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I don't know about you, but I got a good chuckle out of Dr. Peterson's latest "Sic et Non" entry. In it, he describes a pair of brushes with the law--both having to do with traffic violations. The first, he notes, was "deserved," and it resulted in his driver's license getting suspended:

I was coming home from the local public library (of all places) on a Wednesday night. I was minding my own business, happy with the books and records that I’d snared, when a carload of idiots presumably from my high school roared by, hanging out their windows, yelling my name, and waving. Curious what they were yelling about and who they were, I foolishly sped up to catch them. (I was a sixteen-year-old male, and I was thinking like one.) As might have been predicted, I didn’t catch them, and in fact I never found out exactly who they were, though the policeman who turned on his lights and directed me to pull over and stay put apparently went on to get them before returning to me. In any event, I was given a speeding ticket very shortly after my acceleration to warp speed.

The judge suspended my license for a month. My parents weren’t especially pleased, and the next several weeks passed very slowly..

(double punctuation sic)

As for the second incident, here's how DCP describes it:

I had looked to my right and into the rear-view mirror and had seen no problem, so I flipped on my turn-signal. Unfortunately, though, presumably because he was in my blind spot and because, with my girlfriend cozied very gratifyingly up to my side, I didn’t turn around to look as well as I should have, I changed lanes right in front of a California Highway Patrol car, which I hadn’t seen. I was given a ticket for an unsafe lane change.

This, I knew, would be serious. I might lose the right to drive for a significant length of time. And it would definitely not play well with the parental units.

Indeed, things seem grim for Young Peterson as he and his father make the trek out to meet with a judge in downtown Los Angeles:

The judge stressed how dangerous my lane-change on the freeway had been, and how bad my driving must have been to have merited not one but two tickets in such a short space of time.

I could say little in return. I had no real defense. I had definitely deserved my first ticket, though it seemed really bad luck. As for the second, I had genuinely been trying to drive well. I guess I just hadn’t understood how big my car’s blind spot was, nor how well most of a black and white Highway Patrol vehicle might blend into the nighttime darkness.

But guess what? It turns out that luck was on the Young Dr. Peterson's side. Not because he is lucky, or because his parents had special sway with the "Powers That Be," but--get this!--because of his LDS faith! Check it out:

SeN wrote:At this point, my father, who had been silent throughout, asked if he might be permitted to say something, and the judge told him to go ahead.

My father – who, at this point, was still a non-practicing Lutheran — explained that I attended a daily early morning church class before going to my high school, and that, if I couldn’t drive, either I would have to drop out of attendance or else one or the other of my parents would have to pick me up and take me there. He said that, although they could probably manage it, this would be awkward and significantly inconvenient. He didn’t mention the name of the church.

The judge sat back in his chair, smiled, and said that he thought that maybe an exception could be made for a good Mormon boy. He told me that he would expunge this latest offense from my record, but that he expected me to drive more carefully in the future, not to repeat such nonsense, and not to be back in front of him ever again.

I don’t know the judge’s name. I assume, but I don’t actually know, that he was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In any case, I floated out of the judge’s office with the thought going through my ecstatic adolescent mind over and over again, “The Church is true!”

LOL! A classic faith-promoting rumor, no? Except there are some details about this that strike me as a bit odd. First, how did the judge know that DCP was a "good Mormon boy"? Aren't there other religious sects that hold early-morning Bible study classes? Second--maybe this is just a matter of the story being set in a different era--but why was he summoned into court over relatively minor traffic infractions? Didn't these judges have something better to do? In my experience--i.e., both my personal experience and every traffic ticket I've every heard about, like, *ever*--these violations are handled pretty much entirely by either mail or (these days) online. While I get that there was no Internet during the time of the story, surely snail mail existed back then. But maybe judges in Los Angeles really did feel it was necessary to take time out of their day to meet with a smarmy young teenagers who were driving way faster than they should have been?

And that's the thing about faith-promoting rumors: they can often seem either noticeably embellished, or like outright fabrications. I can't help but be reminded of Russell Nelson's "Doors of Death" story, which was thoroughly debunked on this site some time ago. I'm also reminded of Gene Cook's uproariously funny and wholly implausible story about sitting next to Mick Jagger on a plane ride. So, is DCP's story true? I'm curious what others think....

I can guarantee you the judge would have a completely different recollection of that event, if it happened.

Making up faith promoting stories is as big a part of Mormon culture as making your 3 year old get up to the stand on fast Sunday and say “I know the cwurch is twuee.”

What happens when a 16 year old gets a speeding ticket in California?
At what speed do you lose your license in CA?
Speed over 100 MPH– 2 points. Going faster than you are allowed is always a ticketable offense. However, going over 100 miles per hour, no matter how empty the roadway is, doubles the point penalty. A 30-day suspension is possible for this offense as well as the two points against your license.

So his genial tale about “warp speed” was really arguing he had the “bad luck” to be caught going over 100. Right.

And he still sounds like a teenager with all his excuses, even though the judge “stressed how dangerous my lane-change on the freeway had been, and how bad my driving must have been to have merited not one but two tickets in such a short space of time.” Uh huh.

And no, the judge cancelled one ticket because his dad coughed up a huge fee, among other things. That’s how getting around the law is accomplished.

If he was at risk of a suspended license, that sort of thing usually requires a hearing to allow the defendant to plead their case.

Even today, all traffic tickets can be adjudicated in court if the defendant wishes.

Alphus and Omegus wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 23, 2023 6:43 pm

If he was at risk of a suspended license, that sort of thing usually requires a hearing to allow the defendant to plead their case.

Even today, all traffic tickets can be adjudicated in court if the defendant wishes.

That's a good point, Alphus. Dr. Peterson can be very argumentative; it's not hard to imagine him reacting with anger in the vein of, "That stupid cop is *BLIND*!" and then vowing to fight the ticket in court. But if Marcus is right, then wow: he was tearing through the suburban streets of San Gabriel at over 100 MPH? That's incredibly reckless.

Meanwhile, it occurs to me that the whole story can actually be interpreted as a victory for Satan. Peterson notes this detail:

my girlfriend cozied very gratifyingly up to my side

So, actually, when the judge lets him go scot-free, this is actually a repudiation of the Lord's teachings concerning chastity. Young Peterson was engaged in "petting" and driving irresponsibly, and yet the judge lets him walk.

Of course this didn’t happen. Has DCP ever told the truth?

Apart from DCP’s well-documented misogyny, homophobia, anti-Semitism, constant daily personal attacks and libel, DCP’s trademark is his dishonesty.

Just a few examples off the tip of the iceberg: hundreds of examples of dishonest plagiarism, claiming to have held in his formerly Cheeto stained hands the Second Watson Letter (Watson himself denies there is such a letter), DCP’s promise to BYU that in exchange for his 2014 paid sabbatical he would use that time to finish two books (as of 2023 the books remain unfinished), lying about his fake accent (he claims it was from his mission after learning perfect German), lying about not receiving a single dime for his mopologetic work (it was later revealed he had been receiving thousands), lying about never disparaging other faiths (it was later revealed he had called Scientology a blatant fraud, Calvinism as abhorrent and made many derogatory statements about Judaism and Evangelicalism), etc., etc., etc.

So, the good professor brags that, when young, he got preferential treatment because he was thought to be a Mormon. One has to assume that if the judge had treated him worse because of his perceived religion, he would also think that that was okay.

No?

Marcus wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 23, 2023 6:39 pm

So his genial tale about “warp speed” was really arguing he had the “bad luck” to be caught going over 100. Right.

And he still sounds like a teenager with all his excuses, even though the judge “stressed how dangerous my lane-change on the freeway had been, and how bad my driving must have been to have merited not one but two tickets in such a short space of time.” Uh huh.

DCP has always felt entitled. Here he is making light of the fact that he put himself, others and his girlfriend in mortal danger because of his reckless driving. No remorse, no introspection. Only amusement as he describes getting out of this legal pickle because he is a Mormon.

Marcus is correct, DCP still sounds like a spoiled entitled teenager. I imagine the exchange with the police officer went something like this:

I know some jurisdictions once required younger drivers who received traffic citations to appear in traffic court with a parent. I’ve never heard of meeting with a traffic judge in a private office, however.

I'm inclined to agree with Doctor Scratch on this one. Something is fishy. It starts with a cliché, he had been at the library, and so therefore he was the good guy. "I had been at the library for heck's sake, how could I have done anything wrong?" Recall, the "Dread Pirate Roberts", the founder of Silk Road, was arrested at a public library. To bad he wasn't Mormon, eh? Biggest mistake of his life was that he hadn't joined the Mormon church prior to making an online market for stuff like drugs and murder for hire.

I'm having a tough time with this part:

DCP wrote:when a carload of idiots presumably from my high school roared by, hanging out their windows, yelling my name, and waving

Why does he describe them as idiots? They were yelling his name and waving...? Not shouting obscenities or flipping him the bird, right? He claims not to know who they are, so why are the idiots? They weren't even unfriendly to him; quite the opposite. Why didn't he just smile and wave back? "Hey guys!" ???

But what are the odds that Peterson with his legendary memory (for everything except inconvenient matters of Mopologetics or church history) didn't recognize the kids. Even if he didn't know who they were at the time, certainly he would have picked them out over the next 2-3 years.

I think Scratch is on to something. Just a couple lines in and it's sounding like the opening scene to a coming-of-age 80s movie.