By JJ Bowman
News Editor
Everyone always has at least one complaint about Public Safety. They range from the mild (“Why do they need so many vehicles?”) to the very serious (“I was racially profiled”), but there is one that I’m sick of hearing.
I keep having to put up with someone’s agonizing tale about how they were caught blowing a stop sign. Public Safety officers as well as Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department vehicles will park at either Baxter or Presidents Drive and wait for students to break the law.
So what?
I set out on Tuesday to accomplish some unscientific research about stop sign violations. (I chose unscientific research because it is much easier and faster than the scientific method.)
In two 20-minute stints (from 5 p.m. to 5:20 and from 6 p.m. to 6:20) I witnessed 144 cars pass the stop sign at the Center for Communication and Business on Seaver Drive, heading toward main campus.
Four cars made a legal stop. That means over the course of 40 minutes, 140 cars broke the law at one stop sign.
Of the four that did stop, two cars had to because pedestrians crossed directly in front of them (although pedestrians are by no means guaranteed a stop), one was an Enterprise Rent-A-Car van and the fourth person appeared to obey the law for no particular reason.
It’s true that many of the cars practiced the “California Roll,” which many would argue (and I believe rightfully so) is a legal stop for all intents and purposes.
But even if you define a California roll as almost coming to a stop somewhere near the stop sign, a large portion of cars didn’t even accomplish that.
I classified each attempted stop on a scale from zero to five. Only cars that gave an authentic stop before the stop line earned a zero. Those that nearly stopped but did not actually pause the rotation of their tires scored either a one or a two.
A total of 81 cars (54 percent) did at least a California Roll, which means a large percentage clearly broke the law.
I gave a three to cars that decided to slow down well past the stop line or that chose to blow the sign, but at a slow speed.
I counted 19 that couldn’t even do that, with four (as many as those that properly stopped) speeding through with so much gusto I had to award them a five.
So does this mean students stopped for blowing stop signs have no reason to complain? Absolutely not. Two fellow Graphic editors last week were pulled over for blowing the same stop sign I monitored. They successfully explained to the officer, however, that since they turned left out of the CCB parking lot they couldn’t have possibly run a stop sign, since none exists between there and main campus.
So why would I bring this up and exacerbate a tenuous relationship between students and Public Safety?
Because I was once a victim.
As I walked through Rho parking lot on a typical night, I caught a glimpse of a car driving straight toward me. It wasn’t going any faster than 8 miles per hour, and so I didn’t think much of it — until I became a six-foot hood ornament.
The driver never saw me until she took out my legs, causing me to land face first on the hood. She slammed on the brakes and I rolled onto the pavement with a few bruises and scratches.
If only there had been a stop sign. And if only the driver had stopped.
—Would you brake for pedestrians? E-mail JJ Bowman at jjbowman@pepperdine.edu.
February 06, 2003