Bull Valley - the village you love ...

Gus Philpott
The Woodstock Advocate
January 16, 2016

... to hate.

Anyone from Woodstock, Crystal Lake, McHenry and many other parts of McHenry County knows that, if you must drive through Bull Valley, you had better not speed.

Whatever the posted speed limit is, nail it. If a driver behind you gets impatient, don't get goaded into speeding up "a little". Remember, you will be the one who gets the ticket, not the idiot behind you.

And stop at stop signs. Stop before you cross the stop bar (or crosswalk or near curb line). Stop. S-T-O-P. That means all four tires stop rolling and your car stops moving. "Almost stopped" will get you a ticket.

Recently I came across a Facebook page titled "Justice from Bull Valley Police Department". Head over there and catch up on the latest.

Recall the phrase "The best defense is a good offense"? The moderator of the "Justice" page is now the target of a lawsuit by the Chief of the Bull Valley PD. The moderator is an excellent record-keeper, and that lawsuit and the other controversies about the Bull Valley Police are sure to stay in the headlines.

Head over to that page now and "Like" it.

Personally, I never had a problem in Bull Valley. Maybe that's because I was driving the car at the front of the line, holding up a long line of traffic on Country Club Road by driving exactly at the Speed Limit (which changes 7-8-9 times between Ridgefield and Woodstock).

By the way, don't necessary trust your speedometer. Download an app to your SmartPhone and let it display your correct speed. I have much greater confidence in that display than what my speedometer might show. (Of course, don't get caught driving distracted...)

And watch your speedometer (too), so that you know exactly what it reads, if you do get pulled over. I still recall getting pulled over by a Chicago cop in about 1967 who told me I was going 43 in a 30 zone. I was within one block of pulling out of a parking place. I told him that, if he wrote me a ticket, I wanted him to write on the back that I informed him that I knew exactly fast I was going, because I had looked at my speedometer. He asked me, "How fast?" and I told him that, if he wrote me the ticket, I'd see him in court and tell the judge. He and I knew he was trying to write a bad ticket and he let me go with a verbal warning.

I also recall a story from an Iowa Highway Patrol officer I knew in 1963. He had cited a driver for speeding. After a judge convicted her, the judge told the trooper that he would have let her go, if she had told him that she knew how fast she was going. The driver had admitted in court that she didn't know how fast she was going! So, keep an eye on your speedometer! And watch you say in court.