Submitted by Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Last night I had a situation that I found to be quite disappointing. Just after seven o’clock in the evening, I thought I would have dinner at a restaurant on the other side of town and drove over there to dine out. Along the way, I needed to merge onto a major interstate freeway in the metro area having four lanes and busy traffic. As I drove along in the outside lane, it was after dark at the time, I saw a man walking along the hard shoulder of the roadway. I worried that a drunk might veer off the travelled portion and hit him so I pulled over to offer him a ride. Thus began a conversation that really shows how we can often allow people to be put at risk because the county does not want to offer them a modicum of accommodation.
After I picked him up, the gentleman walking around the roadway told me that he had just been released from the county jail after serving time for driving while license suspended. He did not have someone to pick him up from jail so he had no other option but to walk back home. He lived twenty five miles from the jail. The only way he could get home, since he had no money with him, was to walk along a busy interstate freeway.
We previously wrote about the virtual debt peonage and endless circle of jail and further increases of fines with suspended drivers in an article HERE.
It would have taken him until after six in the morning to walk that far. So rather than drive him to the next exit to find another ride I just drove him home.
He was 57 years old, unemployed and had no family available to drive him. He had no other choice than to walk. I asked him if the jail offered him a bus ticket or some other accommodation to allow him to return home after release. He said the jail used to give bus tickets to people in his situation but stopped doing that several years ago.
We had a good visit with each other, but the entire time we were together I could not help but wonder why the county has a system as such that a person of little means is forced to walk twenty five miles home because no effort was made to arrange for his journey. The risk this man faced from being hit by a drunk driver, stopped by the state patrol for being a pedestrian on a limited access freeway, or simply collapsing from exhaustion is certainly not something that we should accept nor something a person released from custody should endure.
I recognize that the sheriff’s office is not a taxi service and has no obligation to provide transport for released inmates after their term has expired, but couldn’t the county at least take a few more steps to ensure that someone can either pick up the inmate or try to prevent a situation where a fifty seven year old does not have to walk twenty five miles to get home?
Is this too much to ask?
By Darren Smith
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
As someone who used to walk barefoot through the snow, over broken glass, uphill both ways to school every day, I think it was a very nice gesture for you to pick him up. Personally, I would have handled it differently. bettykath, who has roundly condemned me, would have called other agencies to pick up the guy, but would not have picked him up herself.
Darren
it isn’t our place to judge. as a person who once walked twelve plus miles home in the rain, thanks.
For those who were wondering the man I gave the ride to exhibited no signs of alcohol consumption. Had he in-fact been drunk and walking along the freeway it would have certainly been more imperative to find a way to get him off the road or else he is likely to stumble into traffic and die in the process.
About eight years ago there was a man who nearly every Friday or Saturday would get drunk at a bar in town and around 1:30 in the morning he would walk home about a little over a half mile along the highway. One night when I was working the area I saw him do just as above, stumbled out into the travelled portion of the road. So, I gave him a ride home. For a few weeks later while I was on night shift and didn’t have any calls I drove out there on those nights to see if he was still stumbling around. By then he knew the routine, I pulled up beside him and he let himself in.
Sure, he was an alcoholic, but it is what it is. Better than having him get hurt.
Darren – I assumed that had he been consuming he would have sobered up after incarceration. Had I thought he been drinking I would not offer to take him to an AA meeting. I would offer to take him to the nearest off-ramp where he could be better help.
Karen,
Some places have policies where incarcerations are made in hard terms of 24 hours per day, meaning that if a person is booked at 4:00 AM and is sentenced to say 4 days they are released at 4 AM just the same. It’s a bit silly at times.
Does anyone in law enforcement know why people are so often released from jail at night? Why night instead of the morning, when it would be easier to make arrangements? Because that adds another layer of danger for them, alone, at night, and on foot. I keep thinking about that mentally ill young woman who was released from jail in the middle of the night after getting arrested, never to be seen again.
Karen – I do know that some British hospitals have be roundly condemned for releasing patients, mostly elderly at between 2-4 am. to clear beds for the next shift.
Chester/Max:
Oh, look, they ARE free in Georgia! Grin. I think they need to do a better job on getting that information out to people, though. Because this can help in so many ways, including getting loan docs notarized, a will, or a POA.
http://sos.ga.gov/index.php/elections/georgia_voter_identification_requirements2
Karen S. True, the I.D.’s are free in Georgia, but while you were busy eagerly trying to refute me, check out the GAO report that calculated the actual total cost per state for “undocumented” (people without “proper” IDs) folk to go through the process. They included obtaining, if possible, birth certificates.
Here’s a portion of the report submitted to Congress (please note the last sentence):
“The report calculated the direct cost to would-be voters in the 17 states where voters must present a driver’s license or other state identification at polling places. The price for driver’s licenses ranges from $14.50 in Indiana to $58.50 in Rhode Island. The cost of getting a birth certificate needed to obtain a non-driver ID ranges from $7 in North Dakota to $25 in Georgia.”
SO WE HAVE KNOW IT ALLS like Gigi De La Paz<<< how do you know what and why his license was suspended. today your license is suspended for missing ONE let me say again 1 child support payment, its also suspended for not showing up to pay tickets you have idea and that is just a couple of the cockamamie reasons for suspended licenses the fact still remains that in todays society the prisons are now outright in the open triple low wage earners for the elites. but i will say this im damn sure a member of the families of the know it alls will soon find this out for themselves
david, You’re breaking my heart w/ Olive Garden. But, you live in a Death Valley for Italians.
davidm, The magnificent Salvation Army will either give you a ride, but more likely give you a voucher for a cab ride. I have considered calling a Salvation Army contact I have locally and suggesting they set up a contract w/ Uber and Lyft. Save a lotta money and better service.
Nick Spinelli wrote: “The magnificent Salvation Army will either give you a ride, but more likely give you a voucher for a cab ride.”
Try calling them anonymously, not through your contact. Ask if it is possible to get somebody a ride who is getting out of jail. See what they tell you. I would be very interested to hear.
The Salvation Army in Tampa will not give rides. I can’t even get clothes or shoes from them for the poor. I actually produced a television program exposing what the Salvation Army was doing. The donations did not get to the poor. The best donations ended up in homes that the Sally owns throughout Tampa for its officers. In the television show, we go to all the homes the Sally owns, we go thru their financial statements that somebody faxed to us because the Sally would not give us upon request because they were a “church” and exempt from having to provide that information. We also compare the prices for donated items like dishes that was selling in their thrift store with prices in K-Mart. K-Mart was a better deal.
It may be that your Salvation Army is much better. It sounds like it. But in Tampa, it just doesn’t work for the poor. The homeless that go into their programs get stuck there with no way out. They take all their check and they have no way to exit the system. They work like slaves sorting donations and they do not get minimum wage because it is a “program” not employment. The best service they provide is a shelter, but it costs money that the homeless often do not have. I stayed in the shelter there myself, just to experience how the homeless live. There were no programs or outreach to the people staying in the shelter. Just a lot of snoring men coughing throughout the night on bunk beds, with 20 or so in each room.
Incidentally, the Sally gets a lot of FEMA money, which causes them not to be able to reach out to the souls of these men spiritually. They have to sign agreements with the government not to do that if they accept the money.
I really would like to hear good reports from you about the Sally. I’ve read the biographies of both William Booth and Catherine Booth. I admire the work they did very much, but what I see of their legacy in Tampa, it seems nothing like what they were doing.
It
Did anyone say Wisconsin IDs were not free? That is the ONLY reason the Law was deemed constitutional. It was changed from the original law that was deemed unconstitutional by a lower court because I was NOT free at one point. Poll tax.
NO! NO Taco Bell! Not unless you’re constipated and need immediate relief. There is nothing Mexican about it!
BFM – yes, I agree that there need to be programs that help guide people, such as the elderly, through getting an ID. There are, in fact, those programs all around the country. I think we could do a better job of getting the word out about them.
Oh, look, IDs for voting in Wisconsin are free.
And there are organizations that help people obtain them.
Must be tough. Darn those racists. What an unscalable hurdle!!!
http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/drivers/drivers/apply/idcard.htm
Karen S. – Oh, look! In Georgia, they’re not free!! Must be that they’re still racist in my state.
bettykath:
I agree that multiple approaches are needed to address all voter fraud. However, every single approach is opposed. Any attempt to scrub the roles of fraudulent entries, for instance dead people, is met with resistance, and labeled racist.
I live in CA, where illegal aliens voting is an enormous problem. It’s defrauding citizens of their voice. But, unfortunately, the same players always denounce any efforts to address fraud.
ID does not fix all fraud, but it should be one arrow in a quiver of methods. A vote needs to accurately reflect the will of the citizenry. Period.
As I’ve pointed out before, there are programs that help the poor and elderly get IDs. They need those IDs anyway in order to function in society, including getting medical power of attorneys or taking out a loan. So I support these programs, and improving them. But I wouldn’t care how people are identified before they vote as long as it’s more accurate than a phone bill, which anyone can get in whatever name they choose. PLUS, as you’ve pointed out, we need to verify there are no fraudulent voters on the roles.
@ leej
Not that I support dumping people off in the middle of the night in remote areas when they are released from incarceration…..I don’t and my previous post in this very thread indicates….BUT…
Almost all of those things you list that can have your license revoked are things that you can avoid doing. Almost. Some might be beyond your control. HOWEVER, once you don’t have a license and then you continue to drive, you are purposely breaking the law.
Our lonely guy on the side of the road made these choices and put himself into the situation in which he finds himself and it is commendable that Darren put himself out to help this man. So, while I think we should have a system that treats minor offenders more kindly, I don’t have too much sympathy for him.
He did it to himself.
Im sorry you don’t have the empathy to put yourself in his shoes. That being said I posted that info as to why revoked because Paul seems to believe it has to be addiction related
forgot the link address: http://www.dmvnv.com/dlsuspension.htm
bfm – first of all, do not think of Taco Bell as a style of Mexican food. 🙂 Surely there is a real Mexican restaurant in your area, even if it is a chain which would be somewhat Americanized.
I grew up in Minnesota and thought Taco Bell hot sauce was intolerably hot and Tabasco was like acid. After living in SoCal for 35 years, those don’t even register on the Scoville scale to me.
Olly – when I first moved to Arizona and had salsa I thought I would never be able to use my mouth again. Now it is just a mild taste additive. 🙂