kayaking on Lake Alto on a Monday morning. I had to go by CVS to pick up my meds (I have asthma) & ended out taking 16th ave to Waldo road, a route which I seldom take. Immediately upon turning on this road, I see cones out, cops around & I’m in a school zone (pretty distracting huh?). However, it is past normal school start time (it was 11am). But I came in off a side street so I am not sure if I somehow missed a blinking light. The driver in front of me seems to be going slower, so I just follow him as we pass by cones, Northeast Park, people on the sidewalk, a guy beside the road & more cops.
Suddenly a cop steps out & signals the guy in front of me to pull over. I think, glad it was him & not me. But no, I get pulled over too. I think we must have both been somehow speeding? I prepare to explain how I came off a side street and missed the school zone sign when he tells me I failed to yield for a pedestrian. I have no clue what he is talking about, though I did quickly remember the article in the paper. That article said they were ticketing everyone, no exceptions, so I did not bother to argue with him. Instead I decided to show him empathy that he had to be wasting his time harassing otherwise law abiding citizens. So I ask more about their set-up & he shows me how they operate it. He shows me a plain clothes policeman who is at a cross walk (the only sign is a 6 inch tall little yield sign). He steps about 18 inches into the road (actually this only gets his foot at the outside edge of the bike lane) and waits. He just stands there he gives no real indication that he is wanting to cross. In my case, I think he was standing there when I was at least 200 feet away. So this time they are catching drivers going the other way & they pull over 5 in a row! I mean this makes puts the Waldo speed trap to shame. They have so many tickets, to give, the stooge spends most of his time waiting for the cops to be ready for more suckers! [OK, just washed a couple dishes & took the quiz for the next section of the class. that took a minute, so I got 39 minutes to wait until I can submit that I finished this module].
So after accepting my ticket, I headed on to go paddle. Of course I was upset, but I also should know a lot about dealing with such emotions. My initial thought was to fight the ticket. But I quickly decided that at this point I should try to let it go, as I know better than to fight the law. Sure there are some things worth fighting for, but this was not one. Besides, if I spent time focusing on getting out of the ticket & failed, they would win again. So I decide to enjoy my day & I did. I paddled around Lake Alto a little, then headed down the canal to Little Lake Santa Fe. There was a raccoon that was swimming and retreated up into a fort that was made by the roots of a big tree. Pretty cool little swim in home he had, would have thought he was a beaver! I got to see the regrowth of the Santa Fe Swamp on the north side of the lake. Then stopped by Fritzi’s house for lunch. I only saw one person filling in wetlands & I did not get that good a view (pretty good for that lake). Had nice conversation, then headed back in some pretty strong winds & waves, but luckily my kayak is self bailing. The lake was still pretty cool as this was April 19th.
So I do get back home & decide to write to my city commissioners about this. The more I think about this, the more I realize how backwards this approach is. The newspaper article said only 20% of people were following the law. So why turn 80% of the population into law breakers? Shouldn’t that say something about the laws. Then I thought about the people I work with (I’m a social worker for those who didn’t know) who can’t afford their existing bills, much less a ticket. The newspaper article said the problems were near the University, but this set-up was on the lower income east side of town not any where near where pedestrian accidents are occurring. Of course to enforce there would cause major traffic jams, so why not pick a quieter road, where it is easy to pull people off to the side. Besides, if they did this on University Ave or 13th Street, they would likely cause a pedestrian to be hurt. Also, the city is in quite a budget crunch and this is easy money ($154 ticket, without the extra $10 charge to pay online).
So I’m still in class, I had a 50 minute session, so I took the dogs for a walk. I must say the online option is much better than the class! So back to the title ‘FUCK YOU GPD’. I mean they are so racists that recently several off-duty officers were caught egging prostitutes in a historically black neighborhood while drinking and driving. All they got was a reprimand! The University of Florida pig who was with them and only reprimanded has continued his racist bias, by most recently shooting a defenseless African Graduate student in the face at point blank range. Blew his jaw off! The man was unarmed, surrounded by 5 officers and had polio. When I first moved into town, GPD was successfully fighting off a citizen’s review board. The idea may finally be happening, but it will be worthless as they are proposed to have no actual power. GPD is notorious for violating first amendment rights and victimizing rape victims. I know that police departments across this nation are just as bad and some worse (so Fuck You too!!!). At least the Alachua Sheriff’s department treats citizen’s with respect. Perhaps that is because the Sheriff is an elected position? Also, the GPD officer who ticketed me was respectful, though I gave him no reason to be otherwise.
So I just took my final exam in Driver Improvement School! It was a little different in that the questions seemed slightly harder, 40 questions & you did not get to keep guessing at each question, you had to answer all questions and submit at once. You did get to keep taking it until you pass. I had to get 80% and actually got 92% on first try! Guess I could have done better if I actually read the material!
Here is an article in the local paper about this ticketing scam: Drivers call crosswalk sting sneaky and ‘a total setup’ (I guess I should have written the paper instead of the commission)
So if you made it this far I will give you the treat of seeing the emails I exchanged with our city commission after my ticket. If anyone can understand Mayor Hanrahan’s Coal Mine Analogy, please explain it to me!
My first email to the city commission:
Subject: Stop Punishing Law Abiding Citizens!
Dear City Commissioners,
I had the joy of being caught up in your enforcement of laws requiring motorists to yield to pedestrians waiting to cross NE 16th Avenue Monday. I had read the article that morning, drove down the road (not a usual route for me), where police were around, school zone was present (though it was 11am) and traffic cones were in the road. I saw everybody going slow and was trying to figure out what the fuss was about. However, In this confusion, I failed to stop for a man who had one toe in the bike lane at the pedestrian crossing. I was actually following another car that also did not stop for him. So yes, I made a mistake and I am one of the 80% who don’t always stop for pedestrians waiting to cross a road. So I get to pay the city $154, lose my safe driver status and have my car insurance go up.
I care very much about pedestrians and ride my bike or walk whenever I can. I also had a friend killed by a motorist on 441. I get very frustrated by the lack of courtesy from drivers and always yield until I make eye contact (even when I have the right of way). This is an important issue, but you get no respect from me for enforcing rules this way. The officer who wrote me the citation was trying to do his job, but he knew that it was a unfair setup. I could tell he felt bad about having to ruin people’s day for something that 80% fail to do. He showed me how they were doing it and yes, 4 out of 5 did fail to yield, despite clearly seeing cops around. So many people broke the rules, they could not pull everyone over.
Yes, I broke the rule and I will likely pay the ticket without fighting it in court, I can afford it. However, I am a social worker and I can’t help but think about my clients and other good citizens of this community who are barely making ends meet. Many of them use this road & they can’t afford the cost of this ticket. To them, this could be the straw that breaks their back.
Clearly you have found the gold mine of easy ticket money, that will have the Waldo Police jealous. However, when you are wondering why incumbents struggle in re-elections, think of the cruelty of ticketing otherwise law abiding citizens for rules that 80% violate. I know budget times are tight, but what about all the tax breaks you gave to developers? What about the morale of your police officers that have to be put on such ridiculous assignments? Does the city even understand the facts? The newspaper said that we have the second highest number of pedestrian injuries out of 22 medium size counties. That really means nothing unless you look at actual pedestrian usage of roads and crossings. I would venture to bet that with UF students, we have far more pedestrians than any of those other counties. Common sense says that you look at a rate per pedestrian usage time rather than just number of total number of injuries.
Pedestrian safety is very important, and many things can be done to improve this situation. However, you have chosen the worst solution, that does far more to diminish already poor respect for the City Commission and GPD than it does to improve public safety. If you have plans to get re-elected, I am offering you a golden opportunity to use some common sense and admit that turning 80% of the electorate into traffic violators is no way to educate the public. We have a very high poverty rate in this city and many people, especially on the east side cannot afford one more blow to their economic well being.
I work hard to try to make this a better city and urged many of my friends to come out and vote for the winners in the last city election. Please show us that you really care about this community and stop ticketing 80% of your electorate! Stop regressive policies of burdening the poor people in our community while you give endless tax breaks to the rich developers!
Sincerely,
Tom W___
Mayor Hanrahan’s response:
Dear Mr. W___ – Please accept my apologies that you were caught by this effort, despite your normal commitment to safe driving, walking and biking conditions.
To clarify the intent of the program, however, this effort is intended to reduce injuries and deaths related to distracted driving and failure to yield the right of way. It was not designed as a revenue enhancement program, and I am doubtful that it will break even, much less lead to great new sources of income.
Our concern is really that our pedestrian injuries are unusually high, yes, in part because we have so much walking and biking in our city, by design and public policy. You are correct that the metrics might be viewed from another perspective, but our intent is simply to make this a safer place to get around, by any chosen means. To me, the analogy might be something like: “The deaths due to lung cancer are only higher in West Virginia because so many people smoke and work in the mines here…. If you removed those factors we wouldn’t have a significant problem, so there is no need to focus efforts on smoking cessation and mine safety.” I hope that analogy explains some of our thinking.
Again, clearly you are an active, responsible and valued member of our community, and I am regretful that you are having to now deal with this.
Sincerely,
Pegeen
My response to Mayor Hanrahan:
Dear Mayor Hanrahan,
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my concerns. However, apparently I did not make my points clear in the first email. I certainly feel pedestrian safety needs to be improved in this city, I only question the means. My main concerns are the following:
1) What is the most effective way to improve pedestrian safety when 80% of the electorate are not following current law?
2) How will these efforts affect our most vulnerable populations?
3) Why enforce at 11:00 am on NE 16th Avenue crossing?
On the first point, I believe that when 80% are not following the current laws, clearly that should indicate that we should look beyond simply stepping up enforcement of existing laws. We need to examine the problem in more detail and think outside the box. Can we really scare people into following these laws? As you like analogies, I think a much more appropriate one would be how we handle yielding at train crossings, especially in areas where drivers are likely to be distracted by many things going on around them. Every single crossing I know of that has any sort of high traffic, heavy pedestrian usage or other potential for distraction has a train sensor and physical guard installed to prevent injury. Even in rural areas, it is hard to find a crossing that does not at least have a blinking light. Would you think that ticketing people who fail to yield to trains would have been a more appropriate means to increase safety? Perhaps they tried that at one time, then decided to accept the reality of human nature. We are not perfect and sometimes we get distracted and make mistakes. Luckily someone was insightful enough to realize these facts and decided to focus on how we can best reduce harm.
The second point is about fairness and financial hardship. A $154 fine may not be a unreasonable burden to us, but I work on a daily basis with people who are facing both extreme financial hardship and major medical conditions. These are worthy citizens of our community (I actually believe every human is worthy) and the impact of this fine (and points on their license) is potentially devastating. When they are not at doctors offices, they already spend most of their time trying looking for work and trying to seek assistance with rent, utility bills, medical bills or other needs. Perhaps another analogy would be how we enforce environmental laws on farmers (who are actually causing harm to water quality, rather than just having the potential for harm). Yes, laws are on the books, but at some point we decided that simply enforcing monetary penalties would be an undue financial burden to those farmers that are already struggling to make a living. So what do we do? We formulate Best Management Practices. We provide education about these practices and resources to help them reduce harm.
Finally, why target NE 16th Ave at 11 am, when clearly the problem is at much busier locations and times of day? Was this found to be a particularly dangerous crossing? Perhaps it was just more convenient and politically acceptable to enforce in an area that would not cause major traffic backups? Imagine the complaints from appropriate enforcement where the actual injuries are occurring. That might even be bad for commerce? But if you really believe that strong enforcement of existing laws is the best way to improve pedestrian safety, why not do it at the time and place where injuries are occurring?
I believe we elect our commissioners for their insight, passion and intelligence. I encourage you all to use these talents to look specifically at this important issue and consider means beyond simply ramping up enforcement and awareness of existing laws that clearly do not adequately address the problem.
Thank you again for your consideration and I hope I have now made my points clearer in this email.
Sincerely, Tom W___
I also received responses from Commissioner Donovan & Commissioner Elect Wells:
Dear Mr. W___,
Thank you for your observations and insights. Very sorry you had this experience. Our goal is to get drivers to pay attention to this law and reduce the risk to pedestrians. I continue to feel it is a valid means and end. But I hope you do not have the experience again.
Yours,
Jack Donovan
Tom,
I was aware that they were issuing widespread warnings, but not that they had started ticketing (GPD described this initiative to the Bike/Ped board a couple of months ago, and received a very positive response from the boardmembers). I know they could do this enforcement on 9th St (where cars never stop for pedestrians) and likely many other places — but thought they would focus on high pedestrian density areas.
–Randy
