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Caught in a flash
Have you ever flashed your headlights to warn a fellow driver about a nearby speed trap? It may seem like an acceptable (and often commendable) action, but when Mark Zaid did that recently in Montgomery County, Md., he was pulled over and ticketed for the offense.
That’s right, a police officer stopped him and issued a $50 citation, saying that flashing headlights in Maryland was illegal and Zaid could even be charged with “obstruction of justice” for warning fellow motorists about the speed trap.
The Washington Post reported that Zaid makes his living as a lawyer for government whistleblowers and believes he did nothing wrong: ”The more I thought about it, I realized I’m going to make an issue of this.” Zaid, therefore, showed up for his court date to protest.
Montgomery County police said state law prohibits driving with “flashing lights,” but the ACLU of Maryland drew a line between “flashing” and “flashing.” The ACLU said the law applies to flashing as an adjective (an emergency blinker is a flashing light), but not as a verb (flashing your lights to communicate briefly).
Are you confused? Well, don’t be. The officer, who had also ticketed other drivers at the speed trap, was on military leave at the time of the court hearing to decide the matter, so the judge simply threw out the charges.
The moral of the story: Apparently in Maryland you can flash your turned-on headlights, but you can’t turn on flashing headlights.
back to top17 Comments to “Caught in a flash”
Their is a rather slimy “shock jock” named Tom Leykis who promoted “flash Friday” on his radio show. On Friday nights, male listeners would flash their headlights as they drove and female listeners would bare their breasts.
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In Virginia, it is illegal to have a radar detector. Some time ago, a guy was ticketed for having one in his trunk. I think he challenged it and I don’t know the outcome. I think the officer was wrong.
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Does the Bible have anything to say about working against authority?
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We flash headlights or flag people down for cows on the road, or boulders, or snow drifts. I don’t notice speed traps as I don’t generally speed so would not think to flash lights for that. But I would prefer the speeder be stopped and warned or ticketed by the police rather than have the speeder dead down the road or somebody else because of it.
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In a previous life I was a maintenance mechanic for a fleet of trucks that made deliveries to grocery stores. I was on call one weekend, and got called Sunday evening while I was on a date with my wife. Since the children were small, our dates were few and far between… I wasn’t a happy camper. And to top it off, it looked like rain…
So we parted ways after the movie, I for the shop to pick up the maintenance truck, and she for home.
I picked up the truck, (w/ tools, parts, compressor and spare tires) and left for the warehouse about 30 miles away… I got there, and there was not one, but two trucks with flat tires. I replaced the flats as quickly as I could, because it was still not quite raining. I finished putting away the tools and got back in the truck to head for home. It was getting fairly dark and starting to rain. As I headed out of that town, I noticed the police car ahead of me, and determined I needed to keep him in sight, since I knew he was going to set up a speed trap, and didn’t want to forget.
All that was driven out of my head a moment later…
As I was accelerating down the ramp onto the freeway when all the lights on the truck cut off. I immediately slowed down, and started mentally berating my co-worker. He hadn’t fixed this problem on his truck yet…. As I slowed down, the lights came back on. So I decided I’d let him fix the problem and speeded back up. The moment I did so, the lights went off again. I again started “berating” my co-worker… This time a little more forcefully. And by this time it was pouring down rain…
I slowed down again. The lights came on. I speeded up. The lights went off….. I slowed down until the lights came on again, and tried to maintain speed. They sorta, kinda would stay on, but eventually would flicker back off…
About that time the cop pulled me over. I just had to laugh. What a night- could it get any worse?
I started looking for bad connections/ fuses under the dash. I poked around and wiggled the light switch. Nothing. I opened the hood…
And wondered where the cop went? So I got out of the truck and went to the back to find him, only to find he’d come around the other side of the truck when I went back to the cab.
He immediately started berating me for flashing my lights to warn people of his speed trap… I tried to explain that this was my co-workers truck and his lights weren’t working correctly, but he obviously thought I was lying, and told me in no uncertain terms that I’d better fix the lights before I went anywhere.
I was smoking mad, but dared not antagonize the man anymore. Needless to say, my opinion of him was very positive at that point.
I did finally locate the problem, but only after attempting to drive away with the engine cover up. I finally saw the sparks where the body braces were contacting the brake line. My co-worker had not bothered to connect the ground strap from the battery to the engine, or to the body, I disremember which. I wasn’t too happy with him since it was an easy thing to have prevented simply by doing the right thing and not cutting corners when re-assembling things. He had caused a problem for me, just by not doing the job right.
I clipped a jumper wire as a temporary fix, and drove home, just glad to get off without a ticket or a tow truck ride…
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I have flashed my car’s headlights at approaching traffic if I see a “cop in hiding” behind a tree or other obstacle and I will continue to do so unless and until it becomes illegal.
I have occasionally flashed my headlights at oncoming traffic if I have passed an accident scene on the highway and try to warn drivers who are unaware of what they’re heading into. I cannot believe that act is forbidden.
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Here’s the thing: If the county’s goal is to get people to drive more carefully, warning them that there’s a cop ahead is just as effective as ticketing them.
If the county is writing tickets to people for warning others, it’s just a thin excuse for revenue raising.
In my opinion.
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Steve G,
My concern would be developing a “them against us” mentality. The officers are supposed to be public servants and friends, not the enemy. Most of the officers I know much prefer giving warnings unless it is a repeat offender or obviously under an influence. Ideally, people would drive in a respectful manner. If the street sign says 15, it may well be the local residents have a real reason for wanting people to slow down. Respect it. If the speed limit is 55, if everybody drove about the same, there would be fewer accidents. Such as the recent one where a 20 something passed three cars at one time and lost control getting back into the lane. One of the cars she had passed then hit her and she was killed.
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There’s another interesting twist to this story:
Mark Zaid wasn’t flashing his lights to warn other drivers. He flashed his lights to thank ANOTHER driver for flashing HIS lights to warn drivers about the speed zone!
Mark Roth does ask a very pertinent question, however:
“Does the Bible have anything to say about working against authority?”
There are numerous biblical cases where people are lauded for opposing unjust use of authority — even with lies right to the authority’s face (the Hebrew midwives in Egypt). But is it anywhere near unjust for the police to catch and ticket speeders?
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Mumsee,
Hah. [Guffaw directed only at your premise, not at you!]
There are more and more stories from around the US and other Western nations in which it is the cops — not the citizens — setting up the “us” vs. “you” mentality. Cops are abusing their authoritah left and right these days — I could post a fresh story of such abuses (many involving undue violence at the hands of the cops) every day for weeks and not have a rerun.
Broad-based, state-wide example: The state of WA has a “click-it or ticket” policy — i.e., they will fine you $124 for not wearing your seat belts. It’s because of the Feddle Gummint threatening to withhold highway funds if they don’t — but how come these guys aren’t out looking for actual criminals (or at least speeding or reckless drivers), instead of generating revenue from people who are ZERO threat to anybody but themselves?
For the law (and the law-enforcers) to be respected, it (they) must be respectable.
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Blatant abuse of police authority #1 (don’t worry, I won’t be doing any more … well, for now, anyways!):
“Who cares about the needs of a critical care patient when there’s a State Trooper’s hungry ego to feed?” Be sure to read the ambulance driver’s affidavit, and watch the video.
Follow-up to this story here.
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Frank in Spokane,
Of course there are many officers who are on a power trip. Sin is rampant in this world. And that should be addressed as well. I was directing my words to those of us on the other side, we are only responsible for our own actions. Though through our legal process we can influence the actions of others.
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A young friend of mine was thinking of pursuing a career in law enforcement. He put himself thru the police academy and started moonlighting for some of the local hill town police departments while he looked for a full time police job. He soon became disillusioned with the Idea of becoming a police officer because so many of the cops had a “let’s se who’s life we can screw up today” attitude.
I ride sport bikes, so I’ve been pulled over more times than I can remember. I hate having to kiss cop butt, but it’s the only way to ensure that you don’t get ramrod by some idiot with a napoleon complex. I really really dislike police, there always there when you don’t need them.
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Does the Bible have anything to say about working against authority?
The Bible has nothing to say about flashing you camel’s or your llama’s headlights.
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It seems to me that flashing your lights to warn another is indeed working against authority, and a radar detector seems wrong to me.
At the same time, I have little respect for cops who abuse their authority. In Chicago I repeatedly saw police run red lights just because they could. Sometimes they’d turn on their sirens briefly, and sometimes they wouldn’t. Once or twice I was so tempted to run the same light after them, but knew it would be wrong. But it was really hard to respect police authority with than nonsense going on.
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The most mundane example of abuse of authority. Police turn on their sirens to run a red light and then turn into a Tim Horton’s coffee shop.
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As if on cue, up pops this story of abusive and threatening police at — of all places — a fast-food drive through:
And just what is it with cops and fast-food drive-throughs?
If anyone is fostering an “us” vs. “them” mentality between the police and citizens, it’s them — the high-and-mighty gendarmerie.
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