It’s a trick question, but one that really isn’t terribly hard to answer:

Mount Airy, NC prides itself on being the hometown of Andy Griffith and the model used for the small town of Mayberry in the Andy Griffith Show. This morning the local paper posted this report of a traffic accident that totaled a brand new police cruiser. The driver that collided with the cruiser was doing the posted speed limit and won’t be charged with any violations.

The report leaves out one important detail. See if you can figure out what it is before looking at the answer. Hint: Take a look at Google Street view of the intersection.

Mouse over for answer

It’s so ubiquitous, we rarely give it a thought, but we have all witnessed police completely disregarding the rules of the road that not only are used against the rest of us, but which exist to safeguard our lives.  And theirs.

As  Grits for Breakfast notes, this not only harms citizens, but is the leading cause of death for cops.

The greatest danger to police officers on the job isn’t being shot by a criminal but dying in a car accident, so I was interested to see a  report from KXAN-TV declaring that “nine Austin police officers have been suspended for causing traffic accidents in 2012.” Most recently, “An Austin police officer has been suspended for running a red light and causing a crash with another vehicle. It is the fourth time in the last year that an Austin police officer has run a red light and caused a crash.”

KHOU-Houston recently reminded us that “Two years ago, an officer in Austin rammed into a motorcyclist in broad daylight. Later he admitted to being distracted,” and supplied video of the incident. The officer was typing notes into his on-board laptop when slamming into the cyclist. After that episode, The city changed its policy to require officers using in-car computers to “pull over, complete what they need to do and then proceed,” Assistant Chief Sean Mannix has told the press. The Tarrant County Sheriff has enacted a blanket policy against the practice, while the Plano Police Department requires officers to pull over if “extended use” of the in-car computer is expected. But most Texas agencies have left the practice utterly unregulated.

There are three independent levels of concern arising from police cruisers.  First, there is high speed pursuit, which makes for really cool scenes in movies but incredible danger for bystanders on the road.  For the most part, there is little reason for such pursuit, as cops have these thingies called radios and can call ahead to other cops to head off the culprit at the pass.  More significantly, pursuit is often for trivial offenses, such as the speeding motorist who decides he doesn’t want another ticket, and ends up with some unrelated mother of four dead from the crash (whether the cop or the perp who loses control during flight). 

Is it worth the life of an innocent mother of four to catch a speeder? What about a bank robber?  Or anyone else for that matter? 

The second level is the officer engaged with the various apparatus in his car, such as the on-board computer straddling the front seats.  Cops have no magical power that enables them to pay sufficient attention to whatever they’re typing or reading on a computer and drive safely at the same time.  When the cruiser comes into contact with something, whether a cyclist or another vehicle, it still makes a very loud noise that regular precedes the flow of blood. 

While the on-board computer, now pretty much a fixture in every cop car, may be the worst culprit in taking attention off the road, it’s hardly as easy to ignore texting or talking on a cellphone as Scott Henson would have it. This reflects a long-standing disagreement about the risks of these devices, and I remain firmly convinced that there is no text or call worth losing one’s life over. Others disagree,

The bottom level is the officer who, for no particularly good reason, decides that he isn’t bound by the rules of the road that apply to everyone else, and simply blows through the red light, the stop sign, because he can.  After all, who will stop him? He’s the police.

While the law provides certain latitude for police, in the performance of their duties, to trump the rules that otherwise exist for all of our safety, such as rushing to save someone’s life, police have no greater authority than anyone else to violate the law, and that includes traffic laws.  It is just as much an offense for the police to blow through a red light when there is no justification to do so as it is for you or me.  And it is every bit as dangerous.

This raises two issues: first, that being harmed in an accident cause by a cop is just as painful and damaging as when it’s not a cop.  If a cop kills someone in a car crash, they are just as dead.  Their children are just as parentless. Their spouse is just as widowed.

The second issue is that so many of the exceptions in the law that impact on the curtailment of freedoms is predicated upon the need for police officer safety.  Surely, we’re told, we must excuse cops for acting in their own interest, for their own protection, and we must be willing to give up our rights to be free from seizure when contrasted with the right of a police officer to make it home for dinner.

Yet, if police officers don’t care enough about their own safety to operate their vehicle in a way that’s safe, for them and us, why put their safety on a pedestal when it comes to the sacrifice of our rights?  Either cops conduct themselves in a manner that isn’t likely to kill the innocent, or themselves, or let’s stop getting all hot and bothered about the outlier potential of criminals bent on harming a police officer, when the most likely person to harm a cop is the cop himself.