The Fight Against Crime: Notes From the Front : Traffic Cops Have by Now Heard ‘em All

“But officer. . .”

Forget it. Traffic cops have heard just about every excuse in the book.

“The one we always hear is, ‘But officer, I was in a hurry because I was late for’ whatever,” said Sgt. John Amott of the Valley Traffic Division of the Los Angeles Police Department.

“I always tell them, ‘Well, I’ll write this ticket as fast as I can.’ ”

Every once in a while, however, excuses come along that are so off the wall, they achieve legendary status.

“It was a number of years ago that I saw this woman run a red light in Burbank,” said Lt. Jay Ferrand, now head of the traffic officers for the Burbank Police Department. “I swung in behind her just in time to see her run another red light. And then another before I finally got her to pull over.

“When I went up to her car, she was crying and all upset. She said that back at the corner of Olive and Pass she had seen a terrible shooting. Guns were going off and people were dying and it was just horrible, and she had to get away.”

It was a shooting, all right. A film shooting. What she witnessed was a scene being filmed for a movie.

“There were bright lights and officers all around back there,” said Ferrand. “I couldn’t see how she got so confused.”

But he did take a little pity on her.

“I only cited her for one light,” he said.

Amott once stopped a man who was going 75 m.p.h. up a highway with a speed limit of 45. “He said he was going that fast because there was a car behind him, chasing him,” Amott said.

“I said to him, ‘Sir, that was me.’ ”

Sgt. Dennis Zine, also of Valley Traffic, said he once stopped a taxi that was speeding down a residential street. “The driver told me he had just taken the taxi through a carwash, but there was no dryer,” Zine said. “He was speeding to blow-dry the car.”

In the Antelope Valley, Deputy David Davidson of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has heard his share of excuses. One time, he saw a car run a red light at a busy Sierra Highway intersection in Lancaster. Davidson gave chase, turning on the lights atop his patrol car.

“That had no effect,” he said. “Then I hit the siren and finally he pulled over. He advised me that everything was OK. The reason he missed the red light was that he could not see well, he needed glasses.

“But his doctor would not give him a prescription for glasses until he had a cataract operation. So, it was the doctor’s fault.”

One woman cited for speeding by Amott took her case to court. “She told the judge the same story she had told me,” Amott said. “She said she was just returning from eating and was loosening her belt. She was arching her back and that caused her foot to press down on the accelerator.

“The judge wasn’t impressed, either.”

The “I’m from out of town” type of stories are familiar. The best of those came from Amott. “The call went out for someone who could speak French to talk to a man who had jaywalked,” he said. “In college I had two years of French, which I barely passed, and since I was nearby I went there.

“I said to the man in my best French, ‘My name is Officer Amott. What is your name, sir?’

“The guy let out a profanity, in English. Seems like I knew more French than he did. . . . “

Zine heard one of the most “L. A.” of excuses. He had stopped the driver of a car that had blocked traffic while the driver had a long discussion with a man holding a “Will work for food” sign.

“I asked him what it was about,” Zine said. “He told me he had wanted to give the man a dollar but all he had on him was a five.

“He was waiting for the homeless guy to give him change.”

In all the above cases, the excuses failed and a ticket was issued. But Ferrand did admit to one time when the excuse worked, perfectly.

“I saw these four little old ladies speeding down a street,” he said. “I pulled them over and went up to them and said, ‘Lady, you’ve got to slow down.’

“And from inside the car someone said, ‘You can’t give me a ticket!’ And I said, ‘Why not?’

“And she said, ‘Because I’m your mother.’

“I looked in there and by God, it was.”