It was about 4:30 PM, I was driving through downtown Charlotte. Unexpectedly, the motor in my car stumbled, then within a few seconds it stopped running. Sizing the situation up, I look at the gas gauge and surprisingly my gas tank is empty. I’ve run out of gas in a traffic lane on a street in downtown during rush hour. Eek.
I called my nephew, who did eventually arrive with gasoline – but he was a fair distance away. Not surprisingly, after a few minutes, a police car from the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department pulled up behind me and turned on his flashing lights. After saying hello and hearing that the problem was that I had run out of gas, he made a proposal. He’ll run over to the police department garage and pick up a gas can that they have there and be back in a few minutes. Before doing that he directed traffic so that I could drift my car back out of the traffic lane and be out of the way of the rush hour traffic.
It was a bit warm today – in the 90s. He was a little bit concerned about the heat but I assured him that it would be okay. After about 10 minutes he arrived with a gas can and tried to put the gasoline in my tank without much success – fortunately my nephew showed up with a better gasoline can and solved the problem.
Once the car was out of the road and gas in the tank, I asked the police officer what the procedure was to reimburse him for the gasoline. He indicated that the city of Charlotte was paying for the gasoline and he would do the same for anybody who lived in the city of Charlotte.
While I’m confident he looked up my license plate, he didn’t ask me for my drivers license or my proof of insurance – he didn’t issue me a ticket. He didn’t ask to search the car, conduct a cavity search, taser me or shoot my dog. He was serving the public – not only me but the commuters who needed to use the street.
I have this general sense that the people on reason.com who seem to have issues with police often are causing their own problems. While there are bad police and there are police that are ill-equipped to do the job, most police are very decent people as long as you are decent and respectful to them.
“most police are very decent people as long as you are decent and respectful to them. ”
Absolutely agree… and they put themselves in dangerous situations to defend us. You would have been in your rights to insult him, call names and act like a *asshole, and in theory it should not have affected how you were treated. In reality, people are people and it does.
Conservatives like to mock the “feel good/self esteem” message that the schools like to teach children nowadays. I believe it may be a factor in our reduced crime rate. People that are down and out and especially hopeless do treat people the way you and the police officer treated each other. People who are paranoid can sometimes be aggressive when there is no real threat to them, only an imagined one.
“and especially hopeless do treat” oops that was supposed to be
“and especially hopeless do not treat”
This could have been you, Art:
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Alec-Baldwin-Arrested-NYC-259070651.html
I suggest that all you would have had to do is call the officer a jerk for not respecting your privacy, a stronger name for making you wait too long for the gasoline, and a stronger still name for not having the right kind of gas tank.
“Instant Karma’s gonna get you
Gonna knock you off your feet
Better recognize your brothers
Everyone you meet” – John Lennon
A day or two ago, I was involved in a conversation with a totally predictable gay male Democrat and he eventually got around to bicycles and how cars are bad because they cause so many deaths. I asked him if the death rate per mile was lower for bicycles – to his credit, he said he didn’t know and was curious to find out.
Since bicycles don’t have odometers and government reporting requirements, it is a guess exactly how many miles bicycles ride a year. The best guess is you are 10x more likely to be hurt on a bicycle per mile driven
http://bicycleuniverse.info/transpo/almanac-safety.html
11% of all bicycle deaths are caused by bicycles riding the wrong way – riding toward oncoming traffic.
Back in my era, China was considered backward because most of the people rode bicycles everywhere. Now everyone in China wants a car, and the status symbol of success in the United States is a bicycle
More deaths are caused by the California property tax system that taxes based on last sale price rather than assessed value.
Point of clarification – by taxing based on the purchase price rather than assessed value, no one wants to sell their homes once they have gone up in value. Everyone drives a longer distance to work than otherwise, resulting in more highway fatalities and more deaths from the resulting air pollution.
If you are in the Charlotte area and need some life insurance, get it here before this guy leaves the building
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/w-kyle-hunicke/37/8a2/b77
Seems to be a native