Helloooooo, people….hang up the phones!
I’m astounded at the number of people talking on their cell phones and driving at the same time since the new law came into effect on January 1, 2010. So, in case you missed it, here it is – it’s a bit boring so skim if you must, but please, at least read my last two sentences:
Prohibition against use of electronic device while driving
214.2 (1) A person must not use an electronic device while driving or operating a motor vehicle on a highway.
(2) Without limiting subsection (1), a person must not communicate by means of an electronic device with another person or another device by electronic mail or other text-based message.
Use of Electronic Devices while Driving
“electronic device” means
(a) a hand-held cellular telephone or another hand-held electronic device that includes a telephone function,
(b) a hand-held electronic device that is capable of transmitting or receiving electronic mail or other text-based messages, or
(c) a prescribed class or type of electronic device;
“use”, in relation to an electronic device, means one or more of the following actions:
(a) holding the device in a position in which it may be used;
(b) operating one or more of the device’s functions;
(c) communicating orally by means of the device with another person or another device;
(d) taking another action that is set out in the regulations by means of, with or in relation to an electronic device.
$167.00 and three points on your drivers licence, or $20-$100 for a hands free device to use with your phone.
It’s your choice.
“A car behind me honked its horn and I noticed that I had slowed down to under thirty miles an hour. It occurred to me that with clever gadgetry you could easily chart the emotional state of a driver from his variations in speed and aggression at the wheel.
I considered the idea of cars having sensors installed which would pick up driving inconsistencies and calculate their cause by reference to some electronic table compiled by a competent psychologist. The data collected from this table would then send signals to a display on the roof.
‘Attention! The driver of this car has just had a terrible row with his wife.’
‘This driver is besotted with his new mistress.’
‘This driver is in a foul bate after being unable to find his spectacles this morning.’
‘This driver is in an even, equatable temper.’ “
I was convinced, as that retired police commissioner used to say, that it would constitute a major contribution to road safety.”
– Stephen Fry, The Hippopotamus
Even in a work of fiction it appears our driving habits are an issue. I simply love the gadget idea as described by Mr. Fry, particularly the bit about having a sensor that picks up on driving inconsistencies. If only it were so easy!
A few years ago a research group conducted a study on VPD officers. On duty officers were hooked up to heart rate and blood pressure monitors, the readings of which were recorded over the course of the entire shift. As expected, heart rate and blood pressure went up, sometimes way up, when officers responded to a priority call and readings remained elevated for quite some time afterwards. I touched on this earlier this year when I attended a medical checkup thirty minutes after being involved in a pursuit. Even though I felt relaxed and calm, my blood pressure was still elevated.
I wonder what Fry’s gadget above my police car would have said?
A study I would like to see is one where the eye movements of police officers are measured to try and get a read on how much of the road in front of them they scan. I know I’m constantly scanning the road ahead of my vehicle looking out for everything from other drivers, pedestrians, cyclists, obstacles and suspects. My scanning goes into overdrive when driving Code Three, where my safety, the safety of other people on the road and the safety of the citizens I’m trying to help is paramount – I’m no use to anyone if I don’t make it to the call because I’ve been involved in an accident.
Then I’d like to see the study compared to a similar one of drivers with a high-crash ratio. What don’t those drivers see? Are they really only looking at the ten foot section of road directly in front of their vehicle? Are they looking at their mp3 player, cell phone or the pretty woman/handsome man on the sidewalk? Or do they sit hunched over their steering wheel staring at the bumper of the car in front of them, completely oblivious to everything around them?
Inquiring minds would like to know.
There is a big difference between Prairie snow and West Coast snow.
Prairie snow is fluffy, dry and fairly easy to drive in. Unless, of course, the weather plummets to -28 C with relentless wind resulting in limited visibility like it was today in Calgary, Alberta. In that case it’s the rest of Mother Nature’s fury you have to deal with.
Then there is West Coast snow.
The blankets of white are gorgeous for about 24 hours before the tinges and splashes of grey slush take over. Our snow, at least down near sea level, is heavy, wet and slippery. It’s hell to drive in and wrecks havoc when temperatures drop below zero turning everything into an Olympic size skating rink.
Vancouver drivers tend to be the laughing stock of Canada when it snows. Prairie folk and those from out East poke fun at our inability to drive in only one centimeter of the white stuff. Yes, a lot of drivers need to slow down when it snows, and just because a person is behind the wheel of a four wheel drive or an all wheel drive vehicle does not make them immune to slipping and sliding all over the road. But it’s not just the drivers, it’s the snow!
Our snow is like the evil little step-child of the Canadian snow family – at first glance it’s pretty in all it’s sparkling splendor, but before you can say, “How charming!” the evil little step-child has turned the road beneath your wheels into a merry-go-round with no way for you to get off the ride.
Today saw the first snowfall of the season and I woke to a snow-covered neighborhood. The road in front of our house was packed solid. My truck’s four wheel drive and appropriate tires came in handy, but I still putted down the street knowing I could end up in the ditch if I wasn’t careful.
Remember the stop sign by my house? You’ll never guess what happened there this afternoon.
If I was a game show host and your guess was ‘an accident’, you would be going home a winner. Someone was going too fast, couldn’t stop at the stop sign, slid through the intersection and t-boned a neighbour of ours. No one was hurt but both vehicles sustained significant damage and had to be towed away.
So please, forget about our Prairie and East Coast friends laughing at us. Because really, they can’t laugh at our inability to drive in this snow until they’ve come out here and tried it themselves.
Just slow down, ensure your vehicle is properly equipped for winter driving, take your corners with care, watch out for pedestrians forced into the roadway by snowed-in sidewalks, don’t slam on the brakes at the top of a snow covered hill and take extra time to get to your destination.
With a little patience and a lot of care we will all get to where we need to go.
If you look around Vancouver you will quickly see we are a city trying to attain a green life style by introducing more bicycle lanes, high density neighborhoods and pedestrian-friendly walkways. These are considered improvements by most and inconveniences by some.
I, for one, prefer living in an area where the single family homes do not crouch over one another with touching roof lines but instead sit on decent size lots with private backyards. Living in an area where it is still possible to walk or bike to the grocery store is considered a bonus and is the reason I live in one of Vancouver’s suburbs. That, and the price of homes in Vancouver is a wee bit steep.
I walk as often as a I can and one thing is for certain – life is different as a pedestrian. Not only do you have to watch out for other pedestrians and human-powered modes of transportation such as bicycles, roller blades and scooters, you have to really pay attention when it’s time to cross the street.
As most of you know, a vehicle shall yield to a pedestrian waiting to cross the street at a crosswalk. Sometimes vehicles stop, but in my experience, most vehicles do not. I’ve been stranded on the center median of a crosswalk waiting to get to the other side with PSD Hondo while tracking a fleeing suspect, and it gets very frustrating when drivers pretend not to see you perched on your precarious island. But does that mean I step out into the road and take my chances? Uh-huh, no way, not going to happen. I’ve seen the end result when a pedestrian and a motor vehicle meet at speed. Almost always, the ped loses. Waiting for a break in traffic is usually safer.
Lately, I’ve seen pedestrians move in ways that put them at considerable risk:
- jaywalking on a dark night in the heavy rain while wearing dark clothing
- stopping for no reason while crossing the road
- starting across at a crosswalk when it is not safe to do so
- not making eye contact with drivers
- running across the street at the last minute
- not shoulder checking before stepping into a crosswalk to ensure a vehicle isn’t turning (this happens ALL THE TIME and is one of my biggest pet peeves)
All of the above can have fatal consequences. Even today, on my way home from work, I saw a woman crossing a major street in a marked crosswalk. She was fiddling with her MP3 player, her attention drawn to the device in her hand and not to her surroundings. She was pulling a child’s wagon behind her full of groceries, not kids – thank goodness for small miracles. When she made it to the other side, she did not scoot the wagon up the wheelchair ramp to the safety of the sidewalk. Instead, she stood about four feet off the curb out in the road, her wagon alongside her in the blind spot for a driver turning at the corner. The entire time she kept her attention focused on her music. Not only was she a good target for an inattentive driver, she was an excellent potential victim for a mugging.
The light eventually changed and she continued on her way, completely oblivious to what was going on around her.
Now here’s the thing – I’m not coming down on pedestrians. There are a lot of very heads-up, traffic savvy walkers out there. It’s just that I wish more people would pay attention, because even if you have the right of way as a ped, you only stand to get hurt if you get struck by a car. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is – you lose in the end.
In the time between issuing the excessive speeding ticket and our the first court date, the Street Racing Hot Line worked out the wrinkles in their new system and figured out how to deal with Mr Corvette Driver. As a result, Mr. CD had his licence revoked for a number of weeks and he found himself wallowing in the ranks of prohibited drivers.
On our first court date Mr. CD was more than thirty minutes late for his appearance. This did not go over well with the Justice of the Peace, who sternly asked for an explanation as to his tardiness. Mr. CD showed great humility and gave the court his apologies, saying he had missed one of the three public transit buses required to get him from his home to the court house.
The JP gave this some thought before accepting Mr. CD’s apology, and then sent him to registrar to set another date with the warning to NOT be late for his second court appearance.
When Mr. CD sputtered and asked why his case couldn’t be heard then, the JP said there were other cases to be heard whose defendants had been on time.
I love a judge with a good, healthy sense of justice, don’t you?
Our second court date came around a few weeks later. With only a few moments to spare before the courtroom opened, I still had not seen Mr. CD when scanning the numerous faces waiting in the corridor. Sprinkled in among defendants were other police officers and bylaw officers. I recognized one motorcycle officer and went over to say hello. We ended up talking about the reasons we were in court this day, and shortly after realized we both had previous dealings with Mr. CD.
I was frustrated the defendant was not yet at the courthouse; I suggested perhaps Mr. CD had missed his bus and it was the following reactionary comment from my motorcycle colleague that can be described only as divine intervention.
“What are you talking about? Mr. CD’s already here. I saw his car parked outside,” he said.
The next few moments were a flurry of Q & A, and by the end of it we had determined the following:
- Mr. CD’s driver’s licence had been revoked and he was currently a prohibited driver
- Driving while prohibited is an arrestable offence
- While none of the police officers present at court could put Mr. CD behind the wheel, Mr. CD’s bright blue Corvette was parked out front of the court house
- A check of the licence plate on the Corvette confirmed Mr. CD as the registered owner
- the probability of Mr. CD being the one to have driven the Corvette to the courthouse was high
- my motorcycle colleague was going to sit in on the trial and watch, as he knew Mr. CD could get up to some serious shenanigans when in court.
As I took my place in the court gallery beside the motorcycle officer I looked around. The one person I was searching for was absent, but just as proceedings were about to begin Mr. CD snuck in the door and took his seat.
The Justice of the Peace went around the room, everyone stated their names, and cases were called to the bench. All the guilty pleas were heard first, fines and adjusted payment schedules were doled out, and time ticked down to when we would take the stand.
Finally, we were called.
The two of us stepped forward and proceedings began with my taking the witness stand and explaining the facts as they occurred in the original street racing post. Mr. CD then had the chance to cross examine me, which he did. That’s when it got weird.
Between questions on how long I had been a police officer and inquiries if I had ever been permitted to give expert testimony on my ability to give a visual estimation of a vehicle’s speed, Mr. CD introduced his argument that there was no way, in the 1.5 blocks we had travelled on the date of the alleged infraction, that a Crown Victoria weighing in at xxx pounds could have reached a velocity of xxx kilometers an hour, even if travelling at a high rate of speed down a hill with a 5% grade. And yes, that’s really how he talked.
After much deliberation of the calibration of my police vehicle’s speedometer, of my years experience as a driver, and of the sheer ridiculous thought that Mr. CD had been street racing on the day in question, the JP finally instructed Mr. CD to get to the point.
Mr. CD held his tablet of notes up with a flourish and he paced back and forth as he started his cross examination. Several of his questions prompted a terse response from the bench with direction to keep the questions on subject, and when such a demand is made after the JP pushes his glasses to the end of his nose so he can better visually penetrate the person he is looking at, you had better heed the warning
Eventually, Mr. CD took the witness stand and gave his version of events. He denied almost everything, saying he had been driving at the speed limit, admitting only to exchanging words with the motorcycle riders; he said they simply commented on his nice car. He even went so far as to say his beloved blue Corvette was in storage as he was abiding by the driving prohibition he had been issued.
It was at this point my motorcycle officer colleague quietly slipped out of the courtroom. I’m the only one who noticed.
At the end of the traffic trial, the Justice of the Peace found Mr. CD guilty of the excessive speeding infraction, stating the validity of the officer’s evidence weighed heavily on his decision. Mr. CD did not have his fine reduced, but he was given an extra few months to pay it down. Mr. CD gathered his papers together, stuffed them in his briefcase and stormed out of the courtroom.
I gave the customary bow to the JP and pushed out of the courtroom door only to find my motorcycle officer friend waiting outside. He saw me and quickly pulled me into a nearby doorway.
“We have his car under surveillance. If he drives, we’ll have him,” he said in a conspirator’s whisper.
We turned our radios to the channel the traffic officers were using and listened to them give updates as Mr. CD was followed covertly out of the courthouse.
“He’s walking down the sidewalk. He’s out on the street walking towards the driver’s door of the Corvette.”
A two second pause.
“Shit! A patrol car turned down the street – he stepped away from the car and back to the sidewalk!”
Another pause, this time a little longer.
“He’s back at the Corvette. He’s opening the door and he’s in the driver’s seat. Ignition. We have ignition!” the excited voice exclaimed, “He’s northbound on Hornby!”
Moments later, with a news TV crew in tow, one of the motorcycle officers stopped the Corvette, handcuffed Mr. CD, and arrested him for driving while prohibited.
God knows where the TV news crew came from, but the entire incident made the 6 o’clock news that night.
Their story was a thing of beauty.
Karma – the force generated by a person’s actions to perpetuate transmigration and in its ethical consequences to determine the nature of the person’s next existence
Before continuing with the saga of The Street Racer, it’s important that everyone understands what happens when a driver attends traffic court in order to dispute a ticket issued to them by an officer. Several sites outline the process in detail – The Provincial Court of British Columbia, The Canadian Bar Association, Courts of BC, and a Vancouver Sun article gives a fly on the wall perspective.
Here is a Cole’s Notes version of what takes place in traffic court – keep in mind this is an extremely basic explanation:
- When you dispute a ticket you are given a date and time to attend traffic court
- When your day in court arrives, go to your designated courtroom – do not be late. Do not wear a hat, or if you do, make sure to take it off when you walk in to the court room. Be respectful. Know what you are going to say.
- You will be asked by the Judicial Justice of the Peace (the ‘judge’) if you are going to plead guilty or not guilty. Many people stall at this point, as they want to plead guilty but simply have an issue with paying the fine. If this is the case, say you want to plead guilty with an explanation
- If you plead guilty, or guilty with an explanation, the Justice of the Peace will discuss the infraction and fine with you to come to an agreement over payment/time to pay etc.
- If you plead not guilty, then both you and the officer who issued the ticket will get to tell your own sides of the story. There are usually no lawyers involved, unless the disputant is raising a legal issue (see links above). You will have the opportunity to question/cross examine the officer, and vice versa
- The Justice of the Peace then makes their decision and hands down their judgement
So there you go - a little bit of background to set the stage.
Several years ago while working in a plainclothes general patrol capacity, my partner and I came up behind three motorcycles and one bright blue Corvette lined up at a red light. It was obvious the motorcycles were not with the Corvette as the riders were checking out the sports car with some admiration.
The driver of the Corvette noticed them noticing so he inched his car forward to come alongside the nearest rider. The driver’s side window came down, an arm extended out of the opening, words were exchanged, and the helmeted head of the nearest rider jerked up in the gesture, “What, you wanna go?”
Apparently the Corvette driver did – the light changed to green and all four of them were off, their tires spitting up debris from the roadway to pepper the front of our car.
Our province had just introduced a zero tolerance policy on street racing, and by golly, we had ourselves a street race unfolding right in front of us.
We went after them and so intent were they on their race that not one of them noticed the dark grey, unmarked Crown Victoria bearing down on them.
We clocked them at 100kms/hr, downhill, through a road construction zone (it was after the work day so no work crews were around) and they were still accelerating towards the next red light when we hit the lights and siren. They had to be stopped before they killed someone.
The motorcycles immediately slowed and started to pull to the side. The Corvette, on the other hand, made a hard left hand turn down a side street and sped out of sight. We chose to stay with the motorcycles and radioed in the licence plate and direction of travel on the Corvette. As several other police units were already headed to the area the Corvette was stopped a couple of blocks away by a responding cruiser.
By the end of it, after a call to the 24 hour police-only line designated for street racing incidents, the three bike riders were each issued with a driving prohibition (if I recall, each was for 30 days) and got to watch as their motorcycles were slung onto tow truck and impounded. To give the riders credit, they were polite, cooperative and apologized for their actions. I almost felt sorry for them, but not quite. I’ve seen what happens when street races go awry, and it’s devastating when innocent people are killed and maimed. We handed them their prohibitions and sent them away in a taxi.
The Corvette driver was an entirely different story.
He was arrogant, rude and tried to speak in the volumes of legal-eeze that showed he was a frequent flier in traffic court. He first refused to hand me his drivers licence, but acceded when he saw there was no point, then he called me sweetheart, and then he said he’d sue me for a ‘wrongful police stop’ and have my job. In other words, he was annoying. I mean, really annoying. But, as I say to others, don’t let it get personal and just do your job. So we did. With gritted teeth.
Here was the kicker, though – the Corvette driver held an out of province drivers licence, and at that time, with street racing legislation still in the infant stages, there was no recommendation on what to do in a situation like the one we faced. A missed loophole stated the street racing legislation was effective only for drivers holding a BC licence.
We ended up issuing the man a ticket and fine for excessive speeding. That’s all we had the power to do at the time, and somehow it just didn’t sit right. We had already dealt with the motorcycle riders, and I thought either all of them should get the same prohibition, or none of them. Keep it fair, right? The people at the street-racing line let us know they would look into it and would liase with the man’s home province to try and figure out what to do.
We had to let the Corvette driver proceed. He grinned his smarmy grin, gave us a ta-ta wave with his ticket, buckled up and started his engine.
“I’ll see you ladies in court,” he said, and blew us a kiss as he drove away.
Coming up next in Part 2, read how the traffic court dates unfold and what happens after.
“Fail to Yield for Emergency Vehicle” – BC Motor Vehicle Act, Section 177, 3 driver penalty points, $109.00 fine.
One of the primary complaints of anyone who drives an emergency vehicle for a living is when other drivers fail to yield the right of way to an emergency vehicle driving Code Three (lights and sirens).
For the most part, I find the citizens of Vancouver are alert and know what to do when a police car, ambulance or fire truck in full Code Three mode comes up behind them – the citizens pull over to the closet side of the road giving the emergency vehicle plenty of room to get by. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! You do not know how much we appreciate it when you do this!
But then there are times when a citizen gets the ‘deer in the headlights’ look and freezes. In times like these, no amount of frantic waving or sirens on the part of the officer is going to get the person to move. I know. It happens to me. At least once every time I drive Code Three, which happens at least once a shift. You do the math. But I digress…
Once, while driving in a marked police car, I heard an ambulance coming up behind me. Their lights were flashing and their siren was wailing as they drove to an urgent medical call. So I did as you are supposed to do – I pulled over to the side of the road (yes, even police cars do this in respect for other emergency vehicles if not also responding to an emergent call). There were other vehicles on the road at the time, and they too pulled over.
Then there was this one driver travelling in the same direction as the ambulance. He kept on driving, effectively blocking the ambulance. The ambulance couldn’t go around him as the guy was straddling two lanes and the ambulance was hemmed in by a cement median. As the two vehicles passed me, the driver of the car started to slow down and then rolled through the next intersection, still without stopping. As it turned out, this was the intersection where the ambulance was trying to turn at, and there was a near-miss collision between the two vehicles. Imagine my surprise when the civilian honked his horn and proceeded to pop his middle finger up at the ambulance.
When the ambulance completed its turn and continued on to whatever call it was going to, I pulled in behind the driver of the car and initated my own emergency equipment. If you guessed that the guy failed to stop for me as well, then you guessed correctly. He wasn’t driving all that fast, but he finally got the hint when I pulled up beside him and pointed at the side of the road.
The driver was less than cordial when I approached his car, and he was most upset when I explained why I had pulled him over. Well, ‘most upset’ is a bit of an understatement. He was furious. Even after I explained that he was bound by law to yield to an emergency vehicle by pulling over to the side of the road and stopping, he screamed at me that he had ’slowed down’, that slowing down was all he was prepared to do, and it wasn’t his fault if the ambulance driver didn’t know how to drive.
He was none too pleased about the violation ticket I issued him for the offence, and kicked up a fuss, swearing and yelling that he was going to have my job and that he would see me in court. I let him vent, and he eventually calmed down enough to drive away.
The fellow never did dispute the ticket, though. He paid the fine and the points were added to his licence. Too bad. I would have loved to have heard his version of events in the courtroom.
In April 2006, after months of training, PSD Hondo and I were finally ready to hit the road. All the years of hard work had finally culminated with Hondo and I deploying on our first shift as a bona fide K9 team.
Nervous? Me? Noooo, not at all.
Not since my first shift as a brand new recruit had I experienced the sweaty palms, racing pulse and cracking radio voice. Excited I was finally living my dream, and terrified I would somehow make a mistake, I drove around getting used to my new call sign, Kilo 84, and trying to regain my composure. Overall, I’d been doing a decent job until the night decided to throw me a ‘outta-the-frying-pan-and-into-the-fire’ type of call.
It was the middle of the night, and I was stopped at a red light when the flash of headlights briefly illuminated the interior of my SUV. Then again, twice more, like the warning beacon of a lighthouse. At the same time, the squeal of tires snapped my attention out the passenger side window, and there in the parking lot beside me, was a small red Honda Civic. The Honda’s headlights flashed as the car spun in tight little circles, tires screaming down rubber in a series of donuts.
Apparently, cops love donuts, and if the driver of the Honda wanted my attention, he definitely had it.
A quick check of the licence plate revealed the car was on file as stolen, and when the Honda left the parking lot a few seconds later, I was behind it, all of my nervousness gone. As I waited for backup units to arrive in the area, the suspect driver decided to try and stack the cards in his favour by cutting off a city bus and turning down a side street. I had to wait for the bus to finish trundling through the intersection before executing a similar manoeuvre, and by the time I completed the turn, all that was left of the Honda was a flash of brake lights two blocks down. It quickly became apparent there was no way I was going to catch up with the Honda, and when I took my eyes off the car for a moment in order to clear an intersection, it disappeared.
Not good.
Hoping to spot the Honda’s brake lights again, I drove in the direction the car had been travelling in. But it wasn’t brake lights I spotted, it was smoke. And skid marks. And a demolished street sign. Following a trail of destruction, I found the Honda, resting on it’s roof in someones side yard. All the windows had been blown out, and thin tendrils of smoke rose from the revving engine. I jumped out of my truck and ran to the car, thinking the driver would be injured and suspended upside down by his seat belt. Imagine my surprise when I found an empty passenger compartment. My only thought as I ran back to my truck to get Hondo was ‘You have got to be kidding me…’
The smoking, upside down car almost proved to be too much for a very new police dog (we had never seen this in a training scenario), but Hondo was able to keep his wits about him and he acquired a track away from the car. For the next half an hour, Hondo tracked the car thief through yards, over fences and across a golf course. It was not until the track ended in a parking lot that we had to admit defeat when it became clear the suspect had made good his escape in another vehicle.
This story doesn’t end with ‘the suspect in custody’. No one was hurt, and with the exception of one street sign, a section of lawn, one sapling and a five year old Honda, nothing was damaged. It does end with an example of the driving habits of car thieves – these guys think they’re of the Andretti vintage when they most definitely are not – and shows why we should all do more to combat auto theft.
And not every case a police dog team deploys on will result in an arrest – this truth was hammered home to me that night. But I can guarantee you every case Hondo and I deploy on will be treated as if we are about to make the arrest of the century. You’ve got my word on it.
A while back, a young man made the poor decision to steal a minivan. John (not his real name) drove around Vancouver in his stolen van until he caught the attention of two officers in a police car. They conducted a traffic stop, and John pulled over. John must have realised he was about to get caught, because he zoomed away as the officers approached his window. The officers hopped back into their police car and gave chase. However, with our stringent policies surrounding vehicle pursuits, coupled with the fact the van had not yet been reported stolen, the officers were required to stop pursing the van and John was able to get away.
But not for long.
In his haste to try and get rid of the stolen van, John tried to abandon it. In doing so, he made his second bad decision of the night - the lane John chose to dump the van in was adjacent to the police station.
Two different officers coming on shift saw John as he parked the stolen van, and they attempted to arrest him. Without radios (they had not yet picked up their radios or police car) they had no way of knowing John had just fled from a traffic stop. John was able to drive away, this time dragging one of the officers for a short distance. As he raced out of the lane, John’s decision making entered the ’bad things happen in three’s’ realm when he narrowly avoided t-boning the police car that had originally spotted him.
So ensued another brief pursuit. The officers in the police car were again instructed to stop pursuing (at this point, no one knew John had dragged another officer or that the on-foot guys had tried to arrest him), and John was able to get away. Again.
As this was all happening, PSD Hondo and I were driving into the area to see if we could be of assistance. When the pursuit was terminated a second time, the police unit broadcast that John was last seen headed in my direction. I pulled over, turned my headlights off, and sat there in my unmarked SUV. I heard John before I saw him; the sound was similar to that of the space shuttle on takeoff, and I knew he was getting close.
John blipped passed me at more than double the speed limit, barely in control of the van as he careened down the street and through a stop sign. Then John proved his driving prowess by augering the van into the back of a construction trailer parked on the side of the road. In an impressive explosion of smoke and debris the van literally flew through the air, coming to rest another half a block down. The entire front end was gone, the wheels were angled to all points of the compass, and I was already driving towards the wreckage anticipating a fatality when the driver’s door popped open and John jumped out, uninjured. It was proof again that somehow, these guys are able to survive accidents that would otherwise kill an innocent bystander.
John tried to make a run for it, looking back at me over his shoulder while brandishing a can of bear spray. Bad decision number four.
I yelled at him to stop or the police dog would be sent. John kept on running. Yup, you got it…that’s number five.
And so, John got a fast and hard lesson on the Law of Cause and Effect when he discovered the four paws of a police dog are much quicker than the two feet of a fleeing suspect.
