Helping Lucky save lives in Lakeside

He’s one of the hardest-working professionals in law enforcement.

But with no arms or legs, “Lucky” needs help to catch speeding drivers. That help comes in the form of radar-controlled signs.

Lucky is the nickname of the fake cop that sits in a fake patrol car in Lakeside  and Somers. He’s a stuffed uniform, really, but he helps keep people driving the speed limits in towns that have no fulltime law enforcement.

Jeremy Newell and his wife, Deborah, helped get Lucky his first job five years ago. They are trying to raise money to buy two electronic speed display signs for Somers. Lucky is doing a fine job, Newell said, but the electronic speed display signs get drivers’ attention coming off of the steep hills around Lakeside and Somers.

The signs will cost about $14,000 but the organizing group SLOW (Saving Lives on the West shore) needs to raise a few thousand dollars more to complete the process of  purchasing and installing the signs. Three years ago the SLOW committee installed two electronic speed display signs in Lakeside. The Montana Department of Transportation was easy to work with and there wasn’t much bureaucratic red tape the group had to cut through to get the signs put up. “I  asked the DOT about it, and offered $5,300 to do it,” he said. “On a handshake and a great idea they went ahead with it.”

Things have changed. Now the DOT is asking that a local government sponsor get involved, so Newell said he’s working with Flathead County road department to push the sign process through. It took 18 months before the DOT finally got back to him on his initial request and told him they had a new policy he’d have to go through. The Montana Department of Transportation is now asking that the local SLOW organization pay the costs of maintaining the two new signs. Lucky, meanwhile, works most every day, his stern gaze never glancing from his duties. His papier mache face is patterned from an old wax image that Deborah once had made from her face. Jeremy moves Lucky to the chosen spot each day, alternating locations in order to keep drivers on their toes — and off the gas pedal, especially on the long inclines coming down into Somers and Lakeside. “Lucky has that police authority to him,” Newell said. Newell brings Lucky home each night, since he’s not able to defend himself against would-be vandals who might pelt him with rocks, Newell said. Lucky’s ride is a 1995 Crown Victoria donated by former Lake County sheriff Lucky Larson. The fake cop wears a badge donated by the Glasgow, Mont., police department. “It’s been fun,” Newell  said. “To us the idea of Lucky has a sense of humor, but also a sense of purpose.”

As a daylight cop, though, Lucky gets the job done. The new electronic signs will help, too. “If we get people to slow down, maybe we can avoid some accidents,” Newell said.

Saving Lives on the West Shore will have a fifth birthday party for Lucky June 19 from 4:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Tamarack Brewery in Lakeside.