Fellow Queen’s students, I write to you today as a criminal. No, I’m not one of the people who rolled over that car on Aberdeen, and I’ve never thrown a beer bottle at a police officer. I’ve done something far worse. Friends, I’m a jaywalker, and I’ve got the ticket to prove it.
It all happened on a Tuesday—Sept. 27 to be exact—on the way to my Canadian constitution class. With visions of Pierre Trudeau and the Charter of Rights dancing in my head, I hummed a happy tune as I approached the northeast corner of University and Union.
Utilizing an ability that my mother instilled in me at a young age, I looked both ways before crossing the road, and, seeing no cars approaching, felt it was safe to cross. How mistaken I was.
No sooner had I completed my cross than I saw a fat, white police cruiser pull over to the curb intent on picking up a student—the transportation equivalent of a Dan Aykroyd sighting at the Cocamo. The officer emerged wielding his baton like a shiny new nine-iron, his breath reeking of Timbits and authority.
“You just crossed on a red light, son,” he said. “That’s an offense. I’m writing you a ticket.” I couldn’t believe this was actually happening.
“Are you serious?” I protested. “I mean, I didn’t see any cars coming, I didn’t obstruct the flow of traffic, how can you write me a ticket?” “The light was still red, so that’s illegal,” he responded.
The way students are acting these days, the police have to stop crime before it starts. Ah, the old slippery slope theory, interesting, and not without merit. As I understand it, before his rise to power, Mussolini used to march across the streets of Italy with very little regard for traffic laws.
The guy who broke into my Ghetto house last year and stole my laptop from out of my room was also probably a jaywalker. He probably jaywalked all the way out of Kingston, which might be why the police never found my computer. While he was at it, he may have jaywalked off with the police station’s phones, which would explain why I never heard from them again after filing the initial report.
However, I wasn’t done pleading my case. It was time to put my Queen’s education to use.
“But officer,” I began, “there were no cars around, and therefore no victim. Doesn’t that make it what J.S. Mill would refer to as a self-regarding offence, an action free from social and political constraints?” The officer didn’t seem impressed. As I waited for my ticket to be written, I became cautiously optimistic. How expensive could this possibly be? I figured I’d lay off the QP Kool Aid for a week or two and it would practically pay for itself.
When the officer showed me the ticket, however, I let out a scream like Kevin McAllister putting on aftershave. Turns out that jaywalking in this fair city will set you back $50. That’s 50 more boxes of Equality brand macaroni and cheese than I can afford to be without, so I had to get it lowered. I noticed that while the ticket was for $50, one line on the ticket said that the actual penalty for the infraction was $35, and I asked the officer to explain this.
“That’s a victim surcharge,” he said. “It’s the cost of me writing the ticket, and the court processing it.” It all made sense. Sure, beneath those mirrored shades the officer was trying to project an image of Judd Nelson—cool, but, much like Nelson’s character in The Breakfast Club, he was secretly a whimpering little boy, deeply hurt by the way I had victimized him.
I wished that I could take it back, I wished I could hop into a DeLorean and travel back to 10 minutes earlier, a time before I had victimized this officer and his city with my street crossing, a time before 30 additional people had jaywalked across the exact same intersection while the officer was writing me a ticket.
Still, as sorry as I was, the gaping hole in my wallet caused me to press the issue just a bit further.
“Officer, is this really necessary? Will writing me this ticket prevent students from flipping over a car on Aberdeen next year?” “We’re focusing on the bigger picture,” he said.
Apparently us students just don’t get it.
I woke up the next morning still regretting my actions, wondering if I should send a sympathy card to the police along with a pledge to never victimize this city by crossing an empty street again.
Feeling blue, I did what most people do when they want a laugh, and read the Kingston Whig-Standard. That day it wasn’t quite so funny. It turns out that two days before I received my ticket, a 23-year-old Kingston woman was killed. She was allegedly stabbed to death by her boyfriend.
As sorry as I was to read that story, a part of me breathed a sigh of relief. In a world in which people die every day through senseless acts of violence, it pleased me to know that our police are focused on the big picture: handing out jaywalking tickets at the corner of University and Union.
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Brian Kuchar would like to remind you that jaywalking can be dangerous to your wallet. Please walk responsibly.
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