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Im with the officer. A choking dog is no reason to go 100mph down the highway.

tallmike wrote:Im with the officer. A choking dog is no reason to go 100mph down the highway.

Sorry, have to disagree. The officer could have handled it much better. A little compassion and understanding go along way. He had none. It appears he threw common sense out too.

An officer with a lick of humanity might have offered to take the dog in his cruiser to the hospital, thereby neutralizing the problem, but I agree that it was unnecessarily dangerous for the dog's owners to clock 100 mph through any kind of traffic. Even ambulances transporting critically injured and dying humans don't drive that fast - and for very good reasons.

The Annoyed Man wrote:An officer with a lick of humanity might have offered to take the dog in his cruiser to the hospital, thereby neutralizing the problem, but I agree that it was unnecessarily dangerous for the dog's owners to clock 100 mph through any kind of traffic. Even ambulances transporting critically injured and dying humans don't drive that fast - and for very good reasons.

Anyone who has ever done CPR, intubation, or start an IV going down the road at 75 can relate. I actually did not like the Nascar type transports if I was working on a patient.

100 mph is too fast. The guy deserved the stop. Too bad the dog died. The LEO was doing his job. How many people were put at risk for this guy's reckless driving? Would a human life have been worth saving the dog? I think not.

Anygunanywhere

And what if it had been a choking child?

KBCraig wrote:And what if it had been a choking child?

A choking child is of course, a different matter entirely. Is that the answer you wanted?

I will never place the life of an animal over the life of a human.

I doubt that there is any EMS policy anywhere that will allow 100 mph transports no matter what the medical condition. State law, I believe, allows 10 mph over posted speed limit. An ambulance with lights and sirens is different from a citizen's car doing 100 mph.

I am pretty certain you already know all of this. Was your question rhetorical?

Anygunanywhere

KBCraig wrote:And what if it had been a choking child?

Then his actions would probably have been different.

But it wasn't a child, it was a dog. And the people weren't just speeding, they were traveling way too fast regardless of the circumstance.

doejohn wrote:

tallmike wrote:Im with the officer. A choking dog is no reason to go 100mph down the highway.

Sorry, have to disagree. The officer could have handled it much better. A little compassion and understanding go along way. He had none. It appears he threw common sense out too.

Oh he certainly could have handled it much better, but if the driver had gone 7-8 over (instead of 30 over) he never would have even been stopped. It was the drivers bad judgment that caused the stop to be necessary, the officer could not have simply said "holy cow, a choking dog?? Nevermind, get going!!!"

KBCraig wrote:And what if it had been a choking child?

What if the driver hit a child?

I doubt that there is any EMS policy anywhere that will allow 100 mph transports no matter what the medical condition. State law, I believe, allows 10 mph over posted speed limit. An ambulance with lights and sirens is different from a citizen's car doing 100 mph.

The F-350 EMS units in Harris County are chipped and contain a governor at 130mph.

Ask me how I know.

I can see the headline now....

"Officer Involved In Highspeed Accident Over Choking Dog"

While I sympathize with the dog's owner, I agree with the officer's actions in pulling him over and trying to get him to calm down before letting him back behind the wheel.

I've been in the situation where I had to get a seizuring pet to an emergency clinic, more than once. I knew better than to speed or weave through traffic - if I got pulled over, it would take even longer to get the help the critter needed. And if I wrecked, it would cause even more problems than what I was already dealing with at the time.

Yes, the officer was a bit insensitive with his comments. But not everyone values pet-type animals the same way; I certainly don't value a cow in the same way a Brahmin would. And the Constitution does not include the right to not be offended.

tallmike wrote:... but if the driver had gone 7-8 over (instead of 30 over) he never would have even been stopped.

If he'd been going 7-8 over on I-35, he'd have been a hazard for impeding traffic.