Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 18, 1993 TAG: 9307190252
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ED SHAMY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It's not quite midnight; Chris Reynolds, a county police officer, has been on duty for more than an hour. His workday won't end until after sunup.
The radar monitor on the dashboard screeches as a car approaches in the opposite direction of Electric Road. Reynolds accelerates, curls a tight U-turn with squealing tires and roars in pursuit.
It's a late-model Buick, one of only a trickle of cars on the road as Sunday night yields to Monday morning. Reynolds fields the excuse - a diabetic relative waiting at home - and calls in the license plate number and the driver's name. In less than 5 minutes, the background check is finished: Car and driver, a middle-aged woman, are both legal.
Reynolds writes her a speeding ticket for driving 58 mph in a 45 zone - he has stopped her before and heard the same alibi - and wishes her a good evening.
This is the front line of the effort to locate motorists who defy license suspensions and revocations. It's not a complicated or very scientific effort.
It's police officers like Reynolds watching traffic. Theirs is a broad dragnet: Stop a lot of cars for routine traffic offenses and check the status of their licenses. Some suspensions they catch; most they don't.
There is no identifying mark on a suspended driver's car, no neon that separates it from the rest of the traffic.
Reynolds, a former Giles County sheriff's deputy, knows well the frustrations. Last year, he was assigned permanently to the midnight shift. In a suburban county cross-hatched with major arteries, it's prime time for monitoring traffic.
He's developed a knack for identifying drunken drivers and he pursues them energetically. He watches for cars moving very fast or very slowly. He watches for nervous braking, for weaving, for indecision at traffic lights and intersections. He watches for motorists who won't even turn their heads to look at the police cruiser parked along the road.
There is no such barometer for motorists with invalid licenses.
Reynolds, during the course of his shift, pulls over a Mustang that has no front license tag, a Volkswagen with only one headlight, a pickup truck with a dim taillight and another with no light over the license plate.
He's fishing for a reason - it's called "probable cause" in legalese - to check driver's licenses. It's unconstitutional for police to stop a motorist without a reason, and they know it. It's also a common maneuver by defense attorneys looking to get charges dismissed.
Reynolds spends at least a day in court each month testifying against the people he charges, and like most police officers he's learned which charges stick, and how. He's been grilled by defense attorneys and seen enough suspects escape conviction.
About 3 a.m., Reynolds has pulled over a driver on Colonial Avenue. The address listed on the driver's license is different from the address on the registration. The driver is carrying boxes in his car, preparing to move from Bent Mountain to an apartment in Salem, he says. That will be yet another address.
More than half of the stops this Monday morning produce drivers with dated, inaccurate documents.
Reynolds hands out tickets with an Aug. 30 court date. He already had a full schedule on Wednesday in county court - mostly drivers accused of driving under the influence or driving with suspended or revoked licenses.
Many of the suspended drivers claim they were never notified by the state motor vehicle department that their licenses were pulled. If prosecutors can't prove notification, any charge of driving while suspended will have to be dropped.
Reynolds carries in his police cruiser DMV notification forms that begin, "You are hereby personally notified that your driver's license/privilege has been suspended . . . " He asks all the motorists whose licenses have been suspended to sign the form.
Getting them to sign: that's the easy part.
Finding them, plucking them from Electric Road, or Brambleton Avenue, or Colonial Avenue: that's the hard part.
by CNB