To the Policeman Who Endangered My Life

Important note: Please read this post in its entirety before reacting.  The background must be laid and that cannot happen without the opening paragraphs, but the message I hope to convey lies at the end.

Dear Mr. Policeman,

I began writing this to let you know how concerned I was that you  put my life in danger. You were driving so fast that I didn't even have time to hear your siren before you were on me.  I was being even more careful than usual to be aware of my surroundings  that day, and you seemed to come out of nowhere.   When you flew past me on the shoulder of the road, you startled the daylights out of me.  Cops don't usually pass on the right, and especially not on the shoulder of the road.  I instinctively swerved to the left to get out of your way, but afterward realized how dangerous that was. If there had been a car coming toward me you may have been abandoning your urgent mission to deal with a head-on collision.
If I had heard your siren and pulled to the right like every driver knows to do, I would have side-swiped you, most likely injuring you and me both.

I know you must have needed to get where you were going in a hurry since I was driving 55 mph on a straight stretch of road and you were out of sight within seconds. When I saw a second officer come through the next intersection going just as fast as you were I knew there must be something extremely urgent that needed your attention.

I knew that someone's life might be in danger at your destination. Perhaps it was one of your fellow officers who desperately needed backup. But I didn't want you to endanger more lives on your way to save lives and I wanted to express my alarm at the not-so-safe way you were driving.

Before I left the house yesterday, I had determined that if I saw a policeman I would thank him for putting his life on the line every day to protect the citizens of this country. Instead I was surprised that the only one I encountered endangered my life and I wanted you to know that I was concerned.

But lest those who are reading this open letter are finding themselves nodding their heads in hearty agreement, wagging their fingers at the horrible way you did your job, or lest you continue reading flabbergasted at my audacity, will you allow me a moment to drastically change the course of this letter?

You see, while it probably appears at first glance that I am irate at the potential danger you caused, I am in actuality hoping this letter will encourage those who would want to agree with it to stop and give you the benefit of the doubt instead.

I want everyone to remember this:

Heroes are still human.

Perhaps you had already visually cleared the left side of the road and knew it would be okay if I swerved over there (although I don't know why you wouldn't have just passed on the left if that were the case.) Perhaps you knew that you were driving so fast that you would be past me before I even had time to pull to the right. Perhaps you had factored everything together in the blink of an eye and you knew that there wasn't as much danger as it felt like to me.

But what if you hadn't considered the danger to me?  What if you didn't know whether the left side of the road was clear or what if you didn't think about what would happen if I had pulled to the right?

Does that make you a jerk who doesn't care about people and who was probably only driving fast because you thought it would be fun or because Dunkin Donuts radioed and said they had a hot batch of donuts coming out of the oven?

Of course not!

I know that if you were called to a dangerous situation you must have had adrenaline coursing through your body.  Out of curiosity I looked up how adrenaline affects a person's cognitive ability, and do you know what I found?  I found forums where policemen and firemen and EMTs were discussing how they sometimes have a hard time driving safely when they're headed to an emergency situation.  The adrenaline gives them tunnel vision and they can't think clearly.  Everything is happening so quickly and yet they must focus on so many things at the same time that it's impossible for the human body to do a good job at all of it.  And as I read the discussions on these forums I saw that the policemen were torn up about endangering the lives of other drivers on the road.  When the dust of the day had settled and they mentally reviewed the things they had done, they realized that their driving was not the greatest in the heat of the moment.  And they wished they would have done better.  And they wanted to learn how they could keep their mind from shutting down when the next adrenaline-inducing situation arose.  As a citizen, I appreciate that.  It's nice to know you're not being flippant about your job and that you want to do it well without endangering anyone more than is necessary.

So, Mr. Policeman, once again I will remind myself and the other readers of this letter of the simple fact that heroes are human.  I can't expect your human body to function any differently than mine.

But the difference between my human body and yours is that yours has the word hero attached to it.

You've undergone intensive training that most people would not be willing to undergo.  You put your life on the line day in and day out to protect people who only turn back around and tell you how badly you did your job.  You endure disgraceful treatment by the citizens of this country, yet you continue to serve them.

No sir.  I'm not calling you out for endangering my life, I'm doing what I started out to do yesterday – I'm thanking you.

I can't think of any better way to end this than to share Paul Harvey's thoughts on “What is a Policeman?”  I think it expresses my thoughts better than I can say them:

Thank you for all that you do.

Final note:   These days it seems that so many people hate cops and every move a policeman makes is suspect.  Sure, I was alarmed that the policeman drove unsafely, as would most people.  But that is exactly why I am pointing out that even though he made a mistake that could have been costly, let's remember that he lives inside a human body and appreciate the fact that our policemen are trying to do all that they can to make sure those types of things don't happen.  Let's be thankful for these heroes who put their lives on the line day in and day out.  In this day when hatred toward our police officers seems to be the popular attitude, let's instead give grace when we don't perceive a policeman's actions as perfectly executed.  Let's be grateful for what these officers do rather than critical of their every move.