The Legend of Bob Speed

Officer Bob Speed, a name that brought shivers down the spine of probably thousands of motorists in Baltimore county Maryland. Bob was a traffic cop for most of his career and a fine one at that.

I had the pleasure of working around Bob when I worked the Accident Investigation unit based in the old Towson precinct on Washington Ave.
While I worked a different shift configuration than Bob our shifts would coincide at least one week per month. I would handle flyouts and fatal accidents and Bob would handle the less serious accidents and work radar, tons and tons of radar.

Bob was probably the #1 ticket writer in the county which to me is OK in my book. I didn't enjoy writing tickets and that ultimately led me to leave the unit but speeding can be a real problem and in Bob's defense he was assigned areas to work radar by citizen complaints.

I had heard stories about Bob before I ever met him. Supposedly he was hung in effigy from the old York Road underpass in Cockeysville. I heard enough about Bob to believe it's true. Bob seemed to give no one a break. He heard allot of razzing when he gave Orioles superstar Eddie Murray a speeding ticket. Bob would just smile and take it.

I once was in court and Bob was ahead of me testifying against his defendants. One gentleman told the judge that he couldn't believe he made the mistake of getting caught. He said everyone in the neighborhood know Officer Speed works radar there. In fact one of his neighbors had a framed photograph of Officer Speed working radar hung in his clubroom.

Where Bob's legend really grew was with a ongoing feud with Car and Driver magazine. Bob would write letters to the editor wherever they would promote speeding or perhaps street racing. Initially the editors didn't believe his name was truly Officer Speed. They would always respond to his letters with an editor's note making fun of Bob. Once they published a photo of a donkey on the table of contents page and titled it, "More letters from Officer Speed". I don't believe at the time they knew Bob was black or they might not have used a black donkey for the picture.

They later published this photo of Bob in their magazine. Before long the powers to be put an end to this and asked Bob to stop writing to the magazine.

My funniest personal story of Bob goes like this.

Bob had locked up a 20 something female for DWI and transported her to the station for a breathalyzer test. I was an operator so went in to administer the test.

After going through the paperwork and pre-testing I explained to the young lady how the test worked. I held the breathalyzer tube to her and explained that she had to put her lips around the tube and blow until I told her to stop. She then said that Officer Speed already had her blow onto a black thing when he pulled me over. Needless to say it was pretty hard not to laugh in her face and Bob and I had a good laugh later. The black thing she was speaking of was a PBT (preliminary breath tester).

I must say Bob was not all about traffic. He started his career working the street in the Cockeysville area. Bob was one of the kind of cop that if he heard me out with a stop and he was nearby he would back you up. He also backed the patrol guys whenever he could.

After I retired and went to work at PHH, I heard from many people that they were ticketed by Officer Speed. This included a few members of my boss's family. It was almost something that people took pride in as they were part of a larger family of ticket recipients.

Bob is now retired and is a bailiff at the Towson District court where he stood to testify in thousands of cases.

I imagine some of his old defendants feel they can't get away from him.