I Almost Wrecked My Car Because of an Idiot Cop

I’m just about shaking with rage and shock right now. I picked my boys up at AWANA a few moments ago at the Berean Baptist Church in Magnolia, NJ. As I was driving home on Atlantic Avenue, I was stopped at the light at the intersection of Atlantic and Warwick. I know this means nothing to most people except for locals, but I find my blog makes a convenient record of events.

I noticed a few cars on the oncoming side waiting to make a left turn, but this is New Jersey and in older parts of town like Magnolia and Somerdale, there really are no protected left turns, and this intersection is no exception. The light turned green and I started to drive through. Suddenly, I realized that a car was making a left turn right in front of me. I jammed on my brakes as hard as I could, and my ABS kicked in. The other car stopped and I stopped. I saw right in my headlights on the side of the car “Somerdale Police Department”. That for some reason made me much angrier than if the driver was your ordinary impatient New Jersey douchebag driver, although I guess that’s the same stock from which we draw our police officers. As I drove off, I looked at my clock and saw it was 8:43 PM.

A freaking cop almost wrecked my car with my boys inside. You freaking idiot! Some paragon of public safety. I looked up the number for Somerdale PD and called it. It turned out to be the dispatcher, but I was told they would have an officer give me a call. I doubt they’ll do anything, but maybe they should force their officers to sit through some kind of safe driving class, like I have to sit through IT training whenever some idiot gets caught bypassing the firewall or looking at porn or pirating movies on the network.

I’m still shaking.

On the other hand, I do remember how many times I've almost had a New Jersey Highway Patrol car almost run me off the road when i had to take I-295 in to work. They'll tailgate you up to 85 MPH, and when you finally move over, they'll blast past you up to over 100. Maybe New Jersey cops are all totally unsafe drivers, and more of a threat to public safety than a gaurantee of it.