Getting out of speeding tickets via diabetes: Is it wrong?

Let me respond by saying that asking whether it is appropriate to use diabetes to get out of a speeding ticket is akin to asking whether a person with type 1 diabetes deserves to have their life shorted by approximately 15 years by virtue of having diabetes. Patients with diabetes get screwed out of so much that its more than fair to use it for their benefit on occasion.

I think it's wrong. It's good you don't live in MN because here they would have sent a note to DOT that you were driving with a low blood sugar and you would have risked having your license cancelled. For the past several years I have been required to get a written okay from my doctor in order to keep my license. One year the nurse stapled the form to my folder and it never got to DOT. As far as making sure you were okay, our police do that too. But, to capitalize on your illness? Naw. Not in this instance or in any other - or we end up with a bunch of diabetics who dishonor our disease.

Pauline

It is VERY wrong to use diabetes as an excuse to speed and avoid a deserved ticket. If a diabetic is rushing to the hospital because of a severe diabetic reaction, that is one thing. To produce proof of diabetes as a reason to deliberate break the law by speeding and putting all other drivers near you on the road is absolutely deplorable. Any police officer who allows this "excuse" isn't enforcing the law properly. The fact that diabetes is a serious illness should not be a free pass to

allow those afflicted to break the law and avoid fines and punishment for those offenses which are not in any way related to a medical emergency. It's another way for people to lie, distort the facts, and in

reality, be deceptive. If a diabetic is speeding and suddenly can't stop in time to

avoid hitting a pedestrian who steps in their pathway, do you explain to the family of the victim killed by their speed that diabetes caused it? No, it was a lack of regard for the traffic laws which protect us all that would cause such a tragedy. It's

not only wrong, it's potentially dangerous for anyone to behave so irresponsibly. Diabetic people need to heed the speed limits and anyone using their disease to avoid a ticket when they are not speeding

to the hospital is a horrible, dishonest person and should feel ashamed. If it's you or anyone you know, please stop doing it before someone gets needlessly killed.

At 20 years old, I've had diaetes for about 19.5 years. The only time I ever abused my illness was in 10th grade to get out of a test I hadn't studied for. I took the test the next day and passed it with a B-. I don't know, I would be way to nervous to lie to a police officer. My luck he'd be like, "Here, let me escort you to a hospital"!!

...is something I've heard about over my 35 years of living with type one. I've seen both valid reasons that it should be an "excuse" and valid reasons it should not be used as an "excuse" for things.

 

Hypoglycemia and car accidents happen on ocassion and can be fatal, so keeping bg in control should be considered a responsibility on the road as a driver. High bg also could cause irrational behaviour, true, but so being it should be a prudent idea when driving to be sure bg isn't out of whack!

 

Loosing my driving priviledge over the years due to complications was a difficult thing for me to handle. My eye's due to retinopathy and vision problems was slowing me down, literally. I remember driving home from my girl friends house in Concord, NC to Fayetteville, NC one time. The weather was bad, raining, and in 65 mph zones I had to do 35 just to see well enough to stay on the  road. I got followed by an officer wondering what was wrong with me, and I told him the windows were fogged and I couldn't see good. He let me go, but little did he know my vision was really bad due to my retinopathy and diabetes. At the time I considered my living depended on my ability to stay a driver, but soon learned that a person is better off not driving when medical conditions make it dangerous.

 

I lost a career and everything due to diabetes complications, but in the long run I still survive all the "mess"! But excuses for survival I believe is what people with diabetes go through, not because they want to endanger others on roads like I did not seeing well in times I should have pulled over. It is a matter of knowing I had to drive for my work, and the  fear of not knowing what I would do with out "work" to survive. Diabetes can be a "Catch 22" situation, damned if you do and damned if you don't in situations like this article talks about.

 

My boss in the printing business, I was a four color process printing graphic designer, knew something was wrong with my eyes after I had two wrecks and my printing contracts were not hitting the mark color wise, etc. My vision was falling apart and I needed my job and didn't want to admit to myself diabetes was taking me in a different direction visually. It was a rock and a hard place  event, but I had to step out of my career path even after another printer wanted me tto work with them full time after my former boss wanted me to go to part time. It was just time for me to say to myself diabetes has got my vision to the point I had to stop driving.

 

Now I still do design work today, but on other types of things, like sign painting and print projects I know my "vision" can handle. I'm on PD dialysis at home, waiting for a transplant for both a kidney and pancreas and do okay despite not being able to do the career I loved so much.

 

Things happen in life we some times can not control, but the point is, take responsibility when you know an excuse is not plausible, and use an excuse when you know it is reasonable. But don't push the limits because accidents can lead to bad things, for yourself as a diabetic patient as well as others who may not know your diabetes is causing a possible problem.

 

Responsibility is the best way to handle reality, and make the most of what works so you as a person survive as well as the people around you.

 

Dwight J. Emery

Type One Diabetes since 1974, 35 years

Yikes!!

 

Please do not speed while driving yourself to the hospital with an emergency low blood sugar.  Call a friend, a neighbor, or call 911 (this may result in your getting an expensive ambulance ride, although they usually ask you if you want transportation to the hospital), but DO NOT drive when you know your blood sugar is too low - it's bad enough when you drive and don't realize it is getting low.  Funerals are expensive too, both yours and someone else's.