From: mikenews@access.digex.com (Mike Doughney)
Subject: TM movement's "Natural Law Party" scoffs at traffic laws
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, Maryland USA
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 22:20:14 GMT

From _The Washington Post_, November 5, 1992 page MD-1
(Prince George's Weekly section) - Dr. Gridlock column
_A Do-It-Yourself Motorcade Caper_
By Ron Shaffer
Washington Post Staff Writer

[excerpted from article]

The Natural Law Party, which says it had a presidential candidate on
the ballot in 30 states this week, formed a motorcade to carry its
leading members from the Washington Hilton on Connecticut Avenue to
the Grand Hyatt, near the Convention Center.  They had six super
stretch limos, six convertibles, two buses and assorted sedans, and
they very much wanted to keep their procession together.

The group's Washington campaign coordinator, Dean Snyder, asked the
police department for a motorcade escort.  The department said no.
The police will provide escorts to visiting heads of state, the
president, vice president and celebrities such as Michael Jackson on
orders from the mayor, but not for the Natural Law Party or most of
the rest of us.  The department said the Natural Law Party motorcade
would have to obey all traffic regulations.

Snyder then hired Mills Escort Co., of the District, and Metro
Motorcycle Escort Services, of Hyattsville.  Those firms usually
escort funeral processions.

[...]
The lead motorcycle rider that day, Thomas Mills, owner of Mills
Escort Co., said he is able to block off intersections because he
looks like a D.C. police officer.

[...]
Mills said he blocked traffic by scooting ahead of the motorcade to
the next light, always hitting it on green and then stationing himself
there until the first few cars came through before he turned the
intersection over to the three trailing motorcyclists from the two
escort services.

Walter Tucker, who owns the Hyattsville service, said he and the
others blew whistles to help let motorists know that something special
was coming. [...]

Mills estimated the motorcade ran 50 red lights and held other
motorists in place for two or three light changes at each one.
Tucker said he thought the motorcade ran "10 or 15" red lights.

Steve Langford, an officer in the police department's special events
unit, which handles motorcades, seemed stunned: "They were not
authorized to do what they did; it was not approved by the
Metropolitan Police Department, and it was not safe.  It was risky;
they didn't have sirens or red lights.  It borders on reckless
driving."

Snyder said that the motorcade passed at least a dozen police cruisers
and that the officers did nothing.  Mills said one cruiser even
followed for several blocks along Pennsylvania Avenue.

"We're not supposed to [run red lights], but police go along with us,"
Tucker said.

Langford said he "could not believe" that other officers didn't report
the motorcade, then speculated that officers may have assumed the
procession was authorized.

Snyder, informed that the party's motorcade had illegally run red
lights, said, "When I contracted these guys, I felt sure they had a
permit to go through these lights. [...]"

Mills said, "They wanted to know how to get through red lights.  I
told them I will break the lights, but once you get into that
intersection, I'm not responsible."

Under D.C. law, funeral processions can run red lights as long as the
lead vehicle, or escort, is in the intersection with a green light.
Then the procession is allowed through the intersection intact even if
the light turns red.  But this exemption does not apply to other
processions, such as political motorcades, without police escort.

Snyder, who, like his party, is based in Iowa, said the Washington
motorcade "was twice as successful as we could have imagined."  Asked
about running red lights, he offered no apologies: "We didn't cause
any problems whatsoever.  It was a good event.  To me, it was all
good.  It was a matter of wasting one or two minutes [of motorists'
time].  People should have really enjoyed this thing.  People got a
kick out of it.  For some [motorists] this was the neatest thing of
the day for them.  This is not a negative thing.  It's a positive
thing."

Well, Dean, you're getting the Washington spin down.

Pardon me, but Dr. Gridlock is a tad touchy about people who, without
authorization, take over public streets for their own use, whether
it's the Natural Law Party or the protest group that recently blocked
inbound rush-hour traffic on 14th Street NW or the protest group that
dumped a mountain of sand on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the
Department of Justice.

Where else can a political group ask for a police escort, be denied
one, hire private escorts and run a 40-vehicle motorcade through red
lights without police intervention.  But if the rest of us linger
minutes at an expired parking meter, it's WHAP, a $50 ticket.
-- 
Mike Doughney              mike@access.digex.com               +1 301 220 2020
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