Steve Yarbrough: Typical rules-shouldn’t-apply-to-me Republican

by David Safier

Why does Sen. Steve Yarbrough want to get rid of red light cameras and photo radar? Because he got a ticket.

See, it was 6am when the radar machine caught Yarbrough speeding, so he thinks the speed limit shouldn't apply. There were no cars on the road, so Yarbrough thinks the Rule of Law shouldn't be enforced — at least when it's him behind the wheel. And besides, the speed limit was "artificially low." I imagine Yarbrough was going at least 12 mph over the speed limit to trigger a ticket — if I were to make a guess, I'll bet he was going more like 20 over — but he decided that was OK. And that, according to Republican rules for themselves, makes it OK.

Yarbrough said, if a cop pulled him over, he could have talked the officer out of the ticket. He's pissed because he can't say to a radar machine, "I'm Senator Steve Yarbrough, so you're supposed to stretch the rules in my case."

It's probable Yarbrough could have talked his way out of a ticket. Here he is, a white state senator driving an expensive company car he gets for free out of the 10% his company, Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization, gets to keep for "adminstrative expenses" out of the tuition tax credit money it takes in. He's just the kind of guy a cop would smile on.

But someone driving at the same speed in an old car, possibly with browner skin than Yarbrough's? The cop Yarbrough could sweet talk probably wouldn't listen to that driver.

Yarbrough thinks it's just fine for people to be pulled over arbitrarily if they look like they might be undocumented, courtesy of SB1070. But him getting a ticket and being forced to pay a speeding ticket that doesn't make a perceptible dent in his income? That cannot stand.