Dear editor,
It was the last day of the summer holidays this past week. My grandchildren and I decided to spend the day together fishing at a local lake out of town. Due to the heat of the day, the fishing was poor, and although all we caught was a sunburn, my grandson managed to ‘catch and release’ three small perch.
On the way home, we were talking about the great day we had together when the flashing lights of a police car appeared in my rearview window.
“Do you realize,” the officer said, “that you just passed me on the highway doing 110?”
“Yes,” I said, “I thought that was the speed limit.”
“Not when I have my lights flashing and have pulled someone over,” he noted – a violation that the officer said could result in a ticket and a three-month suspension of my licence. As it happened, the day ended on a positive note with a teaching moment for both this grandmother and her grandchildren.
I had often pulled over for emergency vehicles but had not realized that I was to move over to the left-hand lane, or slow down to 50 when a police officer had someone pulled over for a ticket.
In return, my grandchildren talked about how kind the police officer was for catching and releasing their grandmother - a story I was sure they could hardly wait to tell their father (my son) when they got home.
When I told my husband (who is now 94) about being stopped he recalled serving as a police officer many years ago in England and commented, “That is police work at its best!”
So in closing, this letter comes with a big note of thanks to the police officer who let this grateful grandmother ‘off the hook,’ so to speak, for what could have been a very costly speeding violation!
Christine Welch,
Comox Valley