Had a run in with a LEO tonight

[iwannadie]

Ok before I start, I wasn't ticketed tonight and I never have been ticketed for anything in my life.

I'm driving my daily route in my jeep which goes through a 25mph construction zone. I always slow down and go the speed limit I don't mess around. I get near the cones and check my speed and I'm going 25-26 before I get to the cones and carry on my way. As soon as I clear the cones, bam cop behind me hits the lights. I didn't even know a cop was behind me, not that I would have done anything differently.

I signal and pull into a gas station parking lot that's right next to me then roll the window down, put the dome lights on and turn the radio off keeping my hands in plain sight on the wheel.

The cop comes up and already with an attitude, "Are you in a hurry to go some where?" I reply that I'm not in a hurry which he aggressively follows up with "So you like to drive fast for fun then?". I respond saying that I was going 25mph through the construction zone and that I drive through it several times a day. With a little more aggression in his voice but not yelling or anything he says "You came in too hot and saw me pull a U turn then you slammed your brakes.". I tell him while staying calm and polite that I didn't see him at all pull a U turn and that I slowed down for the construction zone. Then he just stares at me, seriously stares at me for 30 seconds at least. I wasn't going to say anything without being asked a question. I'm not sure what he was waiting for me to say or do but I just sat there locked into a starring contest with a cop pointing a flash light at my face. It was the weirdest thing ever. 30 seconds isn't that long but when you are starring at someone after having a rather quick dialog it sorta leaves you hanging there like what is going on. I don't know if me braking eye contact would have been a submission of guilt or he was trying to tell if I was impaired or what.

After the 30 seconds he asks for my ID and walks away. He comes back shoving the ID at me and tells me "Slow down" and walks away.

I've been pulled over a bunch of times for stuff like brake light out, cracked tail light or suspicious behavior because I was driving at 3am on my way to work, always something stupid. The cops have always been cool and polite, thanking me for my time and cooperation saying have a good night or drive safely etc. I don't expect a hug after being pulled over but this guy was just creepy and looked like he was out for blood but had no cause to ticket me and that made him more angry. When I said that I was going 25mph he didn't correct me or say I was going faster yet he said I was speeding, I thought that was weird too.

So yea, that's all nothing spectacular but thought I'd share anyways and maybe get feedback on how to handle it better next time. I was kinda smiling at the Top Gun reference "coming in too hot" the rest of the drive.

 

[IJ.]

Mental case with a gun and badge......

 

[Dachande]

There are stupid people in every profession

 

[DreamerTheresa]

I fucking hate 99.9% of cops and wish ill things of them.

 

[GotBoost?]

Not to be a dick or anything, but I doubt he would have gone thru the trouble of pulling a U turn to get behind ya, if you really were going the speed limit. Also, cops are always very vigilant for speeders on construction and school zones, or any zone with a very low speed limit. They would prolly ignore you going 75 on a 65, but never going 25 on a 15 mph zone, for example. So just be grateful he didn't ticket you (justifiably or not). And I do know about them being trained to be authoritarian assholes, just to be clear.

 

[iwannadie]

Not to be a dick or anything, but I doubt he would have gone thru the trouble of pulling a U turn to get behind ya, if you really were going the speed limit. Also, cops are always very vigilant for speeders on construction and school zones, or any zone with a very low speed limit. They would prolly ignore you going 75 on a 65, but never going 25 on a 15 mph zone, for example. So just be grateful he didn't ticket you (justifiably or not). And I do know about them being trained to be authoritarian assholes, just to be clear.

I was going 25mph in a 25mph zone there is no question about it. I have no reason to lie here about it.

 

[mkiii222]

As many tickets as I've gotten over the years (~20) I've learned that cops are just regular folk. As with any group of people you are bound to have a few a-holes, a few that take their job way too seriously, and a general population of normal decent human beings. And yes, that's a lot of tickets for a 31 yo especially when you consider that I've only gotten 1 in the last 6 years (and only had 2 accidents since I've been driving, both at < 20 mph). At one point I had to visit the highway patrol hq and sit with a traffic judge to keep my license.

Most of them just sit and shoot the breeze while writing up the ticket. I've been let go more times than I can count, had a couple give me 'lesser' tickets (10 over instead of the 20+ over I was really doing...), had a few that just wrote the ticket and left, had a couple of a-holes that threatened to take me to jail, and even a few that wanted to check out my car (because they liked it not for official reasons, this mostly happened in my 95 Celica).

The worst I've ever had is a cop that followed me into a rest area for doing 10 over on I-75 just south of the TN/GA line at 4am. I had to go soooo bad and even explained that to the officer but he made me sit there for 20+ minutes. Then I get out of the car to use the bathroom and the doors are locked. #%@$$!. Just over a mile to the next exit but it felt like hours.

I'd say you just got the a-hole.

 

[hvyman]

Ive been pulled over about that many times maybe a little more and i have only had like 2 maybe 3 tops that were cool. In socal there are a lot of dick cop and up north in the middle of nowhere its even worse cause they dont have anything to do.

Oddly enough tho ive never been asked to pop my hood even if i was speeding. Seems wierd to me.

I finally relized tho, that if you obey the law they dont mess with you.

 

[7Matt-GE]

Not to be a dick or anything, but I doubt he would have gone thru the trouble of pulling a U turn to get behind ya, if you really were going the speed limit. Also, cops are always very vigilant for speeders on construction and school zones, or any zone with a very low speed limit. They would prolly ignore you going 75 on a 65, but never going 25 on a 15 mph zone, for example. So just be grateful he didn't ticket you (justifiably or not). And I do know about them being trained to be authoritarian assholes, just to be clear.

ive had cops do u-turns on me just because i was the only car on the street and they felt like trying to get close to the rear bumper of my car and antagonize me to see how i would react so they could pull me over.

 

[Tango_hotel]

Construction zone = Cash for the city

The enforcement has more to do with revenue than safety.

 

[Keros]

Sounds like he just wanted you to make yourself guilty of something.

 

[Supracentral]

The enforcement [strike]has more to do with[/strike] is about revenue [strike]than[/strike] and has nothing to do with safety.

Fixed that for ya...

 

[Tango_hotel]

Fixed that for ya...

lol, True.

 

[Dachande]

All the law enforcement haters on the internet crack me up.

 

[iwannadie]

All the law enforcement haters on the internet crack me up.

For the record, I don't have a problem with cops. This has been my only negative experience with a cop so far...

 

[trucker]

I get pulled over all the time. and dont get tickets. just be cool, and they seem to let ya go.

get pulled over, i pull waayy off the road, dome lights on, shut it off, keys on roof(yes, i do) hands on wheel till the gets up to car, dont go for paperwork till he asks for it, then do it nice and easy. yes sir i was hauling ass, no no reason other than cerebal rectosis(if they crack a smile at that, you are getting off). the side of the road isnt the place to argue about it, that is what court is for. I have taken tickets to court, and come out with not just dismissals, but not guilty verdicts.(in texas, i can no longer take dd classes with a cdl, no matter what im driving).

what i hate is getting profiled. a couple of times ive been pulled over under imiginary pretenses, to search me. lol, depending on how im feeling that day, i may look like a hippy who may be hauling a lil five leaf clover, or a biker hauling something a lil more serious.(6-1, 290, with full beard and hair to below my shoulder blades)

it must really suck for minorities...

 

[Tango_hotel]

All the law enforcement haters on the internet crack me up.

Meh, I don't hate them- they are merely doing a relatively thankless job. In my mind cops are in the same arena as IRS agents, janitors, or public works. But most traffic enforcement is just revenue generation, and cities use their police agencies as such more often than not.

 

[Dachande]

Meh, I don't hate them- they are merely doing a relatively thankless job. In my mind cops are in the same arena as IRS agents, janitors, or public works. But most traffic enforcement is just revenue generation, and cities use their police agencies as such more often than not.

Each agency is different, and the only ones that are really out there for traffic violations are highway patrol. Your city/sheriff's offices spend 90% of their shift responding to calls (mainly BS ones, mind you). I don't see the particular problem with them running traffic for part of their shift..especially when I see them sitting at 4 way stops in busy neighborhoods. All of my friends will only pull speeders over for 15mph above the posted limit, which is a really generous buffer.

 

[Supracentral]

Each agency is different, and the only ones that are really out there for traffic violations are highway patrol. Your city/sheriff's offices spend 90% of their shift responding to calls (mainly BS ones, mind you). I don't see the particular problem with them running traffic for part of their shift..especially when I see them sitting at 4 way stops in busy neighborhoods. All of my friends will only pull speeders over for 15mph above the posted limit, which is a really generous buffer.

It honestly depends on the municipality. For example, 51 Georgia cities have court fine collections that exceeded the sums the municipalities raise in property taxes. That's a government funded by speed trap.

John's Creek, GA is an example of a community that runs nearly on 100% traffic revenue. This is a very wealthy community with a shockingly large police force for its size. The revenue? It's all from a single 3 mile stretch of divided 4 lane with an artificially low (40mph) speed limit. Speed limit used to be 55 when it was an undivided 2 lane prior to the incorporation of John's Creek. At one point on this 4 lane there's a hill - at the bottom of it lives anywhere from 1-3 John's Creek cops 24/7 with laser speed guns. It's all they do all day, every day. And it's not got a damned thing to do with safety.

The city of Doraville, GA is another, and worth looking at. Interstate 285 passes through Doraville for a paltry 2.8 miles and the revenue from that stretch of highway exceeds the tax revenue for the entire city with a population of 10,000+ people.

If revenue is the only justification for police, you can effectively have an infinite number. The studies have shown that the costs to train, equip and maintain a "revenue collector" with a radar gun are far exceeded by the revenue he can bring in.

Even the US DOT has published studies that show that speed isn't the primary contributing factor in most fatal automotive accidents. The real contributing factors aren't "easy revenue generators" so they aren't pursued as aggressively as speeding tickets.

You live in a society with a government that is encroaching on people's rights and is becoming prohibitively expensive. When the agents of government engage in the sort of behavior I've described above, you can and should expect general sentiment to turn against them.

Your friends may be very cool, I'd be interested to see what they think of the tax collectors with badges you see in my local area...

 

[shaeff]

I get profiled all the time. They usually come up to my window with a serious attitude problem. Tell me I have a tail light out or something stupid. I tell them that every light on my vehicle is in perfect working order, so "what's the real reason you pulled me over?"

They usually make it an effort to stick their heads into the car and inhale deeply. I don't smoke pot, nor have I ever in my life. I don't do drugs, and never have, most likely never will. I get my fix other ways. It's beyond annoying to get pulled over all the time for non-existent reasons. It's probably because I drive a black M3 with tint, shiny aluminum wheels that resemble chrome, with an aftermarket (very classy sounding, I might add) exhaust. Even if people speed past ME when I'm doing exactly the speed limit with the cruise set, they still tailgate me and light me up.

The last one was going the opposite direction on my favorite back road. I could have lost him in a heartbeat. My car handles like a goddamn roller coaster. But instead, (I've calmed down a lot ) I kept rolling along and he came so close up my ass to light me up it was retarded. Gave me attitude, asked me to step out of the vehicle, and asked why I tried to run. Fucking unbelievable. Maybe next time I will disappear like in my wild(er) days. They're giving me more and more reasons to.

By the way, I didn't step out of the car. I refused. I did absolutely nothing wrong, called him out on everything he said. He was a fucking n00b. His voice was trembling the entire time. LOL. I asked him what his radar reading was. He hesitated and said 50. The speed limit is 40. I told him to get it re-calibrated and to have a nice night. He kinda stuttered for a second, and said that he better not catch me speeding around again, to which I replied, "don't worry, you won't catch me."