I hope you enjoy!
*****
I was working a Sunday day shift on a bright, sunny, fall
early afternoon in 1983. Nothing spectacular had happened ( it rarely did in
Ontario back then ) and traffic flow through the village had been relatively light.
I was westbound on Park Avenue West, just passing under the
railroad bridge west of Chambers Road, when I came up behind a mid-sized sedan
being driven by a very short person with white hair; he/she was doing fifteen
miles per hour…maybe.
In that location, you travel over a bridge and then come to
a stop sign at the intersection of State Route 309. Now, this isn’t your normal
intersection; Park Avenue ends at about a 45-degree angle to 309, requiring a
driver to look over their right shoulder in order to check for traffic before
pulling westbound onto the highway from the stop sign.
I watched this driver stop, place the vehicle in ‘park’ ( I
saw the back-up lights flash as the gear selector went from ‘drive’ to ‘park’
), adjust the rear-view mirror so that it could be used to check for
approaching westbound traffic on 309, re-adjust the mirror to its correct
rear-view position, put the gear selector back in ‘drive’….and pull out
directly in front of two westbound vehicles approaching from the east, nearly
causing an accident.
Of course, I initiated a traffic stop, activating my
emergency lights; no response. I briefly hit the siren a couple of times;
again, no reaction. The siren then stayed on until it got the diminutive driver’s
attention, at which time the car pulled to the right…almost striking a mail box
in the process.
As I got to the driver’s window I saw that the driver was an
elderly female, looking just like the ones portrayed in every TV commercial
that calls for…well, and elderly grandma-type. She had a look of bewilderment,
asking, “Have I done something wrong, officer?”
After obtaining her driver’s license from her, which was
just a couple of months from having to be renewed again, I told her she had
failed to yield to traffic from the stop sign and had, in fact, nearly caused
an accident.
“Oh no, officer, that can’t be; I checked with my mirror and
didn’t see anyone coming.”
I was a little torn as to what I was going to do next: cite
her for nearly causing the collision, call a relative to come drive her car for
her and give the elderly woman a break or just give her a verbal warning to be
more careful and let her go on her way? If she’d caused that 3-car accident,
someone could have gotten hurt badly, and I’d be up to my neck with an injury
accident: measurements, written statements, taking photographs, possibly having
to go to the hospital in Mansfield to get some of those statements, there would
have been fire/rescue apparatus everywhere, traffic would have been snarled….
…so I issued her a traffic summons. I also advised her that
I would be sending a form to the State Bureau of Motor Vehicles asking that she
be re-tested for driving privileges at the earliest opportunity. She wasn’t
nearly as upset about the ticket as she was at being told she’d be sent in for
re-testing. Looking back now, I know that one of the fears that come with
growing older is losing your independence; she was afraid that she wouldn’t be
able to drive anymore, meaning she’d have to depend on someone else to get
around.
This sweet, elderly woman began crying over that, and it
took a few minutes to calm her enough that she could continue on home, which is
where she’d been going, just west of the village. The route would also take her
directly past the police department.
I assisted her in re-entering the flow of westbound traffic
on 309 so that I wouldn’t have another incident to take care of, then I pulled
into a nearby business lot and started to write the ticket’s narrative on the
reverse side of the document. Just as I was beginning to fill out the BMV form
for requesting a driver re-test I got a radio call.
“100 to 112…signal 23 ( ‘report to station’ ) for a private
property accident.”
Great. Wonderful. I absolutely detested accident reports
more than any other type of call for service. I responded, “112 copies, en
route”.
Two minutes later I pull into the lot where the village offices/police
department stood, expecting to see a motorist or two waiting to file an
accident report over a collision in a business lot…which happened a lot back
then.
The only car I saw was the elderly woman’s car that I’d
cited scant minutes before.
She’d come on station to complain about being flagged for re-testing…and
had hit the accelerator instead of the brake while attempting to park, running
smack into the side of the police department with enough force to push the
brickwork inward.
I rest my case, Your Honor.
taken in 1980 while at Ontario PD
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