Busted and Surprised

The sight of flashing red and blue lights in the rear view mirror creates a sinking horrible feeling. Especially when you're being pulled over for the infraction of driving over the lines of a turn lane. The Englewood policeman was young enough to be my son and kept admonishing me to "drive carefully." I think he repeated it three times. A trip to the Englewood court, a brightly lit space where large windows overlook the light rail station at Englewood, with soft-rock favorites playing in the background was my next stop. When I arrived, three women were reviewing an Avon catalog and they smiled when I came in.

I was given three choices. Pay the fine, take the points, Pay the fine, take reduced points, Pay the fine, take a defensive driving class and no points. I chose the latter.

The class was held in the Englewood Library's Andersen Room (ironic, I used to be an Anderson) and signs at the entrance pointed a group of 30 vehicular felons to where they were going to spend the next 4 hours. I've been in classes like this before, like the time someone put a joke Brillo pad condom in Marvin's mailbox at work, and someone took offense to it and the whole staff had to sit through sexual harassment awareness training. Good thing the offended person wasn't at work the day I gave Susan Quintana an anatomically correct male cupcake from Bakery La Sensual for her birthday and a totally inappropriate birthday card that had to be unfolded to truly appreciate. They made me and Susan sit on opposites sides of the room due to our giggling, but I digress. Every one of these type classes are designed to create awareness of infractions by implementing guilt and horror to defer before mentioned negative activities. In short, they make you feel bad.

Darold Sloan doesn't operate that way. Sloan is the designer of the course entitled, "Develop a Defensive Driving Attitude by Thinking about Driving." Part of Martha's Mountain, Inc. Sloan teaches classes in both defensive driving and alcohol awareness. Sloan, a long-time local police officer and former police chief in Grand Junction, uses newspaper clippings, personal experience and one video clip to get his message across about driving safely and the consequences therein. He makes clear, up front, that listening to whining stories about the policeman said or how you've been wronged will only waste time. However, he does ask for people's experiences with situations that he covers in class.

"Anyone been T-boned? How about lose a tire while driving? What about tailgating? Ever had someone do that to you?" he asks.

He continues with tips on how to control speeding (cruise control), how long to wait before entering an intersection from a stoplight (3 seconds), driving in bad weather (slow down, way down), and which lane to drive in (right) and deadly driving hazards (everything that's not nailed down or has more than 2 legs). Moving steadily through the subjects and allowing for breaks at healthy intervals, Sloan covers a lot of material with humor and humility. Of all the traffic transgressions, he's the first to admit that he's done what he says not to do.

Right before the last segment on drinking and driving, he hands out the diplomas. For anyone who leaves, they're about to miss the best part. Sloan covers the well-worn table that tells how drunk you are after x-amount of drinks. He deconstructs a traffic accident where a young mother was killed and how the coroner determined what the blood alcohol level was of the drunk driver. Then he plays the video...only three minutes long.

The video is a news broadcast from 1996 from a Grand Junction TV station documenting the apology and humiliation of the Chief of Police who was pulled over for drunk driving. That police chief? Darold Sloan. The video shows Sloan, younger, humiliated and contrite as he apologizes to the police officers and citizens for his slip, a slip that destroyed his career and through his own calculation cost him $2,000,000 in lost wages and retirement. Housed in the Gunnison County jail for 2 days, he plead guilty and watched his career end. Dismissed from the department, he was unable to get a job and found doors closed to him due to his DUI conviction. Now sober 11 years, he briefly discusses his path from drunk to sober, crediting his wife for her ultimatum that put him in rehab.

"I got lucky; rehab stuck with me." he admits.

Still feeling the effects of the DUI conviction, Sloan teaches several times a week, repeating the same information to other groups of people who choose class over points, but his closing discussion has everyone's attention, whether you're angry or indifferent about being in class.

Ending the evening, he thanks everyone who attended. His demeanor is that of an honest man, the kind that has been humbled and has figured out it's the most honest way to live life and have people listen to you. He politely asks that you fill out an evaluation form to help improve the program for future crazy drivers. As people filed out of the library and into the parking lot, people got in their cars and most began to adjust their mirrors as Sloan instructed, and one participant mentioned she was worried about backing out, a point Sloan makes about a person's vulnerability to accidents when you back out of a parking place. Talk about effective teaching.

As I pulled into traffic on Hampden, making sure to wait three seconds before entering the intersection, I could hear in my head Sloan's parting words to the class:

"See you in the right lane!"