Motorcycle Cop Loses Job; Burns Too Much Gas, Makes Too Few Arrests, March 10, 1922

Motorcycle Cop Too Fast For the Board. . . Burns Up Too Much Gas and Makes Too Few Arrests—Job Vacated

Pasquotank will have no motorcycle policeman during the months of April and May of this year, the position to be temporarily vacated on April 1, 1922, by order of the Board of County Commissioners. The Board, according to Chairman Noah Burfoot, expects to put a motorcycle cop on the roads again on June 1.

It seems that a motorcycle cop doesn’t pay in wet weather. G.W. Smith, the officer now employed, didn’t make enough arrests in February; his salary and expenses in February exceeding the fines collected from his arrests. A statement like this should encourage the next man who gets the job to arrest everybody who rides the road and thereby satisfy the Commissioners. But Chairman Burfoot says Smith is an expensive proposition. According to Mr. Burfoot, Smith burns up too much gasoline and has too many repairs made to his motorcycle. Mr. Burfoot says that the Commissioners will look around and try to find a man who can keep his motorcycle in repair and who will obligate not to burn up too much gas or wear out too many tires in pursuit of likely offenders of the traffic laws. The ideal cop for an economically minded Board of Commissioners would park his motorcycle and hide in the bushes alongside the road, picking up offenders on the evidence of a stop watch.

Front page of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., Friday, March 10, 1922