(for those of you who are not yet completely sick and tired of the subject)
The following is a letter we wrote to Nancy Richardson, the Director of Iowa DOT:
Dear Ms. Richardson,
We have some very serious concerns relating to the traffic stop conducted by IDOT Officer Wiegand on the evening of Friday March 27, 2009.
We believe Officer Wiegand used profiling –that we were “carnies”–to pull us over and we know that using profiling is illegal.
We believe that Officer Wiegand denied us our expectation of peaceful travel, the precedent for which has been set by rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court.
We believe that the search of our RV was based on insufficient facts and that by depriving Carl of the opportunity to identify himself, Wiegand denied him the ability to legitimize himself as a U.S. citizen and a member in good standing of this community where his family has lived for four generations.
We believe if the search of our RV by Officer Wiegand cannot be proved to be illegal, it was without question an unreasonable search because Officer Wiegand did not avail himself of information which would have been readily available by asking for driver’s license, registration, proof of insurance, etc.
We know that as U.S. citizens we are protected against unreasonable search by the Fourth Amendment.
We believe that Officer Wiegand’s ignorance of gun laws, especially the Iowa CCW laws, and his resulting threatenng statements regarding having Carl’s CCW permit revoked, infringed on Carl’s Second Amendment rights.
Lastly we believe that while trampling over our rights as outlined above, Officer Wiegand also conducted the traffic stop in a manner that was threatening, provocative, abusive, and malicious. His actions have caused us extreme fear and distress.
We would like to make an appointment to visit with you and talk about our concerns. Although they are polite and professional, we do not feel we have received much satisfaction from Major Lewis and Colonel Lorenzen. There were too many discrepancies between what they told us and what we have heard from other people who have had serious issues with Officer Wiegand. For example, in some instances, people have told us they have registered complaints against Officer Wiegand but your officials are telling us they have no records of these complaints.
In fact, we have discovered there is a bigger picture here: specifically, Officer Wiegand does not appear to be the only IDOT officer who behaves unprofessionally and discourteously in the line of duty. We are getting phone calls from people all over Iowa with complaints. As one 45 year veteran of the trucking business told us, IDOT has a job to do but there is no reason they cannot do their job in a civilized way.
It is of great concern to us that Iowa taxpayers are funding a state agency that is creating so much controversy when dealing with Iowa taxpayers whom they encounter every day on the road in the line of duty. We have written up a number of stories and would like to sit down and share them with you. In some cases the people who called us wish to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal from your agency but in many cases people have revealed their names or have told us they will happily come forward and testify should that become an option and necessity.
Since the story of our traffic stop became popular in a few Iowa papers, we have received dozens of calls. It is particularly distressing that some people feel the need for anonymity in their calls, even calls to us, because they are so afraid what IDOT will do if it finds out they have said a word. IDOT is viewed by many as a public tyrant not a public servant, and from what we have heard (not to mention our own experience) this is not a far-fetched perception on the part of many drivers, both commercial and non commercial. It is WRONG that any government agency would instill such disgust and trepidation in many of Iowa’s citizens. If we were involved in any government agency to whom the taxpayers were afraid to speak up, we would be ashamed. IDOT is funded by taxpayers and should not be terrorizing taxpayers.
From what we have heard, IDOT has gotten away with this behavior for as long as it has because commercial drivers who are given unreasonable citations don’t dare speak up because they feel they are then targeted for an increased number of traffic stops by IDOT. We have heard stories where drivers were pulled over for a minor violation and lost hundreds of dollars because they could not reach their destination in time. We have heard of drivers pulled over for hours on log book discrepancies which later were proven not to be violations –but still the drivers lost time and money that they cannot recover. We have also heard that even when drivers don’t register a complaint or even when the citation is reasonable, that IDOT will still pull them over with increasing frequency simply it seems because they have received a recent citation. This is a fact on which every driver we spoke to agreed. Is there an assumption that once they have broken the law they are more inclined to break it again? Therefore pull them over more frequently and interfere with their schedules, even though often they are not found to be in violation again and are not issued another citation?
The bottom line is that truckers cannot stay in business if they are spending a lot of hours sitting by the side of the road being written up on fair, let alone unfair, citations or having their logbooks checked because IDOT is punishing them for registering a complaint or having a recent violation.
( And by the way, a current popular reason IDOT is using these days to pull people over is for not wearing a seatbelt. We have heard of two instances over the weekend when this occurred. The drivers were wearing seatbelts but IDOT stopped them anyway claiming they thought they were not —and meanwhile taking up their valuable transport time. We suspect if an IDOT officer pulls a driver over for an alleged seatbelt violation that it would be easy, even if the driver is not in violation, for the officer to use the traffic stop as an opportunity to come up with other possible accusations of violations as happened in our case.)
In addition, truckers also cannot stay in business if they take time off work and drive sometimes hundreds of miles to court to contest citations they believe are incorrect/unfair. They simply can’t afford to stick up for themselves —or once again they lose money because they are off the road. And so they let it go and say nothing. And IDOT seems to –literally–bank on the fact that truckers won’t stick up for themselves.
We are not condoning anybody’s breaking the law. We realize IDOT’s job is to enforce laws and that there are a lot of them to enforce. As one driver mentioned, there are plenty of truckers out there who do not respect the laws and they themselves have been known to be at times FAR FROM polite. But the bottom line, we are told, is that just because there are some bad apples, not all commercial drivers should be treated like “trash.” One thing we know for sure is that if IDOT treated the general public the way we hear it treats truckers, people would be up in arms. There would be an uproar, which is actually what is occurring over the way we were treated.
There are a few facts we would like to know about IDOT:
Does IDOT have a “mission” statement?
Can IDOT legally pull over both commercial and non commercial vehicles?
Can IDOT legally pull over passenger cars?
What is the job description for an IDOT officer?
What are the IDOT rules for procedure in a traffic stop?
Does IDOT establish quotas for its officers? Such as number of dollars per day, number of inspections per day, etc.
Does IDOT receive funds–operating costs etc.– from the federal government?
From what we have experienced, learned and heard, we believe IDOT needs to be investigated from top to bottom for the behavior of its officers, its record keeping , and quite possibly for the supervisors’ acceptance and condoning of malicious behavior on the part of their officers.
We are concerned there is a culture at IDOT that is detrimental to the welfare of the general public. IDOT is an agency which no doubt was established to keep citizens safe but we fear it has degenerated into one which harasses and disrespects the very people (ie the taxpayers) who fund it. In addition we feel that IDOT’s interpretation of the laws concerning commercial truckers are often capricious and unreasonable and ultimately have a severely negative impact on their ability to make a living. This needs to stop.
If an investigation of IDOT is conducted, we believe it cannot be accomplished from inside the agency; we seem to have already encountered verbal cover-ups and records discrepancies in the short time we have been observers. We would recommend that an effective investigation can only be achieved by an outside agency, perhaps somebody from the federal government.
Again, we would appreciate sitting down with you to discuss our concerns and ideas,
Jane and Carl Schneider
