I was driving across town this morning to pick up my grandkids before my daughter headed off to work. It was misty and foggy and visibility was low, yet about a quarter of the yahoos out on the street were driving with no headlights on. Since the law says that you need to have your headlights on in low visibility situations, I always wonder why they don’t post a couple of cops on the main streets to pull these idiots over and write them a ticket. It seems like it would be easy pickings and they could probably fill their ticket quota in a day.
That sounds like the sort of messy weather that could cause some collisions. Maybe the police were busy dealing with real problems.
The cops aren’t* all* lazy fools eating donuts & filling their ticket quotas.
Well, for one thing, that cop would spend the rest of the year in court justifying what is “Low Visibility”.
It would cost more than it would generate, I imagine.
I don’t get tickets all the time, but when I do, I go to court. The court doesn’t want to mess around with speeding tickets and no seat belt shit, and every one (I think its been a total of 3) in the last 15 years have been dismissed.
I would think a lot of cops don’t want to pull over a lot of people in bad weather with poor visibility, as there is a greater likelihood that they might end up getting run over while standing on the side of the road or killed if another car strikes either their cruiser or the car they just pulled over. Its an odd phenomenon but I’ve noticed at least locally, contrary to what you would guess, if anything it seems like people speed and drive more recklessly when its pouring down rain, they seemed more rushed to get where they’re going.
In addition to the increased likelihood of getting hit while sitting on the side of the road in a low-visibility situation, there’s also the chance that they might get engaged in a needless chase in bad weather.
As the weather gets bad, their interest in enforcing minor traffic infractions in general seems to go down. It’s probably a combination of an already increased workload, and the higher chance of getting involved in a chase in worse conditions than usual over minor issues.
This. The driver simply goes to court and says that they could see just fine without their lights. The judge looks at the cop and says “and what is your proof?”. It’s hard to prove dangerously low visibility for a certain place at a certain time unless some impartial third party happens to have documented it.
According to the cops around us, a combination of Posts #4 and #5. The short answer is the risk outweighs the benefits. I can name two departments, maybe two, that did indeed use conditions like that to go on a ticketing spree but they actually modeled and planned out the action to minimize risks.
(Kilbuck Twp and Shickshinny PA)
Which is the argument of an idiot. Daytime lights help others see you.
The OP needs to watch more procedural crime dramas.
Right, I’m always bothered when it’s foggy or rainy and people don’t have their lights on, because it makes them a lot harder to see. Not that I want cops out giving out a lot of tickets, because that could be dangerous, but maybe use some of the electronic signs that say how the traffic is or say if there’s an Amber alert and make them say something about turning lights on when visibility is low because of weather.
Twenty years in law enforcement Shoeless… Here’s my two cents… 1 Usually on days like that we are slammed with accidents. Here in metro Atlanta area i particularly recall once logging on to be told we had 42 accidents pending… forty… two… Yeah.
Second… its kind of dangerous to stop a car in bad weather… you really take a chatnce on having your police car hit. I advise my rookies to use judgement… ie… unless its really dangerous don’t do it. As for the visibility… our law here is you have to have lights on no matter what… so no need to prove anything to the judge.
Sam the issue is automatic lights. People have become so accustom to NOT going through the procedure we all learned as kids… check your mirrors… adjust your seat… turn on your lights… they expect them to be already on… usually they’re shocked when I tell them they aren’t on
I thought a lot of states had laws requiring headlights on whenever windshield wipers are on.
It’s an interesting observation though, I’ve long wondered about this. Speed limits afaik, are predicated on daylight hours, clean dry roadway, in good weather. It’s no stretch to think that as conditions deteriorate, people need to slow down. So it would seem rainy or snowy blizzard conditions would be easy pickins. Maybe when it’s all done automatically, without putting people at risk.