Posted on 10/05/2006 4:41:06 PM PDT by Coleus
You hand-wringers who complain about the loss of courtesy on the road might take comfort in knowing that I've found some. It's called police courtesy. Yeah, I know, that's just another name for favoritism. But in its pure form, professional courtesy is a good idea, especially if an officer is helping an out-of-town brother in blue find a parking space or tow. It's a bad idea, though, when a cop gets a pass after breaking a traffic law. And it's downright obscene when the rest of us see this charade while being ticketed for breaking the same law.
It's like lecturing your kid about speeding while going 85 mph. So, it shouldn't have been a surprise when the daughter of a ranking New York cop called daddy last year as two Palisades Interstate Park cops ticketed her for parking in a handicapped spot. When PIP cops wouldn't talk to him, Garry McCarthy arrived in his SUV. According to a judge, what followed wasn't courteous. It was a melee.
Some cops will go to extremes to defend courtesy -- even challenging their brothers in public. McCarthy got a ticket for blocking traffic and was ultimately handcuffed and disarmed. His wife was cited for yelling obscenities and trying to retrieve his gun. Isn't this simply a couple of parents acting rashly? Sure, but McCarthy, an NYPD deputy commissioner, isn't any parent. He's Mayor Cory Booker's nominee for police director in Newark, a city where police confrontations are common, where judgment under fire is essential, and where standards of courtesy shouldn't be confused with favoritism.
If ranking cops can't understand police courtesy, how can the rank-and-file? It isn't the diplomatic immunity that cops misused 50 years ago when drunks and wife-beaters rated a ride home and a day off to sober up. Today, the accent is on professional. It means one pro will extend courtesy because he trusts that the other guy embraces standards expected of their profession. It can mean trusting that the other guy won't hold back when you have to go through a door together with guns drawn.
But when one law enforcement officer allows another to break the law, this act, by definition, isn't professional. It's not courteous to taxpayers who pay their salaries, either. A better case can be made for giving courtesy to a different profession, maybe doctors or clergymen, in a bona fide emergency. They're not sworn to uphold the law. In defending courtesy for minor offenses, most police admit too many of their brothers don't deserve these breaks.
When a violator cops a Garry McCarthy-type attitude, these cops won't do what the PIP officers did. They still extend courtesy. By doing so, they're encouraging the kind of aggressive, doctrinaire conduct more suitable for a mission behind enemy lines than on highways. Send cops like McCarthy after Osama bin Laden, but keep them out of New Jersey, especially Cory Booker's Newark.
One of the most amazing contrasts is to drive through South Orange, past BEAUTIFUL turn of the last century mansions, and then, as soon as you pass Seton Hall, you enter Cracktown, aka the Vailsburgh section of New Jersey.
Deal with it. We are all donkeys and dogs, they are the masters. < /sarc>
Traffic laws are flouted, and their flouting is ignored by police, every day.
I'd like to know if there's a movement against any traffic enforcement, at least for speeding on roads where 100% of the population ignores the speed limit. I know of roads where the limit is 25 mph and it would be hard to find anyone driving under 40.
I think a cop that actually tried to enforce the law on those roads would be lynched, and that's why it doesn't happen.
Still, I would rather not consistently flout the law every day. Is there any reasonable way to lobby for changes in speed limits?
Since I know that this matters to this question, I should note that I presently live in Pennsylvania.
D
Traffic Violater Do!
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