When you’re sitting at a red light and a cop pulls up next to you, do you get nervous?
It’s an irrational fear, I guess, but I always do. The mood in the car always noticeably changes and things get quieter until the cops go their own way.
I’m only nervous when driving. When I see a copy walking down the street, they’re always friendly and say hi, so I smile and say hi back. Of course, I grew up in Los Angeles, where the LAPD and CHP are notorious pricks. Even then, though, cops walking on the sidewalks didn’t induce the sudden panic that a cop behind me did. I’d just see them and think, “Oh, a cop.” Here in the little town of Mpls, I do still get nervous when I’m driving, but when I pass one on the sidewalk, I kinda like it, sort of like how small children feel when they see a cop.
I try not to let just their presence rattle me. I will, however, advise my children to “act like you’re normal!” 
I find their presence reassuring, especially when they’re patrolling my neighborhood.
At a previous May 1 pro-immigration rally, I found myself inside a Baja Fresh full of SWAT team members. It was awesome.
That’s what Richard tells the rest of the fam in Little Miss Sunshine when the cop pulls him over because the car horn won’t stop bleating: “Everybody pretend to be normal!”
I always feel nervous. I have gotten one ticket (when I was 18) in my entire driving experience. I am never doing anything “wrong”. I have even worked along side Peace Officers for the majority of my adult life. In spite of all this, my heart always pumps a little faster and I feel a flush come on whenever a cop pulls up next to me or behind me. I can’t explain it. Maybe it is a result of being raised by hippies and having an instinctual distrust of “The Man”.
Not at all. They work for me don’t they? I like to think of them as my loyal servants who I can sic on evil-doers as needed.
Just because they’re paid with your money doesn’t mean they work for you.
I’m a 40 year old black man. Hell yeah.
When a cop is next to me I don’t have any issues so that’s what I picked but if a cop is behind me or approaching going the opposite way I start to get nervous. One of my buddies is a cop and so is his dad, I’m always a little cautious what I say around his dad but I’ve done enought illegal stuff with my buddy I have no fear.
Driving: I’m a pregnant woman in Volvo - I figure I don’t really ping anyone’s radar as a problem so I feel relieved - there are a lot of douchey drivers around these parts and I figure the presence of a cop probably makes them a bit less douchey, which is good for me.
Walking: no issue at all.
I am old and drive a Lincoln, so no I don’t worry.
I should have read the whole thread post. I would change my answer from safer to doesn’t matter.
I always become hyper-aware when driving and near police, but not necessarily nervous. Especially living in downtown LA now, I’m constantly passing or being passed by cops. My tags are legal, so I don’t tend to sweat it.
When walking, I find police presence to be kind of a relaxing thing. I’ve definitely stopped to chat with law enforcement. I’ve never had a negative incident as a result.
I’m a middle-aged, middle-class white guy who drives a middle-aged, middle-class car. For the last 25 years my primary experience in dealing with the police is when I call them. So, no, I’m not nervous around them.
However, I’ve advised my children that if they’re ever stopped to be unshakably courteous and polite, or be ready for a full body-cavity search.
I’m not afraid of the police , It’s those damn tazers they have that scare me. All they have to do is be having a bad day and pull me over and then have to wait for me to fish through my glove box for a few minutes for the registration. Already pissed off at how long it took me to find it they could easily say I gave then a hard time, then Zapppp. I’m flailing around the front seat while he is laughing his head off.
Yes I get nervous. I’m afraid I’m doing something wrong and don’t even realize it, like having a light out or maybe I just look like someone they’re after. That happened to our neighbor once and he was in jail a month before it got all straightened out. I’ve seen officers act in a shameful manner, from brutality to bribing a minor to give him oral sex so she wouldn’t be busted for underage drinking. I was a teen too so I was too scared to do anything but honestly I don’t know if I could do anything as an adult. I am very much afraid of the MPD. You can’t tell by looking which will help you or hurt you so I’m always nervous.
But hell I’m always nervous anyway. It’s probably just me.
Many years ago I worked writing parking tickets for the city. I wasn’t an official policeman (I was deputized) but I worked with the guys a lot. They don’t make me nervous.
It depends. If I’m somewhere normal, it makes no difference. If I’m driving driving across the Yemeni desert (as I’ve been known to do) I keep a bribe handy, just in case. YMMV etc.
Answers like “Well I’m not doing anything wrong, so I feel fine” are just silly. I’ll go ahead and assume that most of us don’t have hookers in the trunk of our cars. I never get nervous about them uncovering the crime that I’m not committing; I just get nervous because they’re cops.
Perhaps the answers here may be influenced by where we live, or have spent most of our lives, and how crooked the cops are there. I suppose I could imagine a theoretical planet in which the police only ticketed or arrested the bad guys, wherein I’d feel greatly relieved every time I saw an officer, but I lived in LA long enough (the city, not the valley or other burbs, and almost all my life) that if I see a cop flashing his light in someone’s face, I give it as even of a chance that the cop’s picking a fight that he is actually apprehending what cops call a “bad guy.”
I feel much better about the police here than I did in LA. Still, for whatever reason, cops near me in a car have and still do make me more nervous than the ones I pass on the sidewalk. The ones on the sidewalk have never made me nervous at all.