If your summer travels brought you to Flathead Lake in Montana, you might have seen an odd sight if you ventured onto Finley Point: grandmother Patti Baumgartner, camped out on the side of the road in a white lawn chair, aiming at drivers what appeared to be a speed gun, but was, in fact, a blowdryer.
Baumgartner isn’t sure if the dryer slowed cars down, but her efforts did win her an “Honorary Montana Trooper” title from Montana Highway Patrol Trooper Noah Pesola.
“I thought it was hilarious. I think that we have a speed issue in Montana, and I thought it was a great, creative idea for the public to try and combat that a little bit without making people too upset,” Pesola said. “The best thing I could think of was to give her a trooper hat and a badge to make her look a little more official.”
Baumgartner said the speed at which cars fly down her narrow neighborhood road is worrisome. Her grandkids often walk along the roads, she said, but no one slows down. Baumgartner’s concern is prevalent among Montana residents, who enjoy higher speed limits and lower speeding fines.
In fact, Montana was one of the last states to institute state-enforced speed limits. Even when the federal government forced states to comply with national policy, Montana found ways around it, limiting tickets to low-cost penalties and labeling speeding as “wasting energy.” Montana for years had no speed limit. In 1999, they reinstated it, but it is sometimes as high as 80 mph. Drivers caught speeding used to get slapped with a $5 ticket. Some drivers even kept a wad of $5 bills in their glove compartments so they could pay the fine on the spot if they were pulled over, according to the Missoulian.
So if Montana is getting (slightly) tougher on speeding, why do things seem to be getting worse, at least on Finley Point? Some argue that official speed limits might have made things worse. Back in the day, everyone drove fast, but they did so safely.
“On a fast, straight stretch of road, I could go 80 mph, but most of the time you didn’t dare,” Gordon Noel, 77, author of a new memoir on growing up in the Big Sky Country State, Out of Montana, told USA Today.
Drivers were more self-aware and cautious back then, Noel says. Now, drivers are preoccupied with testing how far they can push the speed limit without getting caught. With rules comes the desire to break them. Without rules, you’re free to make your own, putting pressure on individuals, instead of the government, to be decent and safe.
Baumgartner simply wants to remind Montana drivers that such pressure still exists. Government enforcement can’t replace individual responsibility. But maybe a clever grandmother can provide a nudge.
