Senior drives home the point

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/10/2014 (4228 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Remember Ed Macyk? You may not recall the name, but if you read the column he was featured in last spring, you couldn’t forget his story.

Ed is a 76-year-old cancer survivor and Canadian Cancer Society volunteer who shuttles patients to CancerCare and other hospital appointments each weekday. At the time, so far as he knew, Ed was the only one of about 80 volunteers who drove five days a week.

“This is what drives me to get up in the morning,” Ed told me at the time. “To do some good.”

Naturally, doing a good job is also important to Ed and that includes getting his patients to their appointments on time. Which brings us to his story.

Last May, stuck in morning rush-hour traffic and concerned about his passengers arriving late for their treatments, Ed took a shortcut through a diamond lane. A pair of police officers, parked in wait near St. Boniface Hospital, pulled him over in his clearly marked Canadian Cancer Society van.

The result was a $203.80 ticket.

“How did I feel?” Ed responded back then, “I just felt mad and frustrated because I asked him to let us off in a roundabout way and he would have no part of that. I was in the wrong. And I realized I was in the wrong, but that was the only lane that was open that I could make some time in. And that was the only reason. There was nobody in that lane. When it’s wide open and you’re sitting behind two lanes of traffic that’s not moving and you’ve got this open lane and you’ve got the pressure of trying to get these people there on their appointment times, that’s the only reason I did that.”

After the column appeared, there were readers who wanted to pay the fine for Ed. While he was surprised and grateful for the generous gestures, Ed had already decided to fight the ticket.

“The money is not the real issue here,” he said. “It’s the principle and not getting any demerits on my licence.”

Ed had no demerits. As for the principle, it was basic: “Consider who you’re pulling over,” Ed said, “and the conditions and the circumstances. Be a little flexible.”

When I asked readers what they thought — should Ed have been ticketed or simply warned — there was one reader, a young city police officer with some background on the subject, who agreed with Ed.

“I must say that I am disappointed to have read that this actually occurred… Being a police officer with five years of service, I have never seen any such set of circumstances where some form of discretion has not been used. Every situation is different.” The officer went on to say while every situation is different, honesty carried significant weight.

“Anyone who is fully willing to admit that they were wrong, made the mistake, and the reason why, deserves the respect to receive a fair warning… “

The young officer had more to say, but I’ll save that for the end.

Of course the public reaction back then wasn’t unanimous. There was this emailed opinion from another person with some background on the subject; a transit operator, whose diamond lane Ed trespassed on.

“Guilty,” the bus driver wrote, “pay up!”

Again, that wasn’t going to happen.

At least not without a fight.

So, soon after the column appeared, Ed’s son, who is a city police officer, heard from a retired sergeant he knows. The former cop had set up a business defending drivers in traffic court. Radar Rodney (as he calls himself and the enterprise), offered to represent Ed at no charge.

Months went by.

Then, on Monday, I got a call from Ed.

“They dropped all the charges,” Ed said. “No fine, no demerits.”

If that doesn’t make you smile the way it did me, this should.

A month or so after the ticket was issued, long before the court case was heard, District 3 Patrol Sgt. Kevin Smith visited Ed at work and handed him an envelope.

Inside was $402 in bills.

The money had been collected from police officers who wanted to help Ed pay the fine — and then some — if he had been found guilty.

Again, money wasn’t the issue for Ed. So he donated the gift from the North End officers to the driving program for cancer patients he continues to volunteer with. And then he sent flowers to District 3 in gratitude.

Now, as promised, the last word goes to the young police officer who wrote with such wisdom about the measured use of discretion on the job.

“It is sometimes forgotten,” he concluded, “that just because we can, doesn’t mean we have to.”

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca