Thursday 10 January 2013

Getting away with it

How many drunk idiots have been brought to me after crashing their cars?  A hundred?  Two hundred?  Probably more than that.  And how many of them have actually been arrested?  I can probably count that on one hand.  Most of these maniacs get away with it, something that makes me absolutely livid.

Now, how many of them have gotten simple citations for their besotted idiocy?  I don't keep actual statistics, but based on my memory, it's likely less than 10%.  Most of the time the police don't even show up, and when they do, they don't seem to feel like hanging around until our workup is done so they can issue the ticket.  One police officer actually told me that "it just isn't worth it".  

Isn't worth it??  I just stared at him, incredulous.  It drives me batshit crazy when these people get away with crimes like this that put everyone, my wife and children included, at risk of serious injury or death.  In fact, I get aggravated when someone gets away with something as simple as a traffic violation.  Which seems to be a perfect segue into my first mini-rant of 2013.  

I was sitting on the freeway in stop-and-go traffic on my way to the hospital this morning, a police car right in front of me, something I usually find to be very comforting.  As we were passing an on-ramp, I noticed a taxi in the other lane swing into the on-ramp lane to get around a few cars.  It pisses me off when I see people do this, because it's like they are telling me "I'm far too important and in far too much of a hurry to sit in traffic like the rest of you plebs.  I'm making my own traffic rules!"  I immediately yelled at the policeman in front of me to pull the taxi driver over, which I'm fairly certain he didn't hear through my windscreen and his back window.  Traffic continued at a near-standstill while the taxi got ahead of 5 or 6 cars.  Congratulations, asshole.  Now you get to keep sitting in traffic with the rest of us underlings.

About a minute later, we started to pull even with the far-too-important cab who had again been caught in the slower lane.  I noticed the policeman sidling over towards him and my mouth started to curl into a smile.  It broadened into a huge grin as he flipped his lights on, swung quickly behind the taxi, and pulled him over.

Justice.  Sweet, sweet justice.

4 comments:

  1. Oh I can completely side with you on this post! I think it's incredulous that police, who are sworn to uphold the law and willing to let ppl get away with such a stupid and nonsensicle thing as drunk driving - ERG. I'm not sure how you restrain yourself!!!

    Glad to hear cabby got pulled over tho!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not only that, but I once saw a cop turn on his siren just so he could get through traffic, an turned it off as soon as he was in the clear.

      Needless to say I was pissed off.

      Delete
    2. I can only hope the policeman was responding code 2 (no lights and sirens so they don't know you're coming) to something and didn't have time for traffic.

      Delete
  2. I'm glad to hear that you don't feel that you're above the law as a doctor! Most doctors and nurses that I work with constantly tell stories about breaking the rules on the road, (like going 90km/hr in a 50km/hr school zone area) because they know they'll be able to get away with it by mentioning their occupation, or better yet, leaving their stethoscope on the dash. That careless and self righteous attitude is the perfect recipe for disaster.

    ReplyDelete

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