Are you ‘live’ blogging your reaction to the video?
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BOTH of the them?
WTF?
One guy is an asshole, full of his power to stop in an unmarked vehicle anywhere he wants, shouting and threatening to ticket* another, and one is a befuddled driver with a camera.
* not that he can cite anything other than “honking the horn is considered road rage”
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i feel honking increases the chances of accident unless you are in real danger, and in real need of other drivers’ attention now.
i’ve come to believe that even more firmly now that i’ve given up my car and turned to cycling – because horns are freaking loud.
( also, my two cents is that absolutely no one is going to change their behavior because you honked your horn at them. )
[ edited to add ]
i really don’t believe a binary signal like a horn can achieve this noble goal. if you think it’s incumbent upon you to change people’s behavior – if you actually feel that’s important – start by talking to friends, family and neighbors and have a real conversation.
( sorry for the sarcasm in tone, it’s just such a pet peeve of mine when other people believe that they know what’s best for me or other drivers, even though they can’t possibly see my view of the road. )
SWEET FUCKING CHRIST SHUT THE FUCK UP
I WELCOME HELTER FUCKING SKELTER
/cop has little man syndrome
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Sure, and people drink and drive at the same time, too.
Doesn’t make it safe.
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that would not be impatience, that would be to communicate safety.
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I would have grinned and said “oh, yes - write me a ticket! And let’s make sure this video gets entered into evidence.”
And then see how cop-in-a-hurry reacts.
I’m sad his badge number didn’t get recorded.
A ticket would have that info.
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That intersection was 1000% clear. You’re meant to enter the breaks in traffic in a roundabout, not wait until there are no cars in the circle.
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Are hands-free systems so expensive in the States? The one in my car came included.
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i haven’t finished reading all the comments… but the cop was endangering other motorists. if he is going to stop in the middle of traffic, he should have appropriate emergency lights, and a good reason. being on the phone is not a good reason.
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You’re assuming this is a standard, sane roundabout. At a roundabout near me (in Canada), city planners have decided they want to prioritize certain traffic flows. In order to do that, that roundabout has special rules which mean, depending on where you’re entertaing and exiting the roundabout, you sometimes enter directly into the interior lane.
It’s dumb. My (British) mother referred to it as “the worst roundabout I’ve ever seen”. The only reason it sort of works ti that it’s not that busy and everyone just sort of goes slow and keeps their head on a swivel and manages to muddle through.
But knowing it exists, I can’t discount the possibility that the roundabout in this video ALSO has special rules.
The suspect would potentially have resisted arrest. In the course of subduing him his helmet mounted camera would have become damaged, and the SD card inside it would have unfortunately popped out and been accidentally ground to a fine powder under the officer’s boot.
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Everything like this should include the cop’s name and department.
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This is a really screwy intersection in North Denver - a place not very familiar with roundabouts. There’s a roundabout on either side of a bridge over a highway that includes the on/off ramps on each side plus 2 thru lanes and a major road running parallel. It’s pretty unique - which is why I recognized it immediately from the video.
While it’s true that there is no current law on cell phone use while driving in Colorado there is a big campaign underway by law enforcement agencies here to discourage distracted driving. This cop was being a major asshole.
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I do understand your point, but I want to note a few things.
First: if I take the position you propose about driving drunk working for me, the domain we’d be talking about (driving drunk, vs driving while phoning) has a lot more research than phoning does when it comes to backing statements like “doing this activity while driving reduces reaction times”. So it’s less like I’m saying the drinking thing, and more like I’m saying “I’ve been eating sandwiches while driving for 20 years and never had an accident”. So your point about statistics vs anecdotes per se is valid, but your expression of that point in the context of drinking is such a loaded one – and the position “drinking has no effect on driving” is disprovable enough objectively – that the choice of drinking as a context makes your argument somewhat of a straw man.
Second, if I’ve been eating sandwiches while driving safely for decades, it most definitely bears mentioning. Nobody, not you, not me, nobody else, can by themselves claim statistical validity for anything beyond their own experience. But it doesn’t make their relating their own experience meaningless, and certainly not irrelevant to a debate about whether there should be a law disallowing eating sandwiches while driving. At the very least, such input should be investigated by those chartered with making the laws.
Sometimes a Lowest Common Denominator law ends up getting passed, despite variations in how the population deals with various things. Like drinking. Maybe it’s unpopular to say, but there are people who can drive fine at 0.8, and people who can’t drive worth a nickel completely sober. If I don’t acknowledge that fact, I’m ignoring reality. And if I do acknowledge that fact, then my yelling and honking at people sipping a beer while driving takes on a different tone than it would if I yelled and honked at a murder; MAYBE that person’s drinking is inadvisable, or maybe my well-intended citizen policing makes me an over-reaching busybody. At bars with friends, do you try to take peoples’ keys if they’ve had any amount of alcohol? If not, I’d think you’d agree with my point.
If careful and longstanding cancer research says it’s unlikely that you wouldn’t have cancer by now, then you’re lucky. And if it says it’s impossible you wouldn’t have cancer by now, then there’s something wrong with the stats.
That’s where my science is now. Thanks for asking.
I’m in Denver and I wouldn’t want to deal with that intersection even sober with no phone in the car at all.
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i live in an area with a lot of roundabouts. you just gotta go if your lane is clear. it’s much more dangerous to stop. that’s when people get rear ended. i do understand that it happens though, especially if a driver isn’t used to roundabouts. you still have to watch the car in front of you.
that cop, though, he was definitely familiar with the area and was totally distracted and in the wrong.
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