I was sitting in traffic this morning, which is nothing out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, it was worse than it usually was due to the fact that for no apparent reason, six straight traffic signals were out, and the vast populous of Atlanta is completely oblivious to the rules of the 4-way stop in such conditions.
On more than one (fifty) occasion(s), I watched as people sped off into a turn lane, dividing lane, oncoming traffic, or some other form of asphalt not designated for regular automotive traffic, and then cut in front of some schlub too slow-reacting to prevent impatient and inconsiderate assholes from cutting in front of not just them, but every single law-abiding citizen who opt to grind it out with the rest of the pack.
It’s times like these that I wish that for one day, I could be a police officer. Not to do anything dramatic and go off on high-excitement, high-speed car chases, bust drug dealers, stop crime and be a hero. No, I’d love to be a police officer for a single day, just so I could troll the ever-living shit out of law breakers, and by “troll,” I mean enforce the fucking law.
Like the impatient asshole lane cutters, sure, the easy thing would be to simply bust them in their act of impatience, and tag them for a ticket for inappropriate use of turn lanes or non-lanes in the first place. No, that would be far too easy. I’d love to prepare for such occasions, and on known areas where lane cutters frequent (Northside Drive), I’d love to just put a wall of cones in the non-lanes that appear right after the point where a lane cutter would decide to go for the illegal maneuver.
Shortly after they jump into the area where they’d like to cut through to traverse past everyone else, the wall of cones would trap them in an illegal area, with the cones gradually forcing them into oncoming traffic. At this point, they would have absolutely no other options than face oncoming traffic, stopping and having to painstakingly back into the opposing flow of traffic, or haphazardly run traffic cones over, which I can say (based on the experience of people I once knew who did it) is most certainly NOT a good idea to do.
Either way, I would be watching, and I would then, pull them over for reckless endangerment and attempting to evade traffic or whatever charges I could bring them up on.
Another place I’d like to lay down the law is kind of a no-brainer to my seven readers – the HOV lanes. It drives me mad to see people blatantly violate the HOV lanes, when there are people like me who actually do have someone to carpool with to use it legally. Unlike the City of Atlanta that really doesn’t seem to care about the thousands of dollars of free money it could make from violation fines, I would be like T-fucking-1000 about busting those arrogant assholes who thinks they can use the HOV lane to bypass the worst of the morning rush.
I really wouldn’t do it any differently than how the few times there have been cops actually watching it would. I’d position myself at the points where I couldn’t be seen in advance, and keep vigil for anyone making any dramatic shifts either in or out of the lane, because I know they’re either guilty, or thinking I’m not watching when they go in after they pass me. But either way, I would pursue and write citations as if they were porno baseball cards on the Las Vegas strip.
And then there are the obvious things that most police around here actually do give a rat’s ass about enforcing – speeding and DUIs. It’s like any savvy driver with half a brain that is somewhat receptive to their surroundings or keeps vigil of the tendencies of the routes they take – they’ll eventually figure out if particular areas are susceptible to, or completely ignored by the police, and drive accordingly. If people can figure this out, why don’t the police?
See, that’s where I’d come in, and open up a can on all the speeders who live near me that apparently don’t have any fear for the police. I’d capitalize on this confidence and be waiting for the worst perps to come flying by, before whipping out from some bushes in the median and tagging them with reckless endangerment and the maximum penalty possible, because they would without question be going anywhere from 30-40 mph over the speed limit.
The bottom line is that if I were a cop for a day, I have no aspirations of utilizing my firearm, or going on any action-packed car chases. But I would undoubtedly write a shit ton of tickets and make the roads a safer place, where the drivers have to respect the potential possibility of actual police enforcement.
