Wapsi Square Forum

Six years ago i almost-didn't run a stop sign.  I thought i'd stopped; the cop sitting watching said i didn't ... quite.  (I suspect that there had been complaints about the way people were 100% running that stop sign in a residential neighbourhood, because the cop was sitting parked on the cross-street, watching.)  There was no other traffic.
 
I got a ticket that jacked up our insurance rates for three years.
 
Yesterday, there was an incident:
 
Fiery North Hall crash injures deputy, inmates
 

Jeff Gill/Gainesville Times wrote: A Whitfield County sheriffs deputy ran a stop sign, injuring herself and two inmates in a fiery North Hall wreck Monday morning, according to the Georgia State Patrol.

Deputy Rosalia Pacheco-Hernandez, 23, who was taking the inmates to Arrendale State Prison in Alto, was driving east at 8 a.m. on Lula Road/Ga. 52, just south of Clermont, when she ran the stop sign at Clarks Bridge Road/Ga. 284.

The deputy wasnt charged but was issued a warning citation, Georgia State Patrol spokesman Cpl. J.S. Munger said.

She struck a Dodge pickup truck towing a camper that was traveling north on Ga. 284.

The patrol car caught fire after the collision, and the camper separated from the pickup and overturned on its right side, the state patrol said.

Hall County Fire Services units arrived on the scene to find flames showing, spokesman Capt. Zachary Brackett said.

The deputy and inmates Amanda Nicole Townsend, 33, of Tunnel Hill, and Hillary Marie Mchan, 30, of Dalton, were taken to Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville.

Hospital officials said they were treated and released.

Neither the pickup driver, Steven Lawrence Gallo, 57, of Lakeworth, Fla., nor a passenger in his truck, Renee Therese Gallo, 57, also of Lakeworth, were injured.

"By golly, we are gonna give you SUCH a warning..."

You got a citation for passing through a trafficless intersection in a not-quite-legal manner. This cop violated the law in a much more blatant manner, caused an accident with injuries and significant property damage, and gets a warning... something's wrong.

...

Some years ago I used to occasionally pass through a parking garage that also had an auto maintenance facility for the Sheriff's Office (It was between my workplace and the nearest decent places to get lunch, and one end of a useful series of tunnels for staying out of the rain). On one such occasion I stopped to ask about a police car that was there on a flatbed trailer. It seems they'd had a report about a tire left lying in the road out in a rural area... unfortunately the report was not very precise about the location or the size of the tire. The deputy found it much sooner than expected, and it was a very large truck tire. Imagine making a toy shell of a police car out of aluminum foil, crushing it into a ball, and then attempting to straighten it out again. Seriously. I don't think there was a 4" square uncrumpled area on the entire car.

Well, there go the Sheriff's office's insurance rates. Which of course are paid for by taxes. So in effect, there go your insurance rates again!

Warrl wrote:The deputy found it much sooner than expected, and it was a very large truck tire. Imagine making a toy shell of a police car out of aluminum foil, crushing it into a ball, and then attempting to straighten it out again. Seriously. I don't think there was a 4" square uncrumpled area on the entire car.

Rolling those down an incline at vehicles has some interesting and very noticeable effects, too.