Different Driving Cultures

I've spent the majority of my life in Northeastern cities. I learned to drive in a city. In 13 years of having my license I've been given a ticket for speeding twice. Both were highway tickets in my late teens/early twenties. Inside of cities, I drive like a typical city dweller. I go fast, I go right on red without regard to signage and I don't get stopped.

Whalley Avenue is one of the main streets in the city I grew up in. I'm guessing the speed limit on Whalley Ave is about 30 but I actually have no idea what the speed limit is. I seriously doubt that anyone knows what the speed limit is because the acceptable driving speed on this road is about 55. You have to be doing something pretty special to get pulled over. It's never happened to me or anyone I know.

What follows is a shameful admission. When I was 19 I was half in the bag and got in a fight with a boy. I left his house in tears and crashed into a parked car in my itty-bitty, gritty, New England city. The police came (special circumstance). I continued to cry my eyes out, mildly concerned that I had crashed into an empty car, but primarily balling because some douche bag had been mean to me. The officer ran the plates on the car I crashed into. The vehicle I had crashed into happened to be unregistered. It's illegal to park an unregistered, uninsured car on the street. For this reason and a ton of stupid luck I didn't get arrested. The cop told me that if I found someone to pick me up and tow my car, she'd let me go. I called some friends and got my car towed home. No one other than my fragile teenage ego was injured.

Prior to living in Tennessee I lived in DC. Rest assured, no more drunk driving, but I continued to drive fast and somewhat aggressive without any interference. Same story in Nashville.

You can imagine my surprise when two months into living in rural Tennessee I'm getting pulled over like it's some sort of fucking game. I got pulled over 4 times in two months.

These are not city roads. These are not interstates. They are wide open clear roads going through towns. Speed limits range from 40-55. In my city brain, that means 65 is a totally acceptable/slow speed to drive. I was wrong, wrong, wrong.

I went to driver retraining classes. I went to court. Then I did something I'd never tried to do before. I started driving the speed limit and looking for speed limit signs, because the buggers are constantly changing. And there's always an officer ready to help you right your wrong.

I realized that it wouldn't kill me to slow down. In some ways, driving slower is a more relaxing driving experience. I assimilated into my new culture. I started to feel safe from the getting pulled over game.

I still had my commutes to Nashville to satiate my demon city driver needs. In fact, when driving in Nashville I frequently note country bumpkins doing the speed limit and less. It's frustrating, because in this case driving super slow is actually dangerous. There's been days where I want it to be illegal for bumpkins to drive in the city but I try to remember that their upbringings have led them to believe that you drive slow or get pulled over.

Prior to last month I didn't get pulled over for a whole year! There's no official award for not getting pulled over in my town, but it felt plaque worthy to me.

So when I called pulled over two days ater Christmas I was crushed and wicked pissed. Not only was my winning streak ruined, getting pulled over sucks. The circumstances of this particular traffic stop left me feeling harassed and demoralized. So, I went to town. Literally. I talked to the city manager. I compiled and analyzed the crime statistics in my town, prepared to take down, or minimize the local police department. Then, the city manager got me in touch with the police chief. He called me one afternoon and we talked for a while. We discussed different styles of policing, the value of traffic stops, speed traps and Florida. The chief was a criminal justice professor for many years and had just taken his post as chief of police in our town one year ago. He told me he'd look into my most recent traffic stop and get back to me. But, he warned me, he wasn't in the business of destroying tickets and I wasn't getting out of court. I told the chief my complaint went deeper than the ticket.

A week or so passed and the chief and I reconnected. He reviewed the tape of my pulling over. I had no idea I had been on candid camera! He agreed that the ticket was total crap. The officer who pulled me over was new and he spoke with her about the incident. The chief apologized and told me if I'd come to the police department with my ticket, they'd take care of it. No court. He said if it had happened to him or his family, he'd of felt harassed too. This made me feel so much better.

I still tried to debate with him the need to pull people over so tenaciously for traffic stuff, but he firmly believes in catching bad guys with traffic stops.

“That's how they caught Ted Bundy” and a bunch of other serial killer guys, he told me.

“That's fine” I said, “but we don't have a serial killer problem in this town, we have a domestic violence problem”.

The chief replied that they find drugs and assaulters when they do traffic stops and we agreed to disagree. I had to take one last stab at the issue, so I asked the chief if I could have some kind of sticker to put on my car that implies that I am not a serial killer-drug-lord, but am just a tax paying, property owning citizen trying to get some groceries and chicken food. The chief could provide no such sticker. He told me he has to watch his ass when he gets groceries too.

The chief seemed like a no bullshit kind of guy and I was half feeling bad for the cop who gave me a hard time. As the chief said, “She's a good officer, just new to the department and we had to talk with her. In fact, her boyfriend came down to the station today and proposed to her”.

“How nice!” I replied. He told me to call if I had any other concerns. He sounded sincere.

I felt validated after my talks with the chief and decided that it might be wise to continue adjusting to rural life, rather than trying to take down the entire police department. Besides, I've got lots of projects I'd rather invest my energy into such as helping hospitals reduce waste, growing vegetables and getting the guy across the street to move his storage trailer. It's blocking my view. Maybe I can convince the chief it's full of serial killers...