Entrapment: A New Way to Raise Money?
I received this comment just today on this post. Since the post is almost two months old and is off the main page, I decided to reprint the comment here as a separate post:
"UNRELATED TOPIC...Recently as I was traveling south on Monroe Road I was 'ambushed' by a school bus driver, who threw the paddle and turned on the flashers when I was darn near nose to nose with the school bus, which was parked in front of the shuttered elementary school. I know flashing lights and a "stop" sign mean I should stop but even at 20 mph a stop at that point would've been pretty jarring and of course as all things clicked in my head I was passing the end on the bus (having scanned the scene for pedestrians) so I felt that "Eek" moment like when a light turns yellow & timing's bad- and continued to intersection.
BOY!!! Was I ever suprised a week or so later when a Sheriff (I'm County) came to my door and asked what kind of car I drove...I honestly never saw THAT coming.
Two things about this entire incident are really getting to me: first, the fine is $394.00 "Say Yes To Kids" levies every year, one of which got shoved through even though it failed, and a fine that could have a disastrous effect on a family around here no matter what the economy, plus the fact that the driver of the bus managed to get my plate number.
(Well, okay- that's 3 things.)
From the time the paddle was thrown (it was quivering like a leaf in the wind as I passed)
to the time I was by the bus and out fo range had been mere seconds.
To me, this indicates that the driver saw me coming down Monroe- the top of the hill where drivers come into plain view is over 1/10th of a mile from where the bus sat- and got my plate number beforehand.
The timing was exquisite, I must say, and the driver had done not a thing to call attention to the bus beforehand.
Once I found out the amount of the ticket I understood the need for a sheriff.
Now I live up Monroe; just about 2 miles up. I can see them leaving the bus depot from my yard. I pass buses and drive the school zone daily. When we moved here we sank more money in locally than that bus driver sees in a year. I give to ANIMAL causes locally- sorry but your kids are yours to take care of not mine. I donate warm clothes and keep the Serenity Thrift in viable goods.
I lay low and pay my bills on time. I shop downtown and have paid for both parking tickets promptly.
Anyway, I was and am offended enough to arrange a court date; not to argue the event but to question the validity of a ticket gained by 'entrapment'.
The whole thing happened so fast I wouldn't even remember exctly where the bus had been except that I remembered a black car stopping behind the bus- in front of the corner of the trailer park.
I have a really bad attitude towards bus drivers now- mostly because it was a really b****y thing to do, and the monetary penalty seems like just another way the school district around here has to fleece homeowners.
If anyone cares to comment on this I hope they will refrain from lectures about 'the value of the life of a child' as I am sure I would most likely have breaked for a child, had ther been one in the road, even if it meant being jarred and going sideways a bit."
"UNRELATED TOPIC...Recently as I was traveling south on Monroe Road I was 'ambushed' by a school bus driver, who threw the paddle and turned on the flashers when I was darn near nose to nose with the school bus, which was parked in front of the shuttered elementary school. I know flashing lights and a "stop" sign mean I should stop but even at 20 mph a stop at that point would've been pretty jarring and of course as all things clicked in my head I was passing the end on the bus (having scanned the scene for pedestrians) so I felt that "Eek" moment like when a light turns yellow & timing's bad- and continued to intersection.
BOY!!! Was I ever suprised a week or so later when a Sheriff (I'm County) came to my door and asked what kind of car I drove...I honestly never saw THAT coming.
Two things about this entire incident are really getting to me: first, the fine is $394.00 "Say Yes To Kids" levies every year, one of which got shoved through even though it failed, and a fine that could have a disastrous effect on a family around here no matter what the economy, plus the fact that the driver of the bus managed to get my plate number.
(Well, okay- that's 3 things.)
From the time the paddle was thrown (it was quivering like a leaf in the wind as I passed)
to the time I was by the bus and out fo range had been mere seconds.
To me, this indicates that the driver saw me coming down Monroe- the top of the hill where drivers come into plain view is over 1/10th of a mile from where the bus sat- and got my plate number beforehand.
The timing was exquisite, I must say, and the driver had done not a thing to call attention to the bus beforehand.
Once I found out the amount of the ticket I understood the need for a sheriff.
Now I live up Monroe; just about 2 miles up. I can see them leaving the bus depot from my yard. I pass buses and drive the school zone daily. When we moved here we sank more money in locally than that bus driver sees in a year. I give to ANIMAL causes locally- sorry but your kids are yours to take care of not mine. I donate warm clothes and keep the Serenity Thrift in viable goods.
I lay low and pay my bills on time. I shop downtown and have paid for both parking tickets promptly.
Anyway, I was and am offended enough to arrange a court date; not to argue the event but to question the validity of a ticket gained by 'entrapment'.
The whole thing happened so fast I wouldn't even remember exctly where the bus had been except that I remembered a black car stopping behind the bus- in front of the corner of the trailer park.
I have a really bad attitude towards bus drivers now- mostly because it was a really b****y thing to do, and the monetary penalty seems like just another way the school district around here has to fleece homeowners.
If anyone cares to comment on this I hope they will refrain from lectures about 'the value of the life of a child' as I am sure I would most likely have breaked for a child, had ther been one in the road, even if it meant being jarred and going sideways a bit."
posted by Tom Harper at 8:26 PM
13 Comments:
This is not surprising. There's a lot of this going on. I know the City and/or County need revenue, but they should get it legitimately.
I use the crosswalks downtown PA a lot, and you take your life in your hands trying to cross (1st Street, especially). Lots of drivers just cruise on through when the pedestrian is ALREADY in the crosswalk.
This is where the police should patrol. They'd make all the revenue the City or County can use, and they'd be actually helping people.
The bus thing that the commenter describes is so deliberate. All of us would do anything necessary to keep little kids safe -- it's not that anybody minds stopping. It's that bus drivers can use this now as a power trip or a revenue generator that makes us mad.
I wish we could go back to the days when the police were there to help us, not to try to put us in the wrong and collect money.
If you were nose-to-nose, then the bus driver should have waited until you'd passed to toss out the sign...because it would have been the safe thing to do. But, I don't think many of the bus drivers are courteous or safety minded.
I drive the 101 daily, and I've had way more than one experience with school buses just pulling infront of me so that I'd have to slam on my brakes to avoid hitting them. I SWEAR they don't look.
Go to court. Call the school district and ask if you can see the safety instructions for school bus drivers...and/or get an attorney to help you ASK for a copy. I'm certain that there must be some guidelines for the distance between an oncoming car and a reasonable use of the flapping stop sign.
Go to court....find out how you can make the bus driver be there, as well as the sheriff. Make them tell the judge how they came to the decisions they came to. Then, report back to us.
Meanwhile, I wish the cops in PA would start writing tickets for all the red light runners and "hollywood stops" (not stopping at stop signs, but rolling through them). I'm so sick of that nonsense!!
With all the vandalism and petty crime (and some not so petty) going on, you'd think the police would have higher priorities. If they want revenue, go after the really dangerous drivers, not just the ones who violated a technicality. Go after the taggers, vandals, thieves, and fine the S%$# out of them.
Bwa ha ha ha ha!
Fools! Those school bus drivers are graduates of my Evil School Bus Driver Academy, the cornerstone in my wall of evil!
Insidiously,
Doctor Nosferatu
If you were nose-to-nose, then the bus driver should have waited until you'd passed to toss out the sign.
I agree....
Last fall I took transit buses to Fork's and Neah Bay. They have those drivers on a very tight schedule and I thought that the driver on the Forks to Neah Bay leg was under too tight of a schedule and had to drive too fast considering that road.
I wonder if it is like that for school bus drivers? Are they under pressure get the job done in a tight time frame?
If so, I blame those that make up the schedules, they are the ones that are endangering others lives.
I'm with ya. That school bus driver was wrong for endangering you by expecting you to slam on your brakes...what if someone was right behind you?? I'd fight this in court!!!!
As far as crosswalks are concerned, when I was growing up, I was taught to wait for traffic to pass. There was no such thing as traffic screeching to a halt when that moron decides to jump off the curb and cross the street and expect everyone to stop causing several rear-enders and whiplashes.
There have been several times driving thru downtown when my attention was on someone opening their car door and jumping out in traffic, or God know what else, and some moron decides to jump into a crosswalk...and I nearly got rear-ended by having to hit my brakes!
What is really annoying is the young punks nowadays who take their sweet time crossing too, while we sit and burn gas.
I'd like to see the laws changed back to people having to be responsible (gasp!) for crossing when traffic clears (or with the light)...no more "pedestrian has the right-of-way" in non-signalled crosswalks (like between Laurel and Lincoln). Perhaps even doing away with in-the-middle-of-the-block crosswalks and mandate crossing at intersections with traffic lights ONLY.
Myself, if I am crossing that crosswalk by McCrorie's, I linger well away from the curb and wait for traffic to clear...I don't want to make traffic have to stop for me.
"Lots of drivers just cruise on through when the pedestrian is ALREADY in the crosswalk."
But this is Port Angeles... The pedestrian is always in the wrong, even if the green light is on their side.
For example...
"I was taught to wait for traffic to pass."
So, even though the green light is on my side, I'm supposed to wait for all the drivers to turn? Otherwise it's my fault for nearly getting hit? Hell, I could wait all day for drivers to notice a pedestrian in the crosswalk. Can't count the number of times I've nearly been hit by a car that's stopped on a red light and decided to go anyways, not noticing or caring there's someone right in front of them.
This town's dangerous for pedestrians. Period.
Something that doesn't make sense to me is building schools on main thoroughfares and then posting 20 MPH speed limits on busy traffic lanes.
When they built the new high school in Kellogg, Idaho they built it at the end of a dead end road with nothing else on it, until they built the new hospital below, but that didn't make it too bad.
At least it makes more sense than what they have around here.
A great many things make more sense somewhere else.
Screw the slow pedestrians...like George Carlin once said: "I just creep up on 'em a little when they're taking too long to cross and put a little Michelin on Nike!"
Lizzy likes Carlin? Hell, she can't be all bad then. Okay, I take back everything I said about her, don't remember what it was anyway. Ha ha ha.
I should probably go hide in the bushes at the cemetary at 15:oo hours and perform a little entrapment scheme of my own.
I believe throwing that 'stop' paddle was one of the most well-timed, practised moves I have seen in quite awhile- this driver had 3/10ths (!!!) of a mile to watch my descent down Monroe towards the light.
Mediation in court should be interesting- who pays the judge, right?!
As for cross walks downtown, I sit and watch with white knuckles as people just can't wait to make their left-hand turn. I think one is supposed to let peds cross the middle line at least, no? The funny part is once these drivers get into flowing traffic thier turn signals fail and they don't go over 25 mph.
Gads.
Anyway- the point of my post was to say that I honestly believe I was ambushed, $394.00 is out**rageous, and honestly sending a sheriff to my door- well it was a surreal moment. I couldn't imagine what my husband might have done...!
Another thing I have a problem with is the fact that the school is 2 blocks away, down a side street- when the elementary school was open there were frequent 'sting' ops held in the early morning hours but of course that revenue is gone so the bus
drivers are stinging (oops I mean swinging) into action.
So we have a 20 mph 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. for a school that is shuttered and a mortuary.
Putting schools on main highways and posting 20 mph signs is clearly a money-grab.
What are we to think of people who designate areas right on busy thoroughfares and highways as a proper place for an elementary school?
Shouldn't the 20 mph signs be modified- say, 7:00 to 9:00 a.m.\
2:00 to 3:30 p.m. or taken down completely?
If I see a funeral in progress I drive the road respectfully and slow & quiet.
If I see a kid in the road I slow to nearly a stop because one never knows what these little cretons are going to do next- I had one stop to light his ciggie directly in front of me...'lead us not into temptation'.
The school district should just give up the pretext, get themselves a tin cup, and head for the corner of the walmart parking lot.
Will post outcome of 'mediation' after the 26th of this month.
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