Lack of Traffic Enforcement -A Disaster in the Making
Cristal M Clark
Denver’s new traffic policy was approved on May 1, 2024 and it comes after the city council suggested the idea to Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas a year ago. It is based on a study by the Vera Institute of Justice that suggests law enforcement departments whose officers are stopping fewer drivers in other cities are seeing an increase in public safety (not entirely accurate).
Okay, let’s set this record completely straight, shall we? You do not have enough police to handle everything, so you have officers available to handle bigger or more major types of crime, what the study and our own Chief Ron Thomas do not tell you is that you end up with a plethora of other “low level” traffic crimes that are simply not accounted for nor are they even reported because we are no longer enforcing traffic laws. It in no way shape or form means that we are doing a better job of handling any type of criminal activity much less increasing public safety.
Yesterday morning I encountered two different vehicles both with no plates and no temp tags, driving recklessly, running lights, traveling over 3X’s the posted speed limit from Downing to Park Ave all the way up to I-25. One driver almost caused a huge accident on Park traveling towards I-25. He cut someone off last minute and ran the red light, and let me tell you how many fucks he gave, not one. He did the same thing on Downing before we ever hit Park and he ran every single red light on Park -EVERY-SINGLE-ONE.
This morning as well as yesterday morning, I encountered two different vehicles both with no plates and no temp tags, driving recklessly, running lights, traveling over 3X’s the posted speed limit from Downing to Park Ave all the way up to I-25. The guy this AM almost caused a huge accident on Park traveling towards I-25. He cut someone off last minute and ran the red light, and let me tell you how many fucks he gave, not one. He did the same thing on Downing before we ever hit Park and he ran every single red light on park.
It got me curious, so I started asking some of the citizens of our fine city what they thought about this and if they felt things were getting somewhat worse since the announcement and overwhelmingly, the answer was yes, that announcement has created an open license to drive erratically and recklessly throughout the city, not get tags or even attempt fake ones anymore, the number of vehicles we are all seeing with no tags or plates has nearly doubled if not tripled.
Not to mention a ton of people are now using the HOV lanes without plates or temp tags and not getting billed for it, we see it every day. When asked if anyone called the police as situations were happening, almost everyone felt the same way that I do, if you already do not have enough coppers to handle the criminal activity now, what happens if we call and report it? That’s right, no one shows up, they do not have the manpower to send an officer to what is considered a low level traffic crimes.
But to the average citizen who drives around with current tags, doesn’t run lights, or who does not drive in a manner that would be deemed reckless or erratic, has insurance on the vehicles they drive, these are not low level crimes. To the average citizen a crime is a crime, no tags or plates is one crime, running lights is another crime, weaving in and out of traffic in an unsafe way is another crime, speeding is another crime, reckless and careless driving are yet other crimes and I am willing to bet hard cold cash that most of the folks you see driving around with no plates or tags, have no insurance which is yet another crime the city could be making money on. Right…
So what you end up with is multiple “low level crimes” being committed by a single individual all at the same time. And, because the Denver police department elected to publicly announce that they will no longer enforce these types of crimes, it equates to some as a free fucking pass to commit all of the low level crimes that they can in a single trip to work or the store or whilst committing high level crimes because why not, the cops are going to stop them.
I get giving someone a free pass after you pull them over if they were not paying attention and run a light, or failed to yield, I get it. But this morning that guy driving down park, needed to be pulled over in his shitty little beat up older black Acura dumpster car, the folks who blow through the red lights on Park and 16th during between 6AM-8AM should be pulled over, some of them are doing 50-60MPH if a pedestrian were in the street they’d be done for. Not to mention that these careless individuals usually end up on the highway, doing closer to 100MPH, don’t believe me, spend a week with me cruising down I-70, this morning I saw at least 4 vehicles with no plates, no tags and driving well over 70MPH heading west down 70. It does not matter that it is just Denver who said that they will no longer worry about low level traffic crimes these individuals who are breaking the various traffic laws are beginning to cross city lines.
In all honesty no one would have a huge issue with the police department’s decision if they had not announced it publicly and subsequently let the local media report the shite out of it. Now people are doing whatever they want and eventually it is going to spell disaster.
On the flip side of all of this, regular every day citizens are beginning to question having to pay for the use of HOV lanes, for tags every year, insurance, abiding by traffic laws, because when we look around and laws are not being enforced, well you get the picture.
The issue I take with this any these types of studies that are used to change things is that typically they are pretty one sided and completely ignore the obvious such as yes, now in Denver if you have no tags or plates the police might look the other way but by doing so they are also going to miss the multiple other crimes that individual is going commit, traffic or otherwise. You choose to turn a blind eye and you tend to miss quite a bit. The other issue that I have with this is that it came out as basically a free pass for certain individuals are clearly taking advantage of it and doing whatever the fuck they want.
If I were the Chief here, I would never at any moment do anything our current city Council suggested, have you seen just how much the general public wants them out already? Their approval rating is in the garbage and it’s on fire. By not enforcing traffic laws, you create a much bigger problem, but by trying to hide that truth from the public and selling it off as if you are doing us a favor…come on, you are doing no one a favor and allowing for obvious criminal activity to occur whilst you turn a blind eye to it.
Cristal M Clark
IOS users can find The Crime Shop on Apple News
@thecrimeshop on twitter
https://www.instagram.com/crimeshop.cc/?hl=en
https://www.facebook.com/cristal.marieclark
https://steemit.com/@thecrimeshop
Late Fall 2024 Elon Musk – A Boy With A Dream
A tale of Fiction Written by Cristal M Clark
thecrimeshop 
What are your thoughts