Tickets ... Make you sick?

By VALERIE KALFRIN, The Tampa Tribune


TAMPA - Gina Boyd's day already had soured when her 3-year-old daughter began vomiting in her Dodge Caravan.

Then she got a traffic citation.

Boyd, 27, of Temple Terrace, received a $123 citation from a Hillsborough County deputy on Monday after she made an improper U-turn on Bruce B. Downs Boulevard at Fletcher Avenue to pull over and attend to her daughter Emily, 3.

"We were in a pretty gross situation," Boyd said Tuesday. "While I'm catching her throw-up, I hear sirens behind me."

Boyd is a stay-at-home mother of three whose husband is in the Army, serving in Iraq. She said she realizes she violated the law but wished the deputy had exercised discretion upon seeing why she had made the improper turn.

Instead, she said, Deputy Jon Tillis told her she could have called an ambulance if there was an emergency. He also blamed her for spurring the driver behind her to make the same turn, she said.

"I feel like I'm in one of these unjust situations," said Boyd, adding that she wants to go to court over the citation but cannot afford court costs or child care. "I would like for his supervisor to look at the situation and see it's ridiculous. ... I didn't do anything but help my daughter."

Tillis, 50, declined to comment.