Any NMA member knows that:
A. Law Enforcement officers don't drive the speed limit.
B. Law Enforcement officers don 't issue traffic tickets to
other law enforcement officers.
Still, there is a sizable percentage of the citizens who think such talk is sour grapes on the part of habitual speeders. If they were watching Inside Edition back in November they might be having second thoughts. Earlier in the year, the Inside Edition TV producers were looking for help clocking the speed of police vehicles and they came across the NMA. Our resident radar expert and Rhode Island State Chapter Coordinator, Tom Frank, volunteered his radar equipment and his services to the production staff.
Off they went to Florida to film the first segment of the program. First shown was a pack of troopers on motorcycles fleecing travelers with the aid of an airplane spotter. Next was a squad car blowing down the highway at 90 mph - on the way to the dry cleaners. The fun part was when the TV crew started to interrogate Officer Cannonball and his officious supervisor.
Another snippet that was fun was when a patrol officer was asked why his police union badge was affixed to his personal vehicle license plate. "Could it be you have that on there so other officers won't stop or ticket you?" The trooper almost broke his neck nodding "Oh, no."
Next the crew moved to New York, the land of "55" and pius blather. There we met an 80 mph chicken-eating trooper who admitted this might be dangerous for mere mortals but she was a "professional driver". Another lad in blue clocked at 74- mph on a 35 mph residential street on his way home, offered this classic response, "It's your word against mine."
More telling of the hypocrisy was the attempt to interview New York State Trooper supervisors on the subject of trooper speeding. I say attempt because they refused to have their comments recorded.
This was all good fun and it certainly pointed out the double standard that exists in traffic law enforcement. Not spoken, but apparent to the more astute observer is that we need more reasonable laws that apply to everybody. Speed limits that everybody exceeds beg for this kind of official abuse.