{"id":43291,"date":"2012-11-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-11-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/traffic-cop-gives-tickets-but-avoids-complaints\/"},"modified":"2012-11-05T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-11-05T00:00:00","slug":"traffic-cop-gives-tickets-but-avoids-complaints","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/traffic-cop-gives-tickets-but-avoids-complaints\/","title":{"rendered":"Traffic Cop Gives Tickets but Avoids Complaints"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By the very nature of the business, L.A. County traffic cops receive plenty of complaints about their work. After all, most motorists don&#39;t think <em>they<\/em> deserve a ticket. Each complaint gets documented and placed in the officer&#39;s personnel file.<\/p>\n\n<p>But, surprisingly, over the past 20 years, L.A. Sheriff&#39;s Deputy Elton Simmons has made over 25,000 traffic stops and cited thousands of motorists with traffic violations without a single complaint on his record. When his supervisor Captain Pat Maxwell started looking through Simmons&#39; file, he was stunned. Maxwell found plenty of commendations but not a single complaint.<\/p>\n\n<p>It was such a shocking story that a CBS News crew was assigned to follow Simmons in an attempt to learn his secret. First, they noticed Simmons&#39; &quot;pitch-perfect mix of authority and diplomacy&quot; without a trace of arrogance or self-righteousness. Of course Simmons still hands out plenty of tickets; they just don&#39;t come with the standard guilt trip.<\/p>\n\n<p>Here&#39;s how Simmons described his approach: &quot;I&#39;m here with you. I&#39;m not up here&quot; (<em>he motions his arm up towards the sky<\/em>). One thing I hate is to be looked down on&mdash;I can&#39;t stand it&mdash;so I&#39;m not going to look down at you.&quot;<\/p>\n\n<p>A driver who got a ticket from Simmons agreed. The driver said, &quot;You know what it is, it&#39;s his smile. How could you be mad at that guy?&quot;<\/p>\n\n<p>&quot;Apparently, you can&#39;t,&quot; concluded the CBS News team. &quot;Time after time, ticket after ticket, we saw Officer Simmons melt away a polar ice cap of preconceptions. And his boss [claims] there&#39;s a lesson in there for hard-nosed cops everywhere.&quot;<\/p>\n\n<p><em>Preaching Angles: <strong>Communication, Gentleness, Leadership<\/strong>&mdash;It&#39;s possible to make hard truths more winsome when we communicate with gentleness rather than self-righteousness and harshness.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3391,3459,3641,3717,3972,4048,4074,4164,4191,4449,4616,4688,5031,5200,5292],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-43291","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-advice","tax_ctp_tags-authority","tax_ctp_tags-communication","tax_ctp_tags-criticism","tax_ctp_tags-faultfinding","tax_ctp_tags-gentleness","tax_ctp_tags-golden-rule","tax_ctp_tags-honesty","tax_ctp_tags-humiliation","tax_ctp_tags-meekness","tax_ctp_tags-peacemakers","tax_ctp_tags-preaching","tax_ctp_tags-speech","tax_ctp_tags-truthfulness","tax_ctp_tags-words"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Traffic Cop Gives Tickets but Avoids Complaints - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/traffic-cop-gives-tickets-but-avoids-complaints\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Traffic Cop Gives Tickets but Avoids Complaints - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By the very nature of the business, L.A. 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