Finding the Blindspot

Speeding down the street, doing ‘donuts’ in parking lots, or ignoring rules of the road will get many teens riding in the back of a police car, unaware of their rights. Only some of those teens know their rights before they buckle up and hit the streets.

For Mark Frey, school resource officer, seeing students driving over the speed limit and not paying attention to traffic regulations is something that he deals with several times a week. Even though most incidents can be handled by pulling over the driver, many teens can’t make sense of the laws being given to them.

“A lot of [the laws] turn into the game Telephone. It starts off with one of their friends saying something, and then another friend goes off of that and it just turns into mush. Depending on who you ask, it might change a little bit,” Frey said. “I hear some kids in the hall and they say things that are not the most accurate, so I try to correct it when I can or at least clarify it.”

Frey often hears students repeat unrealistic lines from movie scenes, such as the classic ‘license and registration, please’, or talking about having their car searched randomly. Simple misunderstandings are also the culprits to students becoming confused and fearful of their legal right as drivers, according to Frey and Brittany Schauer, 2016 graduate and Police Explorer.

“I have noticed that so many kids freak out [when they get pulled over]. Some of them even cry,” Schauer said. “A lot of them question what they did wrong and they get super scared. Kids see T.V. shows and a lot of the shows portray a ‘Hey, can you step out of your vehicle?’ or a ‘I’m going to search your vehicle’ type of situation. That’s not even close to how it is. We can’t just search your vehicle unless we have a probable cause or something like that.”

Although most legal driving laws and rights are briefly taught in required driver’s education courses through textbooks and class activities according to Frey, most students forget their laws until they’re asked to pull out their license and car insurance.

“I didn’t even know how to react once the police was knocking on my window,” Vince OBrill, sophomore and teen driver, said. “I started panicking because I didn’t know what to do or what to say to the officer. I totally forgot everything that I learned in the classroom. It was kind of embarrassing.”

OBrill was pulled over and questioned after being hit from behind while driving on the highway.

“It was my first car accident, so obviously I was shocked about what was going on,” OBrill said. “I know I didn’t do anything wrong because the other driver hit me but once the cop started telling me my own rights, I felt like he was talking a different language.”
Even though OBrill had taken hours of driver’s education classes and practice drives before getting his license, he says nothing was able to prepare him for that moment.

“The officer just kept talking and talking and I could only understand half of what he was saying. I was panicking about everything that had just happened and how my parents were going to react, so of course I was a little distracted,” OBrill said. “Some of the rights he read me kind of rung a bell and the others, I had no idea what he was talking about. I was worried something was going to happen and I wouldn’t know my rights to defend myself.”

Teen drivers freeze when being confronted about their faults by authoritative figures, but even some adults like Becky Lewandowski, PE and driver’s education teacher, realize that if students know their rights, they should not be worried when approached with situations like being pulled over.

“It’s a scary moment for anybody when you’re pulled over, so if you’re prepared ahead of time, then you know what to expect,” Lewandowski said.  “I think it makes it that much easier and better for you. Hopefully kids don’t have to get pulled over, but you never know.”

Students drivers like OBrill are required to know their rights as drivers during semester-long driver’s education courses, however, that does not mean the laws must be known verbatim in order to be an educated driver, according to Frey.

“Having an idea of your rights is a good thing because ultimately you can avoid knowing your rights by not doing bad things,” Frey said. “If you have an awareness of the process and what goes into that process and if you are put into the incident or situation, you know what you can and can’t do as a driver and what the police can and can’t do and that kind of stuff. You can’t know all your rights but at least try to get a gist of it.”