It's one thing to be driving and see flashing red, white and blue lights in your rear-view mirror. It's quite another to be sitting in the passenger seat of a CHP cruiser when the officer sitting in the driver's seat next to you turns on those lights.
I must admit, being on the other side of those lights is pretty remarkable.
In an effort to experience what life behind the wheel is like from a law enforcement perspective, I spent one chilly weekday morning driving around the freeways of Southern California with Officer Mario Lopez of the California Highway Patrol.
Lopez was in many ways exactly what you'd expect a law enforcement officer to be. He was immaculately dressed and pressed, proper, disciplined and serious. Yet throughout our time together, it became clear that underneath his staid veneer, there was a forceful current of compassion. In the time I spent with him, he made more stops to assist motorists in need than he did looking for violators to cite.
There was the middle-aged man in the red pickup who had pulled over to the side of the road because he was ill and was trying to make his way home.
Then there was the woman with the shredded rear tire in the black BMW. Lopez listened patiently as the woman told him how frightening the experience of the tire blowout had been for her. As the woman recounted her tale, punctuating her story with grandiose hand and arm gestures, he simply listened and nodded with genuine empathy.
It wasn't long after that we came upon another motorist on the side of the road in a silver Jeep. He, too, had been stopped in his tracks by a mutilated tire.
In an era of ever-present cell phones, everyone was OK and had already called for help. Nonetheless, Lopez stopped for every one of them, just in case.
He also couldn't help but notice the black Sentra that sped by us in the No. 1 lane. I'm not sure what would motivate someone to speed past an immense, conspicuous black and white CHP cruiser. Nor do I know what would make someone continue to increase their speed once the CHP vehicle pulled into the lane behind them.
After several miles of pacing directly behind the Sentra at 79 mph, Officer Lopez turned on his light bar, and the driver of the Nissan dutifully pulled to the right side of the road. After Lopez approached the vehicle and spoke to the driver for a few minutes, he took the driver's license and registration and came back to the cruiser for his citation pad.
Since he generally works from the passenger side and I was in the way, he asked me to hand him the citation book. I gingerly removed the book from its resting place between two vertically mounted shotguns and handed it to him. I asked Lopez if he planned to look up the driver's information on his onboard computer. He told me he only uses the computer during a traffic stop if there is a problem with the license or registration or if there is some other apparent probable cause.
As we drove away after the citation was given, I asked Officer Lopez if the young driver had given him an explanation for his excessive speed. A reserved yet sympathetic smile crossed his face.
"He said, `I thought I was driving in the FAST lane."'
