When It Might Be Okay Not To Ticket A Speeder
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Posted by
Eddie FarahApril 03, 2009 1:53 AMTags:
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This sounds like an April Fools joke but unfortunately it isn’t.
If there is ever an excuse to drive fast, I can’t think of a better one than driving your wife to the hospital who is in labor.
That’s exactly what Kyle Nordman was doing when an officer pulled him over. His wife, Rachel was only 20 weeks along, half way through her pregnancy, and the doctor had told them to get to the emergency room as fast as they could.
A Jacksonville Sheriff’s officer didn’t share the doctor's concern. Nordman was heading south on Kernan Boulevard, and when the officer approached Nordman told him what was happening. “At that point he walked back to the car” Nordman says.
Kernan speed limit is 30 mph. Nordman was going 39 mph.
This lawyer is not advocating breaking the law, not at all. But in an emergency, a JSO officer could show a little compassion and shadow the couple to the nearby hospital and write the ticket there if he absolutely felt he must.
Instead, Nordman says the officer took his time to write the ticket, minutes they just didn’t have.
“I would’ve been OK if he gave me the citation at the hospital. I just wanted to get my wife to the hospital quicker,” he says. The officer didn’t even ask why they were going to the hospital.
“I pretty much felt almost like I was being held hostage. There was nothing I could do to help my wife or child” he says.
Nordman is considering filing a complaint against JSO, asking for compassion and perhaps a little wiggle room in the policies in some situations.
In fairness to him, at 20 weeks, a woman may not even look pregnant, so that would not have been something he would assume. #