In downtown Kanab, Utah \u2014 roughly comparable to Manhattan\u2019s Broadway or Fifth Avenue (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anyway, after the visit to the North Rim, we all went our separate ways home.\u00a0 As my wife and kids and I approached the outskirts of the town of Kanab, Utah, a police car going the other way flashed its lights at me and the officer inside motioned for me to pull over to the side of the road.\u00a0 Surprised, I reasoned that he must have noticed something mechanical that needed attention.<\/p>\n
When he had turned around, he exited his car and came up to my window.\u00a0 \u201cDo you realize how fast you were going?\u201d he asked me.\u00a0 I said that, yes, I did.\u00a0 The speed limit on that road was fifty-five miles an hour, but I was probably going very nearly sixty.\u00a0 I had been watch the road rather than the speedometer, but I was probably going a little under sixty or maybe just a little over that.\u00a0 The same speed as everybody else on the road.\u00a0 \u201cNo,\u201d he said, \u201cyou were going eighty-five miles per hour.\u201d\u00a0 I said that it was flatly impossible<\/em> that I had been going so fast.\u00a0 I surely would have been aware of that<\/em>.\u00a0 Anyhow, our piece-of-junk station wagon probably couldn\u2019t go<\/em> eighty-five miles per hour, and I was confident that, even if it could<\/em>, the thing would almost certainly have shaken apart had I attempted such a velocity.<\/p>\nUnfazed and unmoved, he wrote me out a ticket and drove away.\u00a0 However, the ticket indicated that, if I wanted to challenge my traffic citation or talk to authorities, I could go to the Highway Patrol office, which was located just through town on the opposite side.\u00a0 And I did<\/em> want to challenge it.\u00a0 So did my wife.\u00a0 We really felt that this was an injustice.\u00a0 Usually when I\u2019ve been given a traffic ticket, I have<\/em> been sailing along too fast or have<\/em> done something wrong.\u00a0 (I don\u2019t deny the justice of the two traffic stops that I mentioned in yesterday\u2019s post, for example.)\u00a0 Not this time, though.\u00a0 And, rather uniquely, this time my wife was on my side.<\/p>\nSo we drove through town and pulled into the Highway Patrol office.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the receptionist\/secretary told us, the judge (or whatever his job title was) was out of the office for the next couple of hours.\u00a0 He was also a serving Latter-day Saint bishop, it turned out, and he was conducting a funeral.\u00a0 Did we want to wait until he returned?\u00a0 Not particularly, we said.\u00a0 We had little kids with us and still quite some distance to drive.\u00a0 But we really did want to challenge the traffic citation.<\/p>\n
So she asked us to show her the ticket and to give her our side of the story.\u00a0 She listened, looked at the citation, and commented \u201cOh.\u00a0 This is from Bob<\/em> [I don\u2019t actually remember what his name was -dcp].\u00a0 He never has<\/em> learned to use his radar.\u201d<\/p>\nShe asked to see my driver\u2019s license.\u00a0 I handed it to her, explaining that I hadn\u2019t yet received my Utah driver\u2019s license, so the car\u2019s registration and license plates and my license were still California-issue.\u00a0 We had only recently moved to the state.\u00a0 (The weather was still warm, so this may have been around August, or so, before the beginning of Fall term.\u00a0 We may have been escaping the crowds that attend BYU Education Week.)<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat made you move from California to Utah?\u201d she asked.\u00a0 I explained that I had just joined the faculty at Brigham Young University.\u00a0 \u201cOh,\u201d she said, visibly warming up to us.\u00a0 \u201cMy daughter is a student at BYU.\u201d<\/p>\n
She thought for a few seconds and then said, \u201cLook.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have a Utah address for you.\u00a0 All I have \u2014 it\u2019s on your driver\u2019s license \u2014 is a California<\/em> address.\u00a0 Don\u2019t pay the fine now.\u00a0 I\u2019ll send reminders of the fine to that California address.\u00a0 I\u2019ll do that three or four times, and then, when you haven\u2019t responded, I\u2019ll just write it off and trash the citation.\u00a0 Not worth the effort to collect it.\u201d<\/p>\nSo that\u2019s exactly what we did.<\/p>\n
I offer this story to you as yet another inspiring example of the temporal benefits that clean living and righteousness can bring to the faithful.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 I\u2019m still somewhat in the autobiographical vein, and I\u2019ve elected to continue what I began yesterday with yet another story \u2014 one that I, anyhow, find amusing \u2014 of how my affiliation with the Church (or more specifically, in this case, with its flagship university) helped me in dealing with traffic tickets given […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":37747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5502,1152,1149,4255,35856,35862,35865,8319,35859,22859,35850,35847,35853,782],"class_list":["post-99669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bishop","tag-brigham-young-university","tag-byu","tag-grand-canyon","tag-kanab","tag-north-rim","tag-radar","tag-speed","tag-speeding","tag-ticket","tag-traffic-judge","tag-traffic-ticket","tag-traffic-violation","tag-utah"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Hopi](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/11\/Grand_Canyon_Hopi_Point_with_rainbow_2013.jpg\")
<\/a>