Lowdown on the Low-Down

It should come to no surprise that times are tough.  And tough times require drastic measures and sacrifices.  Everyone, it seems, has a hand out.  Especially local governments, who, although pompous and incompetent, generally avoid breaking the law.  But not Emeryville, California.  And not when City leaders need the revenues.   Apparently, the City leadership has now added criminal activities to their dubious list of accomplishments.  Failing as they obviously have to balance the book at this “thriving” East Bay mess-of-a-city through efficient and diligent stewardship, the town’s leadership has decided that breaking the law is easier and more profitable.  It goes without saying that breaking the law is reprehensible, but when those that are breaking the law are the same ones who make them, it is just low-down.  Hard to believe?  Here’s the lowdown.

There is an intersection in Emeryville which is notorious for stop-sign violations.  The reason is simple.  The intersection is governed by stop signs in all four directions.  One of the streets is a main thoroughfare and the other is a seldomly used side-street which leads to a small number of industrial buildings in either direction.  As a result, everyone on the main street has to stop, regardless of whether or not there is any cross traffic.  The rest of the main street is governed by traffic lights, not stop signs, and one could, if luck would have it, transverse the entire street without stopping – if not for this one stop sign.  No doubt this was well-planned by the City’s revenue department rather than and without any input from its Needless-Increase-In-Car-Based-Pollution Department.  But what is truly shocking isn’t this scummy use of planning authority by a city unable to otherwise properly manage its budget but its enforcement.

Yesterday as I was approaching this intersection (which I do several times a day, nearly every day of the week), I noticed a motorcycle patrolman parked illegally on the sidewalk.¹  Sitting, as he was, on his patrol bike in the middle of the sidewalk he forced pedestrians who were trying to lawfully use the sidewalk to walk around him requiring them to have to step into the street into on-coming traffic.

The cop was positioned strategically back from the intersection so as to not be seen by drivers approaching the intersection on the main street, laying-in-wait like a common bushwhacker for someone to run the stop sign.  When I say “run” the stop sign, I mean drivers that execute the maneuver commonly referred to as the “California Stop,” whereby one approaches a stop sign, slows down, checks for traffics in all directions and then rolls through the stop rather than coming to a complete stop as required by the law.  Actually running a stop sign, even an illegally positioned one is indefensible.  By the way, in order to pursue any violators, the motorcycle cop would have had to drive his motorcycle down the sidewalk to the intersection.  If you or I drove our motorcycles down the sidewalk forcing pedestrians to leap into on-coming traffic rather than being run over by our motorcycle we would probably get arrested – and rightfully so !

Think about this a minute.  The City purposefully designs an intersection to promote traffic violations in the name of public safety.  Then they send the police out to “enforce” the traffic regulations by violating the State of California’s rules regarding parking and driving on sidewalks endangering pedestrians for the purpose of increasing traffic fines to fill the City’s coffers.  Isn’t this the sorta nonsense that caused our forefathers to toss tea in bay?

¹ The violations include California Vehicle Code Sections 21663, 21970(a) and 22500(f).