Journalism Research and Random Meanderings

Sunday, March 21, 2004

Chasing down an out of control driver ends in surprise 

I worked my way through J(ournalism)-school as a private security officer. Now that school is over, I am trying to build a freelance business but I am still doing security. At the moment I am a mobile supervisor for a smallish Toronto company. I drive 150 - 200 kilometres a night all over the Greater Toronto Area and come across all kinds of weird behaviour by both the drivers and the cops that are supposed to catch them.

The other night I am northbound on the Don Valley Parkway (DVP) when I see a green GMC van that looks like it's heavily loaded weaving around in the centre lane and sometimes the adjoining ones as well. I mistakenly call Toronto Police Services (TPS) dispatch number. I say mistakenly because the van driver doesn't exit to the 401 but continues north. Once TPS radio realises this they delay until he is north of Steeles Avenue (the northern city limit), promise to pass the call to the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and hang up. I have been caught in cross-communications between TPS and OPP before and it has never worked.

Trusting fool that I am I await the call from OPP. I watch fearfully as the van driver weaves back and forth so much that a little bubble of traffic forms behind him as people try to figure out how to pass him safely. At the 404 and 16th Avenue he almost goes off the road into the middle median nearly taking a young lady and her car with him. I decide to call the OPP myself.

This entailed describing the whole thing again and convincing the communications officer to pass me to the radio operator who would direct the cop to eventuall pull this guy over. Meanwhile the van driver nearly stops on the highway, brakes for no reason, turns his four-way flashers on then off and continues to ignore the paint.

At this point you might be asking why, if I am in a rather cop-like uniform and a vehicle with security decals all over it, don't I pull the guy over? The short answer is the cops are paid to get shot at and I am not. Also denting up the only mobile patrol vehicle we have would make the ops manager draw herself up to her full five feet two inches, scowl and talk at length in politically correct corporese. I like her and all but that makes me sigh just thinking about it.

Security officers don't have any more power than anyone else. We are just trained in things like Citizen's Arrest and the Trespass to Property Act which, used properly in combination allows us to cause all manner of problems for people on the _private_ properties we're contracted to protect. I have no jurisdiction on the highway and cops will attest the traffic stop is one of the most dangerous things in their routine duties.

OPP radio tells me the cop is waiting at 404 and Bloomington Side Road and I should put on my four-ways when the subject vehicle gets there. I don't see how this is going to help because I am following at a distance of 100 feet or more but I do it and tell the radio operator hoping she has patched the call through to the cop. The cop seems to get the message and starts to follow the green van. Unfortunately the cop made no attempt to conceal himself and the van driver knows he is being followed. The cop pulls him over anyway and OPP radio asks me to pull in behind the cop car to give a a statement.

The cop approaches the van on the passenger side, talks to the driver for a minute and comes back to my vehicle with a copy of the Toronto Sun in his hand and a funny look on his face.

"You want a paper?" he asks and hands it to me. "This is what he was doing."

The van driver is a Toronto Sun contractor. Remember how I said the van was heavily loaded? He picked up his load of papers and was on his way to service his paperboxes - passing the time by reading the paper.

The cop walked away and waved me on in disgust. I'll never know if the half-hour I just spent will make a difference. I am going to let the Toronto Sun distribution manager know by e-mail.



SIDEBAR: You can dial the OPP from a cell phone by dialling *OPP (*677). You can dial 911 from >any< cell phone whether or not you have an account. That's the law, in Canada anyway. Throw your old cell phone in the car of someone who doesn't have one so they can call for help.

Alternatively you can donate that old cell phone to women's shelters and others who need them by giving phones to organisations that will refurbish and recycle them like;

http://www.pitch-in.ca/Pitch-In.html

http://www.charitablerecycling.ca/CA/home.asp