Mailbag: Bunny is more of a distraction

I was one of the Glendale residents caught in the “Bunny Sting.” I would have appreciated the lesson learned and accepted my traffic violation with humility if I had understood anything about what happened at Garfield and Central avenues (“Sting like a bunny,” April 1).

All I know is that I saw a huge bunny on the side of the road (and no, I had not had any alcohol for lunch). He appeared to be flailing his arms around, and as I slowed to a crawl he came toward me. Alarmed, confused and unsure of the bunny’s intentions, my mind made several — what I feel are valid — split-second decisions.

In these economic times, it briefly occurred to me that someone in a rabbit suit could use this method to approach a car at an intersection, momentarily disorient you and car-jack your vehicle. My other thought, as a female, is that this would be a way to slow down a driver, jump into the passenger seat and commit a violent crime.

Another thought was that this was a nut case, wandering the streets in a rabbit suit (this is Southern California after all). My final deduction was that this was an advertising stunt by either a new restaurant or an apartment complex trying to entice potential tenants. Because I had neither the time nor interest in patronizing either, my near stop did not become a complete stop, and I slowly continued up Central.

Imagine my surprise when I was subsequently pulled over by a motorcycle cop and sarcastically asked, “Did you not see the bunny?”

Stunned, I replied that in fact I had and was about to ask if the bunny had committed a crime, when I was chastised for not yielding to a pedestrian.

I explained to the officer my reasons for not stopping for the rabbit, or should I say “pedestrian,” but they fell on deaf ears, and I solemnly drove home. Like many residents in Glendale, I applaud the police task force for working on the serious problem our city has with pedestrian fatalities. I even appreciate that our law enforcement is willing to think out of the box in its attempts to tackle this problem.

However, I disagree with retired Officer Don Meredith that the “decoy program” is a positive way to handle such problems. This model, though undoubtedly well-intentioned, is problematic for several reasons.