Know this driver? 39 759H Blue Toyota pick-up

Gus Philpott
Woodstock Advocate
November 12, 2009

Today I got a little visit from a Woodstock police officer who told me that I had been reported for speeding on Raffel Road.

I was in a meeting inside Woodstock North High School, when there was a knock on the office door, and Woodstock Ofr. L. Vasquez asked if I could step outside the room. He politely, courteously and professionally informed me that a person had reported that I was speeding on Raffel Road.

"Oh, really?"

He told me a person had reported this anonymously to the Woodstock Police Department.

Huh? Anonymously?

I pulled a piece of paper out of my pocket and told him who had reported this. The driver of a blue Toyota pick-up truck, Illinois license 39 759H.

That vehicle had followed me east on McHenry Avenue from Irving Road. When we got to Broadway, by Marian Central where the speed limit changes from 35MPH to 45MPH, that driver pulled out and passed me in the no-passing zone. I sounded my honk at him, hoping to wake him up and alert him to his dangerous and illegal driving and "help" him avoid an accident, and he slowed to about 25MPH in the 45MPH zone. Then he accelerated back to about 45. Upon arriving at Raffel Road, he entered the left turn lane and stopped at the intersection because of oncoming traffic.

I was going to Woodstock North High School for a 2:00PM meeting and stopped at a safe distance behind him. When oncoming traffic had cleared, he turned left. I pulled up and stopped to wait for an oncoming car. That car turned right to go north on Raffel Road, and then I turned left.

The blue Toyota pick-up had pulled off on the shoulder, and the other car and I passed it. After I passed the pick-up, it pulled off the shoulder into the northbound lane behind me. Pretty strange driving maneuver, eh? First he is in so much of a hurry that he just had to pass me in a no passing zone, and then he stopped on the shoulder and waited for me to pass him.

As anyone in Woodstock will tell you, I don't speed. I drive not in excess of the posted speed limit, and today was no exception. The northbound speed limit was 30MPH, and I nailed it on 30 as I proceeded to Woodstock North. The pick-up truck followed behind me to Banford Road, and then it turned right to go east on Banford.

At 2:20PM Ofc. Vasquez showed up.

I told him that I ought to file a no-passing violation against the driver of the blue pick-up. That's one to which a driver can testify in court. Speeding is not.

It seemed mighty strange to me that the Woodstock dispatcher would dispatch an officer to track me down, based on anonymous caller's telephoned complaint about speeding. Everyone, especially police officers, knows that a civilian driver in a passenger vehicle cannot testify as to another vehicle's speed in court, because his speedometer is not calibrated for accuracy.

I asked Ofc. Vasquez to record the truck's license plate and include my statements in his report, but he said no report was to be written. No report? A dispatcher airs a call, an officer tracks down a car in a parking lot, comes into a school, interrupts a meeting, and then he's not going to write a report?

And no report when a caller does not identify himself to the police dispatcher and lies to the police about the speed of a vehicle?

Somebody knows the jerk in the pick-up. When I can track him down, I'll publish his name and address here. My guess is that he lives off Banford east of Raffel Road.

What do you think? Should I have him cited for illegal passing and have him summoned into McHenry County Traffic Court?