So, Tuesday morning, I am snoozing away at about 9 in the morning. Then comes the dreaded emergency wake-up with mom blinking the lights and talking to me in a firm voice. I run through all the possibilities as I am trying to wake up. Theresa’s kitty got run over, Tab rolled her car over, Ivy is stuck somewhere with a dead battery, somebody died, mom’s car won’t start. You know, the usual sort of thing.
As I struggle to wake up, I hear mom mumbling about something about a Deputy Sherriff upstairs, wanting to talk to me, and something about red lights flashing.
At this point, I decided that maybe I should get up.I didn’t think to look out the window and count the cars. (We have learned that one cop means your probably not in much trouble, two means something is seriously wrong, and three means you’re going to jail.)
I get up there, trying to look semi-conscious and there he is, kinda like the picture, but only one.
I am still working on my level of consciousness and he starts talking about they have a report from the school district that I had passed a school bus when the red lights were on. They also said that I passed the bus at a “high rate of speed.”
I didn’t have a clue, until he said the location of the offence. Then I remembered the incident.
Tell me what you think: I am cruising down Silverdale Way down by Chico Way and I see an approaching school bus ahead of me with the yellow flashing lights coming on. Expecting the driver to hit the reds, I slowed waaay down and prepared to stop. We had eye contact and everything and I slowed and slowed and she kept going yellow, yellow, so when I was up to front of the bus, because the reds were not on, I very slowly proceeded past the bus. I was really wondering what was going because my experience with busses is that they don’t usually worry about other traffic when deciding when to hit the reds.
After I passed the bus by, I was looking at in the rear-view trying to figure it out. Behind me, I saw the stop sign pop out and the red flashers starting. I spent some of my valuable time reviewing this incident.
Finally, with more pressing matters on my mind, I let it go. It was just one of the many things I try to figure out, when I have a moment or two.
As I was explaining this to the Deputy, he mentioned that HE always stops on the yellow lights, so I guess now I will do so to.
He also said that he would forward my statement to the School District. He said that normally he would just issue a $400 citation, but since I had a reasonable explanation he would just tell them what I said. I don’t remember a lot of detail, but mom said that she thought that nothing would come of it. I would not mind a little court thing. It would give me a chance to exercise my legal skills.
