Car 54 Where are you?
Last night I finally met the police officer that gives all cops a bad name. While cruising home from work I entered the sacred ground known as Westwood Kansas, one of a cluster of small towns on the Kansas-Missouri line that links Kansas City with the Johnson County suburbs and apparently derives a majority of their income from writing tickets to unsuspecting out of towners. You see, there is a huge flow of drivers through these burgs who have been consuming alcoholic beverages. I have been stopped probably two dozen times in the last two and a half years and mostly I'm given some crazy excuse as the reason for getting pulled over, like, "you were kind of swerving", or my personal favorite, "your license plate light is burnt out." That particular one is really a bunch of hooey. Think about it. The light that illuminates your license plate is totally useless. If it's daylight out you can see the plate just fine. If it's dark out, unless the officer is following you with his headlights off, his headlights illuminate the tag. If no one is behind you, light or dark, why would the plate need to be illuminated?
Anyway, usually when I'm pulled over they ask if I've been drinking and I tell them the company frowns on alcoholic beverages at work. They ask where I work and then its all happy happy Mr. Peters. The officer and I have a little chuckle and they send me on my way. I've even been stopped twice in one night, the first within sight of the second. Not a problem.
Last night I got John Wayne, or at least he thought he was. "I stopped you because apparently you were too busy on the phone to signal a lane change". I guess I hadn't even noticed because I really do use my turn signals most of the time. I gave him my registration, insurance and license. "How long have you lived in Kansas?" I said "two and a half years." He asked "Why haven't you licensed this truck in Kansas yet?" To which I replied, "Because, as you can see by the name on the registration, this is not my truck. It is my mother's truck who lives in Nebraska." I believe he was starting to get really upset with me. I sat for fifteen minutes while he wrote me a citation for a no signal lane change and burnt out license plate light.
Well, when he showed me the ticket I said, "You're kidding!" The ticket fines were almost $150 for the two violations. He said no he wasn't kidding. I said I drive through here five nights a week, this is...is...he interupted me with this statement, "This is Bullsh*t?". I said, "I was going to say ridiculous." I have never had a police officer use profanity during a traffic stop. I thought I better just shut up before he pistol whipped me, maced me or shot me.
To make a long story short, I was furious. Stacy and I have the utmost respect for police. Her father was killed in the line of duty as a Wichita police officer and her grandfather was Assistant Police Chief in Wichita. Stacy's brother is going to the academy right now and her nephew was a sheriff's deputy. My cousin Wally is a Sheriff. I have already written to Westwood Kansas Mayor Johnson. Stay tuned to see if Westwood Kansas has a public relations policy. I'm going to bet they don't. Just another stupid out of towner.
Help Wanted!
Westwood Police Department is luking fer offisirs. No peeple skeels rekwired. We ofer a generus salery PLUS comision! No xperiance or ejukation necesery. Overhauls and banjoe furnished.
posted by Annonymous @ 8:02 PM
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I too, had a terrible encounter with a bitterly angry man from the Westwood police department. I was stopped for having the audacity to drive through a red light while taking someone to the emergency room at 4:30 AM. Never mind that we first stopped at the light and waited a ridiculously long time for it to change before proceeding through (and carefully checking for oncoming cars) or that the tip of my passenger's thumb was hanging by a thread. Westwood's finest made sure that we knew, mostly by yelling alot, that there's no acceptable reason to go through a red light. Ever. Besides, as he said, "that cut's not bad enough to go runnin' off to the emergency over." And he would know because he's an EMT and we would know he's an EMT because he told us 5 times. Because he is so steadfastly dedicated to keeping the streets of Westwood safe from the perrils of poorly illuminated license plates and middle of the night emergency room trips; he took a long time to make sure that there was not a single nuisance ticket left unwritten ($300 in all).
When we finally got to the hospital it took the ER doctors 30 minutes and two tourniquets to get the bleeding under control (she even got the good drugs). The whole experience really freaked me out. So I googled the Westwood Police and found your blog. When I looked at the image of your ticket, I was not very surprised to see that it was the same horrid officer you had to deal with, the sinister Officer Hayes, or Doc as I like to call him. I spoke with the mayor today about him, we'll see if anything happens. Your blog was the only thing that made me feel less spooked by the whole awful experience. It's not only that though, your blog also contains lots of helpful hints for dealing with the vocabulary limitations of the Westwood traffic cops. For example, I now know to ask for a copy of the "cruiser camera" footage rather than the dash cam tape before going to court. Thank you for helping me see the humor in something that was otherwise pretty scary.
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