It’s all the old people’s fault for getting old.
Isn’t this all too predictable? Now it’s open season on old people.
An 82-year-old woman has received a $114 ticket for taking too long to cross a street in the San Fernando Valley, Calif.
Mayvis Coyle said she began shuffling with her cane when the light was green, but was unable to make it to the other side before it turned red.
“It turned red before I could get over. There he was, waiting, the motorcycle cop,” Coyle told the Los Angeles Daily News. “He said, `You’re obstructing the flow of traffic.”‘
Coyle is only one of seniors at Monte Vista Mobile Estates that are upset over signals they think are too short to safely cross five lanes of traffic, the Daily News reported.
“He treated me like a 6-year-old, like I don’t know what I’m doing.”
On Friday, the light changed too quickly even for high school students to make it across without running. It went from green to red in 20 seconds.
Fix the damn light! It’s not supposed to be a revenue generator!!
Now we have “lack of speed” traps? How many feet per second will get you ticketed? Unreal. Maybe she can get the charges reduced to illegal parking.
Now here’s a good use for all those idle Segway scooters. Put a bunch of them at each corner of a wide street and let the seniors race the high school kids through the crosswalk.
Jeez.. stop picking on citizens and go catch some criminals! PIGS
Anyone else find it ironic that she lives at Monte Vista Mobile Estates?
I think the cop and everyone up his chain of command should be given a “too f-ing stupid to be a public servant” award by the Govenator. Even a Boy Scout knows you help old people across the street, not write them up.
Maybe something was missing from the story like grandma slapped her cane arm and made an “up yours” gesture to the cop. After the ticket, If she didn’t, she should have.
This was fine example of how to make it tougher on the good cops trying to do the serious, dangerous jobs they should be focused on. This particular cop doesn’t even deserve to be called a pig, pigs are smart.
And as for the response from Zaboski…
“I’d rather not have angry pedestrians,” Zaboski said. “But I’d rather have them be alive.”
How about this. The cops gets his lazy ass off his Harley, walks grandma across the intersection and shoots the tires out of the first espresso crazed engine revving, horn blowing weasels’s car that makes a move to prematurely cross the intersection.
Pathetic.
Well, here in Portugal there’s been some talk of limiting senior citizen’s access to driving licenses because… they drive too slowly….. Meaning in my country – they drive carefully and within the legal speed limit (120Kms/ h, around 65 mph). Everyone else is busy proving their descendance of the royal lineages of Ayrton Senna, Emerson Fitipaldi and Niki Lauda….
Probably both cop and the lady having a bad attitude/day. My Uncle, God rest him, would raise hell if pulled. He thought he had been driving 60+ years and knew better than anyone. He was taken in by a local cop, because the guy thought he was going to have a stroke because he was pitching such a fit. My point is that little old ladies and men can be pistols too.
Although I don’t think this elderly woman should have gotten a ticket (perhaps the police person could’ve offered a ride or helped), I do think able bodied folks should get a ticket for crossing too slow. As a transplant to the west from NY, I noticed many people take forever to cross the street out here (Las Vegas, and SoCal). Most people just mosey across talking on their cellphone, or acting like they don’t want to be rushed. If you pull that crap back east you’ll get an ear full of horn and you’ll find yourself playing the real life version of Frogger.
I agree, the cop should have helped the lady cross the street. And $114 ticket? Sounds like revenue generation to me too.
I saw this on another blog yesterday. My thinking is, give the elderly a little freakin respect huh? If that motorcycle cop was so concerned, how about getting off the damn bike and blocking traffic while the lady crossed.
SUCKERS!! Don’t believe everything you read, unless you really are, and want to be known as, a loser. The cop that gave her the ticket said in a TV news report that she entered the crosswalk while the RED HAND OF DEATH do not cross signal was flashing, which is the pedestrian equivalent of running a red light or stop sign. THAT LIGHT IS FLASHING FOR A REASON, MORONS!!
“Of the 94 pedestrians killed in the San Fernando Valley from 2003-05 while crossing the street, 31 were seniors.” http://www.dailynews.com/ci_3692441
Much as I hate to, I’m more willing to believe the word of a trained, professional, YOUNGER, sworn to protect the public Traffic Officer than that of a doddering, guilty as sin, old as Dvorak geezer type that’s trying to get out of a ticket.
ALL pedestrians and bicycle riders, when entering crosswalks on public streets and roads, are subject to the vehicle code the same as drivers and have ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHT to enter the crosswalk on the red hand of death signal. And don’t you ever forget it, you old farts…
“I’m more willing to believe the word of a trained, professional, YOUNGER, sworn to protect the public Traffic Officer”—Andez
I’m sure you are, Andez, I’m sure you are.
#11
Doesn’t really change the fact that the cop should have gotten off his bike to help the elderly lady, who obviously needs help, instead of giving her a ticket. Guess he was short on this month’s quota.
11, Do you mean there is a state in the union that does not give a pedestrian the right of way over vehicular traffic at a crosswalk? Maybe bicycles must conform to “vehicle” rules, but pedestrians?
peds have the right of way in california at all times, in a crosswalk especially.
Hopefully andez was being, or trying to be funny. The red hand of death as he calls it, starts flashing 15 sec after the light changes to red at the intersection near my house. I run daily and couldn’t get across 4 lanes and a 15 foot median in that time.
NEGATIVE!!! That assumes a “legal crossing”. Drivers that accidently injure or kill pedestrians oftentimes ARE NOT CHARGED with a violation of the vehicle code because of the offsetting illegal actions of the pedestrian, i.e. crossing against the light, j-walking, darting out into the traffic lane, etc.
CVC SEC. 21456. Whenever a pedestrian control signal showing the words “WALK” or “WAIT” or “DON’T WALK” or other approved symbol is in place, the signal shall indicate as follows:
(a) “WALK” or approved “Walking Person” symbol. A pedestrian facing the signal may proceed across the roadway in the direction of the signal, but SHALL YEILD THE RIGHT OF WAY TO VEHICLES lawfully within the intersection at the time that signal is first shown.
(b) Flashing or steady “DON’T WALK” or “WAIT” or approved “Upraised Hand” symbol. No pedestrian shall start to cross the roadway in the direction of the signal, but any pedestrian who has partially completed crossing shall proceed to a sidewalk or safety zone or otherwise leave the roadway while the “WAIT” or “DON’T WALK” or approved “Upraised Hand” symbol is showing.
Assuming right of way is the kind of thinking that gets you killed, you apparently don’t think any better than that old bag… get a copy of the drivers manual and the vehicle code and re-educate yourself, you need it.
Dvorak and the news story he cited misrepresented the facts of this case right off the “old” bat with the first sentence of his posting, go re-read it.
The woman WAS NOT cited for taking too long to cross, a better reporter states she was cited for CROSSING AGAINST THE LIGHT. That’s why I included the link in the previous post, but if y’all are too stupid or lazy to go read it, here’s the quote from that story…
“Even before Coyle finished crossing the intersection at Woodward Avenue, he had scribbled a $114 ticket for crossing against a don’t-walk signal. “I entered the crosswalk, it was green,” said Coyle, of Sunland, who is fighting the infraction issued Feb. 15. “It turned red before I could get over. There he was, waiting, the motorcycle cop.”
Again, ’cause you guys just don’t get it, http://www.dailynews.com/ci_3692441
If it were the other situation, then I agree with all of youse.
#17
As far as I’m concerned, that doesn’t change a thing. Like I’ve said before, the cop could have gone out and helped the lady, since she was obviously confused.
I’m not a cop, but if I saw something like this happening in my town, I wouldn’t go running up to the elderly person yelling and berating them, I would help them.
P.S. Dvorak didn’t write the post. Check the author credits. I don’t think he writes 95% of the content here.
Andez, for all his bluster, provides no new information, and even bolsters the elderly lady’s case. From the article Andez cites:
——————–
On Friday, students ran – not walked – to make the lights, measured at 20 seconds from green to red.
“It sucks,” said Sara Johnson, 14, of Sunland, who had just scampered with friends across the crosswalk at Woodward. “When the light turns red, you can’t cross the street.”
Chung Kim, manager of Jimmie Dean’s Charbroiled Burgers at Foothill and Woodward, has seen close calls.
“Very hard to cross,” he said, watching the intersection from his grill, “because signal’s too short….
——————–
I think most people can put two and two together. Andez, of course, will continue to believe everything the authorities tell him, or, as he puts it, the “trained, professional, YOUNGER, sworn to protect the public Traffic Officer.”
You can tell an old bat, and Sean and KB, but you can’t tell’em much.
Sean and KB STILL don’t get it, even when presented with new and correct facts, because of their low level thinking. Like the old bat, they think they know how to cross a street.
“…police are cracking down on people who improperly cross streets because pedestrian accidents are above normal.”
SEAN: The cop isn’t gonna help anyone BREAK the law by helping them enter a crosswalk against the light any more than he would help you run red lights and stop signs when you’re driving your car. The cops position is that he IS helping her and the public by ticketing her which serves to point out her incorrect thinking and actions, and serves to educate her and the public on the proper procedure for CROSSING A DAMN STREET. Looks like most folks don’t know that there is one.
SEAN’s P.S.: DUH!! I didn’t say Dvorak WROTE the post. You should have just said ” I don’t think” and left it at that. THEN you would have been right.
KB: I presented the only true and correct facts in this thread, I ain’t even gonna try and figger out how you think all that bolsters HER case. It’ doesn’t matter what stupid people, who think they can put two and two together, think. You for example put two and two together and came up with negative eleventeen point fourz.
Dvorak and whoever wrote the news item are misleading the public that can’t put twos together. It’s not “open season on old people” and it’s not about a “broken light” or “revenue generation”. The only reason Dvorak posted the item is ’cause he obviously relates to the old people, since he are one.
Another article indicates that Mayvis Coyle’s ticket was given to her by Officer Kelly, the same officer that gave my 15 year old son a ticket for riding his bicycle against a ‘don’t walk’ sign. Officer Kelly apparently isn’t aware that according to the vehicle code, bicyclists are not pedestrians. I don’t feel comfortable commenting further regarding either Mayvis Coyle or my son, as I expect to be seeing Officer Kelly in court when my son pleads not guilty.
Al Levey