The Speeder Who Blew Through the School Zone

I help out most mornings at the crosswalk by our elementary school, the one with the flashing lights and the big twenty-mile-an-hour signs and a crossing guard named Miss Dot who has run that corner for thirty years. Kids love her. She knows every one of them by name.

There was a driver, a young man in a loud modified car, who treated the school zone as a personal racetrack. Every morning, right at the busiest time, he would come through fast, rev the engine at the light, and once, when Miss Dot held up her stop sign to let a line of kindergartners cross, he swerved around her, laughing, and nearly clipped the sign out of her hands.

Miss Dot did not yell. Miss Dot is not a yeller. What Miss Dot did was quietly write down his plate, the time, and a short note, every single morning, in the little pad she keeps. She did this for two weeks, and she gave photocopies to the school, who gave them to the district, who has a very good relationship with the local police because of exactly these situations.

One morning there was a patrol car parked, unremarkably, in the school lot, with an officer holding a radar unit and a folder of Miss Dot's dated, timed, plate-by-plate notes. The young man came through, fast as ever, revved at the light, and did his usual swerve.

He was pulled over half a block later. The officer had two weeks of documentation and a fresh radar reading in a school zone with children present. The fines for that are not small, and neither are the points. He drives through our corner very slowly now, both hands on the wheel, and once, I swear, he waved at Miss Dot. She waved back, because she is kinder than the rest of us.