Roy Exum
The Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security has just written me a letter that smacks of all that is flimsy and cheap in government. The letter, which no one in our state office of Homeland Security would dare sign, told me – in essence – that if I get just one more speeding ticket in the next 12 months my license will be suspended. Mind you, I have had only one speeding ticket in the last 10 years.
I have been a strong proponent of fair play my entire life. I have helped many friends wiggle past almost as many toothpick chewin’ weasels who work “for the state” and I also have warm relationships with law enforcement types and judges across this state. No matter what “side” I was trying to help it was because – I was convinced -- the right thing to do.
The State of Tennessee is vividly flaunting a misuse of power on I-75 as it sweeps north and south of us. Some pariah took some small 55 MPH signs to a section of I-75 highway adjacent to Hamilton Place Mall and the Tennessee Highway Patrol can quite gleefully skin any driver on the highway. Be honest: You have never gone 55 MPH on an interstate in your life and Saturday, as I now test it whenever I’m that way, the average speed was 73 miles at the very spot where I was written up yesterday...
Just so you’ll know, 73 MPH on I-75 by Hamilton Place Mall is reckless driving. Anything that is 15 miles over the posted speed limit is “the unsafe operation” (reckless driving in a motor vehicle in addition to speeding, and if you pay the fine rather than appear, it will cost you a touch more than $350.)
That’s absurd, obscene and in no way would you treat either your neighbor or a total stranger in such a manner. But some haven’t the values, the character, or the moral compass. So the huge voice from Elephant in the Room, “What if you are next?” I would give anything to stand a post under such direction.
If you’ll check the Tennessee Homeland Security website it will tell you, in a nutshell, the mission of Homeland Security is to keep the citizens safe. There is a specific focus on terrorism prevention as well as planning and training for terrorism response. It is written: "Cyberspace safety and disaster resilience are also two key focus areas.”
What a bunch of Hollywood tinsel. I’m telling you that this bunch of yahoos just wrote me a letter that explained what? Some nameless imperial wizard on the far side of Roane Mountain or maybe in a Maury County barber shop -- just decided that each driver with a Tennessee license gets 12 points credit against, and this hardly a stretch, harassment by authority figures on, what?
On June 8, I was stopped for going 82 in a 55. It was an easy challenge of the state. That means I spent five of my points for speeding and got billed for another three for “unsafe operation.” If the Highway Patrol starts the points game with the first offense, as they did in my case on June 8, I was charged with eight points and, logically, have four points remaining for the next 12 months.
Is it reprehensible that we live in a state where two speeding tickets can cost you your driver’s license? Do you know much money and agony people in Hamilton County endure daily to get their driver’s license reinstated? That’s an absolute travesty, and by the time a new governor is elected in November I’ll have had a word with as many candidates as I can about ridding Tennessee of its pariahs and frauds.
A real truth: When I first wrote I had a speeding ticket and paid it off in criminal court, I had a dozen people contact me and tell me that was stupid. There are more ways to get traffic tickets quashed since the second coming and I am so blessed because of the way I love to help others, there was indeed a rumbling at my door. Bottom line: I should have squelched that ticket immediately. And, very candidly, if I can do it for others I should have it done it for me.
But I wanted to see for myself if the rumors that there was a rotten core in the interstate business, and that we needed “to cast the money-changers from the temple.”
Again I’m a big boy, maybe with a tiny touch of swag, and my biggest thrill on earth is trying to do something for someone else that will lighten another load. I know full and well I can get out of any jam but it’s my friends who are far more important and, if I am going to waste bullets, let it be for them instead of me.
I have no worry about my future and its luck but that’s simply not true for the masses. Here’s a scenario: It’s not a fault the girl behind the wheel is blonde and pretty and that may be why she was singled from the herd, the Highway Patrol vultures can absolutely pick.
Well, let’s say they got her at 75 MPH. It’s a fact – they can get anyone! Just drive the road and see. So let’s assume this girl is a single mother, working two jobs, and trying to get her daughter in pre-K. Do you have any idea how decimated her budget would be with a $360 court buyout? So help me the I-75 stretch from the start of 153 to Bonnie Oaks is no more than sickening barrel shoot on an interstate highway. So, as we welcome Labor Day, let’s sniff out a go to the very core of police abuse.
Readers, help me: I want the name of who it was who authorized a speed trap on I-75 in Chattanooga so I can whisper it to the governor-elect. Others needs to know the name as well because some, mind you, have children struggling right now and to relieve our community of a true pariah would be a noble’s day work in everyone’s sight.
I betcha’ I can arrange for the lout to get some Homeland points that carefully might become tattooed to said jackal’s carcass: “Loser.”
royexum@aol.com