Like many places in southern California certain intersections routinely get clogged with cars. As someone who lived in southern California for eight years I can honestly say when the residents there come upon a traffic light that doesn’t work many different things go through many different minds.
“Whoa no more traffic lights let’s go.”
“I can’t go if the light doesn’t work. I would go if the light worked but it doesn’t work so how am I responsible for not going through the intersection.”
“Quien rompió el semáforo?
“Oh great, a perfect situation to use my car’s horn.”
“Why is the light out and what does that mean in my life’s here and now?”
“Tell my agent I’m going to wait here until the media arrives. I may bet getting some free publicity today for our movie.”
Some people will inch out into the intersection and others will all try and go at the same time. This usually results in lots of cars getting stuck in the intersection, nobody going anywhere and people yelling obscenities out of their windows while beeping their car horns. Traffic quickly backs up and chaos is fast approaching. Sometimes in southern California this can happen even if the traffic light is working.
Alan Ehrlich is a resident of South Pasadena. He noticed a particular traffic light in South Pasadena goes out on a regular basis. This can turn a 20 minute commute into a few hour journey. A non-working traffic light can cause people to engage in erratic behavior such as turning around in the middle of the road or trying to take a side street by driving over someone’s lawn. Ehrlich had seen this light out before but had never seen a police officer around to direct traffic. As a responsible person with a level of dedication to his neighborhood and neighbors that is admirable he decided to take matters into his own hands.
Inside his car Ehrlich had some orange safety flags. Armed with safety flags he emerged from his vehicle and began directing traffic. Without him traffic took an average of 30 minutes to get through the intersection. With Ehrlich moving cars along with his orange safety flags a traffic jam that stretched for miles was cleared up in 10 minutes. In no time at all the situation was under control and a regular citizen was responsible for traffic flowing smoothly. The fellow commuters were happy, Ehrlich was happy and the makers of orange safety flags felt they may have found their next spokesperson.
It seemed all was well in the traffic world of Southern Pasadena with one big exception. The police chief was not happy. To be quite honest he was very unhappy. South Pasadena Police Chief Joe Payne said when they received a call about their newest traffic officer they went into action. A policeman was dispatched to the intersection where Ehrlich was happily directing traffic for cheerful commuters and gave him a ticket. After the officer issued the ticket he departed leaving traffic to once again back up. Huh? (The following is sarcasm in case a policeman from South Pasadena feels the need to write a ticket.) That makes perfect sense because the last thing you want is to have a situation where people in cars can easily get to and from their destinations. It’s as if these people have no respect for the value of gridlock.
Now South Pasadena Police Chief said he doesn’t have the man power needed to staff officers at that particular intersection. He also feels it is safer to allow traffic to back up. (More sarcasm). I’m sure it’s good for the residents of South Pasadena to know their police department doesn’t have the staff to direct traffic at an intersection that is backed up for miles during rush hour, but does have sufficient manpower for an officer to go out to the intersection and issue a ticket to someone directing traffic at no cost to the taxpayers. What an effective use of resources.
Does the South Pasadena Police Chief not comprehend the concept of encouraging good citizenship? He could’ve said “Thanks concerned citizen for your efforts, but because there are lawyers who make an extremely good living by suing the police we think this is a bad idea. Sorry.”
Instead Ehrlich probably heard “Hey, you, yeah you, with orange safety flags making traffic flow smooth at rush hour, are you nuts? We can’t have a rush hour without things being backed up for miles. Here’s a ticket and if you try and be a good citizen again we’ll lock you up.”
Ehrlich plans to address the matter at an upcoming meeting of the city council.
To say the least this was handled poorly. Ehrlich should not have gotten a ticket. The police department should have thanked him for his efforts. Unfortunately his good intentions were met by police who seemed to feel Ehrlich was out of line. I don’t think the South Pasadena Police Department needs more officers to keep their rush hour traffic running smoothly. They just need to have more people around like Alan Ehrlich.
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