A Second and a Half and the Aftermath

Where I didn't wait long enough, leading to a long chain of consequences.

For the past 10 months I’ve dealt with the aftermath of the most consequential second and a half of time in my life. On June 9, 2018, around 11:30 pm, I stopped at the railroad crossing in Katonah, NY. I was only car stopped by the gate, heading east. The train passed, the flashing gate rose and I drove over the tracks.

Immediately, I saw flashing lights, as a police car swept out from a hard-to-see parking lot to stop me. The gates were still rising and blinking when I went on the tracks, and that’s illegal in New York State. Had I waited a second and a half, I estimate, I would have been in the clear, but I did not do that.

The officer, young enough to be my son, checked my license and insurance and said I would get a notice of the infraction, to which I could plead guilty or not guilty. If I pleaded not guilty, he’d be in court when I appeared. I mentally noted this comment and what seemed like a hint to plead not guilty.

The irony of the moment did not escape me. I’m a very cautious driver, the kind who drives the speed limit and annoys other drivers who apply a heavier foot on the gas pedal (that is, 99 percent of the population). Packs of cars on the Saw Mill Parkway constantly approach, surround and then pass me,  leaving me in their figurative dust. I don’t mind; I’m not in a race. I drive at my pace and if they want to go faster, go ahead.

The court notice arrived in July and with a shrug I decided to plead guilty and take my lumps. Gritting my teeth, I got a cashier’s check for $293 ($200 fine, $93 surcharge) and went to town hall. To my surprise, the clerk there appeared startled at my plea. With more emphasis than the officer who stopped me, the clerk suggested I could still change my plea, despite having checked the guilty box and appeared check in hand.

By now, it dawned on me that, maybe, just maybe, I should change my plea and have my day in traffic court. How many public servants need to raise the issue with me? Two was enough. I wrote a note to the town justice asking to change my plea, based on not understanding the impact of the violation on my insurance and points on my driver’s license.

The justice accepted the change and I waited for the notice to appear in court, not for a trial but for a discussion. That date, I had been told, could take a few months. That’s an understatement; not until January 2019 did I get a letter requesting the pleasure of my company for a pre-trial conference on February 12. I worked myself into a state of high anxiety as the day approached. I brooded over what I would say when I could discuss a plea bargain.

Mother Nature chose February 12 to unleash one of those polar vortexes, with enough snow and cold to close the court, which hears traffic cases only on Tuesdays. This gave me yet more time to stare at my navel and plan my comments on railroad crossings. The new hearing date was March 19 at the Town of Bedford Justice Court.

What would court be like? I was in small claims court in Brooklyn  in the 1980s, then divorce court in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 2003, two quick but wrenching experiences that gave me a visceral disinterest in court appearances (being called for jury duty is another matter, and I always enjoy doing my civic duty, even if I’ve never actually been placed on a jury). Still, I had changed my plea to have my day in court, so I’d go and see what how things went down.

I hoped to discuss my first-hand ideas for addressing the deadly serious issues of safety at railroad crossings. For example, six people were killed in a 2015 collision in Valhalla, NY, at a crossing I passed through hundreds of times during my years commuting from Katonah to Grand Central Terminal.

Since my episode at the crossing, I had taken photos at the Katonah station whenever the crossing gates came down and then rose, to collect evidence of the extent of cars crossing before the gates were totally up and violating statute VTL 1170 0B, as I did. Flagrant violations happened at least half of the times I observed, which disturbed me. I drafted a multipoint plan that combined publicity, surveillance cameras and public appearances to emphasize the need for attention at crossings. If my experience could lead other drivers to change their behavior, then my ticket would have value far above my own awareness.

My day in court

March 19 came, with no polar vortex to delay the proceedings this time. Restrictions on items forbidden at court meant I couldn’t take my cellphone or supporting materials. I jotted my talking points on the envelope with the appearance notice; otherwise I had only $400 in cash to pay whatever my fine ultimately was.

I arrived early and found TSA-level security in place at the court’s entrance. I passed through and showed my notice at a desk. I soon met with the officer who stopped me, who asked if I realized the seriousness of my offense. Yes, I did, and we discussed a plea deal that would lower the fine and number of points on my license. I agreed to that, as we stood in the back of the courtroom where maybe 20 other people waited for their cases to be heard. With the plea discussion done, I gave my pitch for a program to bring more public awareness to the crossing issue. I would write press releases and op-ed and do whatever I could with the police and Metro-North communications teams. The officer acknowledged the points I was making and said he would pass them along.

I sat on a chair in the courtroom, where I had recently listened in on planning and zoning hearings involving my synagogue. The town justice called my name, he reviewed the plea bargain, I agreed to the deal. The next stop was to pay the fine of $240  total, a combination of the actual fine and a court fee. And that was that.

Doing the PIRP walk

Actually, that wasn’t that. A brochure about the state DMV’s point and insurance reduction program (PIRP) suggested next steps. It outlined the in-person and online courses to “refresh your driving knowledge” and make me eligible to have points removed from my license. I signed up for an online course through the American Automobile Association.

The brochure said PIRP courses last a minimum of 320 minutes. I logged on and soon discovered that taking the course online, rather than spending a weekend in a course classroom, was more complex than I expected. While I had several weeks to complete the course, I struggled to concentrate in the midst of a family health crisis and work responsibilities. I did what I could on nights and weekends.

As with everything else in this 10-month tale of infraction and correction, my PIRP course took unexpected turns in a digital roundabout. I never looked at FAQs for tips on how to take the program. I just winged it, a questionable decision on my part. To sign up, I had to read lists of numbers for voice authentication, so that when I logged on, the program could tell I was watching the videos and answering the questions, rather than a ringer (good idea for the SATs). Authentication popped on at random points, to foil cheating.

I slugged ahead, then encountered tech problems. The voice authentication system became erratic in recognizing my voice, so I had to contact customer service online to log in. Then I twice exceeded the 90-second time limit for responding to the random requests for voice authentication, which forced me to call customer service to identify myself. I learned, with more than a dollop of alarm, that if I exceeded the time limit a third time, then I would not be able to complete the course and would have to start all over again. That would be a problem, since I had only two days left to complete the course and I loathed the idea of grinding through the hours of work involved.

On Easter Sunday I closed the door to my home office, to keep out the cats who like to skitter across my laptop’s keyboard, and vowed to finish the course without stopping, figuring two hours would get me to the checkered flag. I clutched my cellphone at a DefCon 2 level of hyperalertness, ready to call the toll-free number and sloooowwlly and cleeearly state the row of numbers within the 90 seconds allotted for the voice authentication. I would use no headset, no speakerphone, just me and my iPhone 8 ready to make authentication magic.

Lesson after lesson sailed by smoothly and I could see the finish line beckoning me, just one segment ahead.

And then the authentication notice popped up and the 90-second countdown began. I dialed in and read the numbers. Honestly, Laurence Olivier himself could not have rendered a clearer, more precise, more lucid recitation of numbers in the Queen’s English at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Alas, the program, unimpressed with my heartfelt reading, kicked me off and told me to call customer service. This being Easter Sunday, I feared I wouldn’t get through on this, my second or third call of the day.

However, a woman answered and I told my tale of audio woe. No, I wasn’t using a speakerphone. I learned my lesson on that. She must have listened to the recording since she said the reading was garbled. Inasmuch as I hadn’t timed out on the authentication, I knew I wasn’t going to get the dreaded heave-ho, but I still worried. The customer service rep lifted the block and reminded me against timing out.

I asked, “I have one segment left, is it possible I’ll get asked for authentication again?”

That could happen, she said.

Forewarned, I girded my digital loins and plunged back for one more segment. Success! I had no more authentication requests and simply confirmed information so I could get my treasured certification of completion for the DMV and my insurance company.

What I learned

The course did, as promised, refresh my knowledge. I hadn’t had driving instruction since driver’s ed in high school in 1974. AAA’s PIRP course had eye-opening material:

• Roundabouts are strange for Americans but shouldn’t be scary.
• In New York, you stop for school buses even if the bus is on the other side of  a divided highway.
• Following distance is now defined by time between cars in seconds rather than the previous guideline of one car length for every 10 MPH of speed. This reflects that people are better judges of time than distance.
• Keep a cushion of space around your car and look for a direction to move in case problems happen ahead of you.
• Impaired driving can involve prescription drugs and over-the-counter medicines, beyond alcohol and illegal drugs.
• Highway signs indicate whether an upcoming exit is to the left or right.
• Do not keep loose objects in your car, even something as small as an iPad. Left unsecured, they can fly around with great force in a collision. This really got my attention. This also applies to pets.
• Don’t tailgate. This has never been my tendency, but I now especially notice when other drivers do this, even at traffic stops. I've always kept a distance from the car ahead, so if I'm rear-ended, I avoid or lessen the odds of a chain reaction (something that has happened to me). 
• Hold the steering wheel at the 3 and 9 positions, or 4 and 8; this is a change from the 2 and 10 positions I learned in driver's ed 35 summers ago.
• ALWAYS give trains the right-of-way. They simply cannot stop quickly and their sheer size and weight trumps any other vehicle, even police or EMS. I particularly noted the content of this section, since it dealt directly with what got me in trouble.

That’s what I got out of the course; the program also had a space where I could send comments to the company that produced it. I gave the PIRP high marks and commented on two areas in particular:

• The interface needed rethinking, given the problems I found with the voice authentication. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. This became a huge distraction. There must be a secure and reliable alternative to ensure the participant is the actual person who signed up.
• The railroad crossing section did not address the issues behind my infraction. Yes, it gave the statistics of 2,000 annual collisions and 250 fatalities, and that collisions with trains are 20 times more fatal that car collisions. However—and I made a note to myself in these words—it ”doesn’t say anything about gates being completely up and lights off.” I made sure the company that produced the PIRP got the message, which I also related to one of the customer service reps when she asked if I had anything else on my mind. 

An immense wave of relief washed over me that Sunday afternoon when I finally, certainly, most assuredly finished my AAA course on defensive driving. While I regret the second and a half of rushed time that landed me in traffic court and a fine, I did learn some terrific driving ideas in the course. I’m already applying them as I tool around Westchester County in my Prius. My passion for safety at railroad crossings could lead me to share my corrective thoughts with town and railroad officials. A reactive approach that snags individual drivers like me will never change collective behavior. By doing my civic duty, I hope to encourage drivers to treat railroad crossings with the same instinctive caution that drivers now afford school buses when their warning signs are flashing.

A final note: The Bedford town justice who heard my case on March 19 was arrested on April 22 for driving while intoxicated and resisting arrest, both misdemeanors. He has been relieved of his judicial duties for the time being. He treated me fairly and I wish him well as he addresses the issues that led to this incident. I believe everybody can learn from their difficult experiences, even if they only last a second and a half.

Keep waiting, don't risk getting slammed, in the legal, financial or physical sense.