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Who doesn’t push the limits a little, or maybe a lot, behind the wheel at times — even knowing the end result could be getting a speeding ticket?

But what if, especially for teens, there were no tickets issued — at least for the first offense — and instead making a call to their parents?

Huh?

Well, I learned a new technique that has been initiated in Clemmons that makes lots of sense, at least in hopefully slowing down some of the fast drivers at West Forsyth High School.

Dep. David Pilcher, who is a traffic officer and also on the motorcycle unit for the Clemmons community policing force that is part of the Forsyth County Sheriffs Office, was on the agenda for a June council meeting to discuss taking “different approaches and working outside the box” to make the local roads safer.

Pilcher, who was part of the recent Vision Zero Task Force, then mentioned that “not everybody deserves a ticket,” adding that he does a lot of education, especially with high school kids at West Forsyth. 

“I can tell you the last month and a half, two months of school, I caught on average of about five to 10 kids every week, usually around lunchtime, when school didn’t even know they were gone,” he said, “and they were running 70-plus per hour down L-C Road in a 45-mile-an-hour zone.”

That certainly earned the attention of this reporter.

Pilcher then explained the strategy.

“If they didn’t have any tickets and I hadn’t stopped them before, I told them to call their parents, and I’d talk to the parents right there on the side of the road and tell them, ‘You have two choices — I can handle their punishment or you can,” he said. “If you handle it, I hate to punish you as parents by making your insurance go up, but if you handle it, I don’t have to. But at this point going forward, they’re in the system and they’ve been warned. If they’re caught again, what they get is what they get. 

“This has proven to be very effective. Parents have been very thankful. I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from the school.”

And here’s another tip of the cap to a common-sense solution to address a potentially scary situation on our streets.

Pilcher said that he’s taken a similar approach with the neighborhoods when it comes to speeding.

“In fact, in the Clemmons West community, one of the gentlemen that complained the loudest was actually one of the first people that I stopped,” he said. “And his response to me was, ‘I appreciate you being out here. You’re doing a fantastic job.’ And I said, ‘Can I see your license sir?’ And he said, ‘What do you need to see my license for?’ And I said, ‘I caught you going 49 mph in a 25 mph zone.’ 

“And then he said, ‘But I called you out here,’ And I said, ‘Exactly, sir, but you’re held to the standards.’ And again, what we do in these neighborhoods is I give them a verbal warning the first time, but the next time if myself or my partner catch you, it’s already in the system that we stopped you, we’ve already warned you, now you get a ticket.”

It’s good to see what Pilcher called “the little things we’re trying to do to increase the safety of the citizens in the community. I think we’re making a noticeable difference. We are seeing a reduction in traffic crashes because of the work we’re doing right now.”

• • •

Also part of what turned out to be a very interesting council meeting on, of all things, the Safe Streets For Action Plan, was when the conversation shifted as council member Mike Combest said he wanted to include more information to address “some significant changes potentially to our current transportation structure and driving options. For example, the plan recommends that the village consider the elimination of drive-thrus for restaurants and pharmacies, etc.”

Whoa, wait just a minute — elimination of drive-thrus for restaurants? Does that mean Chick-fil-A?

“Do we have to commit to killing off drive-thrus at this time?” council member Michelle Barson asked in sort of a sarcastic way.

Not to fear, Liz Byrom from Kittleson & Associates, which formulated the plan, said that there is flexibility in the language to look at such issues.

“The risk with drive-thrus is that there’s queuing, people get in line and wait for Chick-fil-A, right?” Byrom asked. “And so when that vehicle traffic backs up, that’s where things can start becoming a problem. So we try to provide flexibility in finding solutions.”

Whew, so for all Chick-fil-A fans, it appears everything is going to be just fine.