Thursday, August 21, 2008

Hello Officer

I've never once had a speeding ticket in the 20 years that I've been driving. Never. And I've only gotten stopped for speeding twice. The first time I got stopped the officer let me go, telling me to be careful on the twisty roads around the lake. The second time I got stopped I told the officer that I thought the limit was 45. He informed me that it used to be, but they had knocked it down to 25 recently, so he let me go. 

I managed to get stopped for having an expired registration once, and I got out of that one too because I told the officer that I was already paying a $200 fine to get the registration renewed. He didn't want to add to my financial burden, so he let me go.

Now, all of this happened while I was still young. I don't know if things would be any different now that I'm old and have a kid. In fact, I'm pretty damn sure that if I got caught speeding with a kid in the car I'd have a ticket in my face faster than you can blink.

Anyway, the point of all of this is, truly, why are there never cops around when you need one? On our road we have the only passing lane on the entire 13 mile street RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR HOUSE. And pass they do. Quite often someone will be doing the speed limit of 45, and some jackass will zip past them doing 60 or more. It's insane. I just don't understand why 45 isn't fast enough. It's dangerous too. Livvie will never be allowed to play in our front yard because of this. If the cops sat in our driveway for a few days they could make their quota quite easily. And frankly, I want them to.

I am halfway tempted to call up the sheriff's department and ask them to come and sit in our driveway. This shit pisses me off royally. And it isn't just the passers. I'll be sitting waiting to turn into my driveway and someone will come up behind me so fast that I KNOW I'm about to get hit. Luckily I haven't been, but I was in the car one time when BFF got hit trying to make the left into my driveway. That wasn't due to speeding though, and the accident wasn't that bad.

So what would you do? Would you call and have them come sit out here? Or do you think that using our hidden driveway is an unfair "advantage..."

8 comments:

Em said...

Why the hell not? Call them.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, call them, it could not hurt.

Anonymous said...

I say go for it, I think I'd do that. Maybe that spot will become a little less dangerous as a result, and there'd be some gratification in it :D Also, I really don't think the advantage is unfair. Seems to me, all things considered, it's about even.

squirrelgirl said...

I'd call in a heartbeat. We have a problem area in my neighborhood for speeders and we've called twice to get the sheriff to patrol it. It works, for awhile anyway.

Cyn said...

Which is more important to you, an unfair advantage to people speeding or Livvie not being able to play in the front yard/ accidents aplenty?

EmmaL said...

I say call them!

jennyquarx said...

Call them. They hang out in our hidden parking lot all the time.

You can also see about getting a radar gun from them. They will gladly let you do their job around here.

Good luck!

Anonymous said...

I say you put something in the street to make them have to slow down to avoid it. When I was younger, I used to build snowmen in the street just to make people pay more attention to the road.

Since Autumn is coming, why not rake your leaves into the street and make people have to slow down to miss the pile.

then again, maybe alerting the police to this is a better solution... just not as fun.