'Big Brother' can see who's misbehaving in traffic

The Tennessean | September 21 2004

It's one of those beautiful Nashville mornings. Golden sunshine backlights long stretches of fluffy white clouds. The air is crisp.

From 1,000 feet up in the air, flying in a sleek, black million-dollar helicopter, it just couldn't be any better.

Until you look down onto Interstate 65 inbound.

The morning commute is in full swing. The interstate is uncomfortably, but characteristically, packed. A black truck is on the tail of a red car. They're going more than 70 mph in a construction zone with a speed limit of 45. The truck driver doesn't ease off, tailgating until he decides to switch and pass from the middle lane. And then he's off tailgating someone else.

This misbehavior in the morning, playing itself out dozens, maybe hundreds of times each day, isn't going unnoticed.

''Big Brother is watching you, and you don't have the faintest idea,'' Metro police Sgt. Terry Wills said as he commanded the chopper over the highway, keeping up with the oblivious speeding trucker.

The sergeant is one of five police officers who fly over Nashville's roads each day, eyeing the speeders, tailgaters, and illegal median-cruisers (you know who you are) from on high.

Their mission since March is to enforce the departmental emphasis on reducing traffic accidents in conjunction with the traffic officers on the ground.

And they're serious about it. The helicopter-flying officers, perhaps even more than the traffic patrol officers, see just how rotten, and dangerous, commuters can be. They've got a bird's-eye view.

''You can see an accident going to happen just before it does,'' Wills said. ''Everything is running in slow motion from 1,000 feet. You look and go, 'Gosh, they are going to hit,' and boom! There is metal flying.''

It is barely 8 a.m. when Wills buckles up and glides the chopper over the treetops and away from the aviation department's offices in north Nashville. He heads over the river and toward I-65 in Madison.

He points out the speeders and quickly adds that highway drivers are not the only ones disobeying the traffic laws. He soon hovers the helicopter over South Graycroft Avenue, a popular secondary road between Old Hickory Boulevard and Briley Parkway.

Drivers who don't want to wait in the long line to jump onto Briley or I-65, or those who want to turn left, drive the length of the road in the turn lane. Just as the helicopter arrives, a car jumps out of line and into the turn lane, just as Wills predicted.

''You see?'' he said. ''There'll be someone else here in a minute.''

In less time than that, two more cars begin their illegal commute down the turn lane. Wills has a good laugh when the two cars jump back in line. They obviously spotted the patrol car just up ahead. Guess they know they're wrong, he said.

The police helicopters work with officers on the ground like this: A traffic patrol officer flies with the helicopter officer. They spot a driver doing something illegal such as speeding, and they radio an officer on the ground. The driver gets clocked by the traffic officer who is in the helicopter as the driver crosses specially painted cross-hatch lines. The helicopter will follow the car until a patrol officer can get to it, and find a safe place to pull the car over. All of the highway construction zones in Nashville are marked.

Wills laughs when asked if they find people violating traffic laws each time they fly.

''Just as fast as they can write them,'' Wills said. ''Last time we did it, we stopped 12 cars. They wrote 16 traffic citations, and there were two misdemeanor arrests. The fastest two cars happened to be the ones who got arrested.''

Officer James Johnson, who also flies the helicopters, said speeding isn't the only potentially fatal mistake he sees drivers making.

''You see people backing up on-ramps, stopped in the median.''

It isn't uncommon, Wills said, to see the patrol officer point up toward the helicopter to show the driver just how he or she was nailed. Some of those who have been stopped have told the patrol officers that the helicopters are ''just sneaky,'' Wills said.

Judge Casey Moreland, the presiding General Sessions judge who does traffic docket, said very few people spotted by the helicopters have pleaded not guilty. The regular excuses he hears — such as ''I had to go to the restroom'' and ''I was just going with the traffic'' — haven't really been coming up.

''It is so obvious from the air who is driving in a manner that is not safe,'' Moreland said. ''That is what amazed me, how you can see these speeders. They just jump out at you.''

Moreland said he is a champion of the emphasis on traffic enforcement, led by Police Chief Ronal Serpas and pooh-pooher of the common ''I feel I was being pushed'' excuse from speeders.

''I say, 'Good, let them push you.' That means they're having to slow down, and the person behind them has to slow down, and the person behind them,'' Moreland said.

However, pushing is exactly what it looks like when one vehicle is so close to the other there barely is a quarter-car length between them.

Moreland and other officers say they do sense drivers are frustrated by construction on the interstates and they're frustrated by each other. Citizens regularly call in to the Police Department to report dangerous driving, Officer Johnson said.

The hope is that the longer the helicopters are in the air, the more news stories are written about them, the sooner Nashville drivers will slow down and get off of each other's tails, Moreland said.

Wills, by the way, avoids highway driving as much as possible. He once was sandwiched and dragged by two tractor-trailers on an interstate, so his own commute from Madison to north Nashville is on back roads, even though it takes him longer.

''You see these wrecks, one right after the other, from the air, and you don't want to drive,'' he said.

Moreland added: ''From the air, you see the big picture. You want to sit back and think how thankful you are when you make it home every afternoon.''

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