Story Archive

He’ll Take the Tickets

Frank Roder, 38, stopped his Jeep near the Rahway River in New Jersey; he and his son, Aidan, 5, were there to feed the ducks. Aidan, perhaps too excited to wait for his old man to park, hopped out and “made a beeline for the edge,” Roder says. The edge was 35 feet above the water. So Roder, 38, jumped from the car and ran to grab his son. Whereupon Aidan said, “Um, Daddy...” and Frank turned and watched as his vehicle went over the edge and plunged into the river. After the Jeep was retrieved with a crane, a Union County Police officer issued him two tickets: for not producing the insurance documents that had gone into the river with the vehicle, and for not having “taken the five seconds to apply the brake,” the cop said. “Really? And if I did and my boy stepped over the edge and fell instead of the Jeep, then where would I be?” he asked. “Jail,” the officer replied, “for child endangerment.” Union County Police Chief Daniel Vaniska said it’s up to the officer’s discretion whether to issue a ticket, and he didn’t know enough about the situation to comment on whether his officer had used his discretion wisely. (AC/Fox News) ...If you had taken five seconds to think about the case, chief, you’d have had a different answer.