Rapid Repeat Offender

Earlier this week, a local police department arrested an individual twice in the same day for essentially the same offense.

The first arrest occurred shortly after noon when an off-duty police officer spotted what he believed was a drug transaction involving a person in a white Volkswagen Jetta.  A patrol officer pulled over the Jetta and found several hypodermic needles and a bag with heroin residue in the car.  The driver was then issued summonses for possession of heroin paraphernalia and possession of a hypodermic needle, and released.

Only a few hours later, while conducting surveillance of known heroin traffickers, members of the Selective Enforcement Team spotted the driver of a white Volkswagen Jetta – whom they later determined to be the same individual arrested earlier in the day – meeting with one of their surveillance subjects.  When officers stopped the Volkswagen this time, they found that the driver had ten wax folds of heroin.

This time he was charged with possession of heroin and possession of heroin paraphernalia, and this time he was lodged in the County Jail.

There is, many assert, an epidemic of heroin use in the suburban region in which these arrests occurred.   That an arrest would not deter someone from continuing to seek heroin in the same town in the same car on the same afternoon only underscores that assertion.

Hoon Once and Start Walking

Not very many Americans are familiar with the word “hoon” and the verb, “hooning.”  Hoon is a term with its roots in Australia and New Zealand, and today it refers to anyone who engages in loutish, anti-social behavior.  Hooning, then, is the act of behaving like a hoon, or being, in another permutation of the word, a hoonigan – a verbal mash-up of hoon and hooligan.

Hooning today is a word used predominantly in reference to driving.  Reckless driving, driving a noisy vehicle, performing burnouts, that sort of thing.  While such behavior is anti-social by the standards of modern society, it like many anti-social acts is celebrated in popular culture.  There is a series of YouTube “Hoonigan” videos featuring the admittedly-impressive vehicle-control skills of rally driver Ken Block, and every weekend such behavior is also seen in the victory burnouts performed by NASCAR drivers here in the US.

But back in Australia, hooniganism on the public roads reached a point where the authorities found it necessary to pass what they freely term “anti-hooning laws.”  And these laws have teeth: Once charged with three hooning offenses, one would have one’s vehicle confiscated.  But under the latest revisions of the anti-hoon laws in Australia this past summer, it could take just a single hooning charge to lose one’s car.

A single hooning offense in a school zone could result in the driver losing his or her car, as could a first offense of speeding by more than 90km/h over the limit.  And when you lose your car, you truly lose it.  There will be no getting it back upon payment of a fine or completion of community service or jail time.  Roadworthy cars are auctioned off, while unroadworthy vehicles are sold for scrap.  Profits are directed to road safety programs.

Under the previous three-hoons-and-you’re-out laws, police figures reported that more than 2000 cars were confiscated in 2015 and since 2014 more than 900 vehicles have been auctioned off for more than $1 million.

Twenty-four covert “hoon cameras” monitored by police at strategic locations were proposed with the updated laws, to help with enforcement and lead to more confiscations.

We’re not close to having such confiscatory legislation here in the US, but if vehicular hooniganism should increase, it is not unreasonable to expect legislation to be proposed to combat such a rise.

News Headline of the Week

From the home page of a regional newspaper yesterday:

Man Driving Naked with Open Beer Crashes into Five Cars

As the saying goes, you can’t make this stuff up.

Not surprisingly, the driver failed a field sobriety test.  He was then charged with driving while intoxicated, reckless driving, and operating a vehicle with an open container of alcohol.  Either there was no statute readily-applicable to his sartorial choice, or the officers on the scene chose the more expeditious route: A cover-up.

But I’m Only Going One Way

The office window overlooks a section of a busy New Jersey state highway, which is two lanes in one direction at this point.  The two lanes going in the opposite direction are a block away.

It is a beautiful sunny afternoon, and we just glanced up in time to see a motorist headed the wrong way, dutifully minding the speed limit but blissfully ignorant of the One Way signs at every intersection.

From our vantage point this appears to happen about once a month.  Obviously it happens more often, because we can see just two blocks of the road and the one-way portion of this highway is several miles long.

We cringe every time we see one.  Will a driver moving in the correct direction fail to notice?  Will a pedestrian step off the curb, not expecting a car from that side?  Will a driver at a cross street also not look that way?

Somewhat predictably, shortly after the car disappeared from our view we heard the blare of a car horn, as another driver attempted to alert the wayward traveler.  No sounds of a crash, no screech of tires, so with luck it is likely that the problem resolved itself that quickly.

Anyone can make a mistake, but it is hard to be sympathetic to a driver who fails to notice not only the One Way signs but also the Wrong Way signs, the angle parking that serves only the other direction of travel, and the two lanes of oncoming traffic!   However, we have also seen drivers who have made a conscious choice to drive in the wrong direction on this road, deciding, apparently, that it is perfectly okay to do so.... if you use reverse gear.