A few years back while the blue light bandit was stopping innocent drivers, a friend of mine was coming off Hwy 64 at Hwy 87 and braked at the stop signs there, saw no cars coming in the dark, and turned right. A patrol car hiding in the dark with no lights on was soon a blue light following her on the country road with ditches and weeds, no shoulders to pull off. This woman had to turn off on an even lonelier dark country road to stop. He could have been the blue light bandit for all she knew. The highway patrolman gave her a ticket for not staying at the stop sign long enough when no one was coming. She had been driving longer than this young highway whippersnapper had been alive, and never caused a wreck in 50 years on the road. What the highway patrolman did seemed more dangerous than what she did.
A neighbor of hers, also an older woman driving alone, told of being stopped coming to Hwy 64 around that same period. Law enforcement should be stopping those speedsters passing people on double yellow lines and going way over the speed limit, or dump truck drivers in the middle of the road going up a hill where any car coming the other way would be creamed. Little old ladies stopping but not staying before turning on an empty road (not quite, with the officer hiding in the dark!) are an easy mark, but law enforcement should be focusing on real dangers on the road many of us have seen.
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 01:03:21 +0000
From: Eve Holladay
Subject: tickets: blue light special