5′3 officer takes on truckers

One moment she was talking about the joys and challenges of being a professional cop, the next she was cranking a hard U-turn across the dirt median of Highway 58, hitting the gas on her souped-up Crown Vic and accelerating quickly to 110 mph.

“I locked him in at 65,” she said of the trucker now pulling over ahead of her onto the westbound shoulder.

By the time California Highway Patrol Officer Carrie Creel was done writing a ticket for Salvador Ibarra of Fresno, Ibarra was becoming more animated, waving his arms in the high winds and saying over and over, “No way! There’s no way I was speeding!”

Creel remained calm, but resolute.

Ibarra protested that he had received a speeding ticket just days before — and he couldn’t afford another one.

Then why were you driving 65 in a 55 if you can’t afford another violation? It’s a logical but infuriating question Creel repeats several times a day.

She may be only 5 feet 3 inches tall.

But Creel wears a gun on her hip and a badge on her chest — and she’s not about to surrender the upper hand to a 240-pound truck driver coming off a six-day coffee buzz.

And she writes more tickets than any other CHPer in town.

“You don’t know if the next guy you pull over is going to be really upset and decide to take it out on you,” said the 14-year veteran who is assigned to the CHP’s Bakersfield office. “These guys tower over me.

“If I feel things escalating, I tell them to get in the truck. Conversation’s over,” Creel said. “Sometimes they get handcuffed and find themselves sitting on the curb.”

SPEED KILLS

Creel specializes in enforcing speed limits for commercial vehicles — and she’s very good at her job, say her superiors in the CHP’s Bakersfield office, including ranking officer Capt. Brian Smith.

CHP officers in Bakersfield typically write between 900 and 1,100 speeding tickets a year, said CHP Sgt. Larry McGuire. In 2008, Creel handed out 2,369 citations for excessive speed, mostly to truck drivers barreling down Highway 58 with 70,000 pounds of cargo on their tail.

Of course, most officers who drive a black-and-white cruiser — truckers call the black-and-whites “Smokie Bears” — also spend significant time at accident scenes and in bringing in DUI drivers.

Creel, who drives a white cruiser truckers call “Polar Bears,” helps out with the occasional car crash, but the bulk of her time is dedicated to one thing, slowing down speeding trucks.

It’s tough to tell whether any one officer can have a significant effect on the number of accidents in a large region. However, the total number of traffic collisions in the Bakersfield area in which a trucker was at fault fell by nearly 7 percent from 2006 when Creel was not a factor to 2008, her first full year on her new beat.

More specific to her beat, total crashes on Highway 58, between Hart Flat and Highway 99, decreased from from 356 to 298 during the same period, a drop of more than 16 percent.

“If we can prevent an accident by writing John Smith a ticket, we’re doing our job,” Creel said. “If I can save Mary Kay’s life by writing a seat belt ticket, I’m doing my job.”

TIME IN COURT

Eric Berg, a Kern County traffic attorney, has represented many truck drivers in court who have been cited by Creel.

Most drivers live out of county or even out of state, so a majority of truckers belong to a pre-paid legal system that in-turn hires Berg or other attorneys.

Berg declined to divulge “trade secrets,” but he said he often is able to help truckers by convincing the judge to drop the infractions that would add “points” to a commercial license and exchange them for “zero-point violations.”

Too many points can mean the loss of a license, which can ultimately mean the loss of one’s livelihood.

He also tells his clients to “always be polite with the officer.”

One reason is because officers often write notes on the back of the citation about the traffic stop, including details about what the driver said and the driver’s demeanor. They have access to those notes in court.

Arguing you were only going 61 mph — instead of 65 — in a 55 mph zone is not helpful, Berg said.

“It’s an admission” of guilt, he said, and it happens all the time.

THE JOY OF ENFORCEMENT

You can see it on her face and hear it in her voice: Carrie Creel loves her job.

“One of the proudest moments of my life was graduating from the academy and having my dad there,” she said Tuesday during a momentary lull in the number of speeders on 58.

Growing up in Oildale in a single-parent family, Creel can’t say enough about the importance of her father in her life. He’s been gone seven years now, but his legacy remains, she said.

As she drove through Tuesday’s wind and dust storm, Creel marvelled that there hadn’t been more accident calls coming across the radio. Drivers should have been slowing down in the extreme conditions, she said. But most weren’t.

Pulling over Ibarra, the animated and angry driver, came toward the end of a long day with maybe 20 citations already on the books. The punishing wind storm was blasting dirt and sand into Creel’s eyes and mouth and hair as she stood her ground against some wild accusations from the driver.

As Creel climbed back in her cruiser, the angry Ibarra finally exploded, throwing his trucker’s cap so hard it flew over the fence along the freeway. Next, his book of registration and other papers went flying, with a dozen or more sheets swept up in the twirling wind.

Creel climbed out of the cruiser and stared hard as Ibarra, who apparently had suddenly realized his mistake, feverishly picked up most of the errant papers. Averting his eyes, he said nothing as he climbed into the cab of his truck.

Later as she drove away, Creel laughed about the driver’s antics.

Had she considered writing him a ticket for littering?

She laughed again. “The thought crossed my mind,” she said.