This will make any driving I do through Sunriver a whole lot easier.
SUNRIVER, Ore. — No seatbelt? No citation. No tail light? No ticket. In to [sic] much of a hurry? Not to worry.
Sgt. P.J. Beaty watches people in this upscale development breaking traffic laws, and sees plenty of them. But he can’t pull them over. A man swerved head-on into Beaty’s lane, and then back out again and Beaty couldn’t lay a glove on him.
For years, he and the department’s 10 other sworn officers could have pulled him over.
But the Sunriver Service District, which governs police and fire departments, voted in February to tell officers to make Sunriver’s roads, which are private but open to the public, exempt from minor vehicle infractions.
This basically puts the cops back to the security-guard status they had for years.
Granted, I want them to be able to enforce the laws here, but they were going totally overboard here on minor things for quite a while, especially picking on the locals. My dad, who has worked out here for over 25 years, as well as my boss and two other people I know, all got pulled over for not wearing their seat belt. The thing is, they were all just moving cars around in a parking lot — they weren’t actually going anywhere. And if you went 26 MPH through Sunriver where it’s 25 MPH all throughout, they would’ve given you a ticket. But whenever there’s a tourist driving the wrong way around one of the 10 one-way traffic circles (which I’ve seen many times), there’s never a cop to be found.
That being said, if a drunk is wreaking havoc through town, they now have no authority to do anything, which is no good at all.
You can read a bit about it in the latest Sunriver Scene, where they talk about the minutes from the meeting where this vote took place. But from what I can tell by reading just the bits I am there (and I can’t read the Bulletin version of this without paying, so I don’t know if they explained this better), they’re doing this basically because of the way state laws work on enforcing laws on private roads.
Update: There are several other blogs and forums talking about this now. And just think: The Bulletin could’ve gotten a bunch of ad revenue-generating traffic, but they decided to lock-down their article instead and send all the traffic for folks looking for this article to a Seattle paper. Their loss.
Comments
“But whenever there’s a tourist driving the wrong way around one of the 10 one-way traffic circles (which I’ve seen many times), there’s never a cop to be found.”
Bitter are we? The roads in Sunriver are the most ill-designed roads I’ve ever seen. If you’d seen a tourist driving the right way you should be thankful.
Having almost gotten hit by said wrong-way drivers on multiple occassions, yes, I am a bit bitter.
I have seen people that have lived in the area cutting around the circle so they do not have to go all the way around. You do come across righteous blaming things. The circles are strange to some people. We all make mistakes, who are you to judge.
The thing is, he who leaves no name, it actually takes quite a bit of work to go the wrong way around most of the circles out here:
1) There are many one-way signs.
2) There are direction arrows on the circle markers that show which way to go.
3) And most importanly, the circles are built intellegently so you basically have to do a complete U-turn in your car if you intend to go the wrong way (assuming you’re driving on the correct side of the road to begin with — if you’re on the left side of the road, then driving the wrong way on a circle is the least of my worries).
In other words, it takes a LOT of work to go the wrong way, and if somebody is indeed going the wrong way, I have little sympathy for them if they get in a wreck. The only circle I see people cutting off is Circle 7, where there is hardly ever any traffic and there are two roads that are really close together that require you to go 90% around the circle to get to. I’ve seen people do that, but only because you can see the entire circle — the others, you really can’t.
You are so full of crap you have no empathy for anyone and you think you have all the answer, you do not. You’re a punk and full of hot air, get off your high horse.
Why do I have a feeling you’re the little old lady that nearly ran head-on into me when she was driving the wrong way last summer?
not even close
nameless one, empathy isn’t the issue here. If it was, your comments might be germane to the conversation. As it is, you look to be the clueless one.
Follow-Up On “Sunriver Police Can’t Do Anything” Story
I passed on a story a few days ago about how Sunriver police can’t really do much of anything now. The story is now all over the blog world, with…
Yes “pril” clueless you are what a world
Wow, Nameless One, my ego is torn asunder by your superiority. Lord have mercy on me.
Hey “pril” you started with with “the clueless one” and the Lord will have mercy on you, and what a big one you have( ego that is).
I’m not surprised they voted this way. Ever since they voted in the Special Service District, the police have turned into real a-holes. Mostly seems like new recruits overly enforcing every little letter in the law.
I’ve been pulled over because the factory-installed ladder on my 10 year old car slightly blocked the view of the rear liceense plate from some angles. Guess how many other police departments have have pulled me over for the same reason? Zero. My wife was pulled over because on of here tires touched the fog line on right side(?).
The police brought this on themselves.