So then should I have called 911 to report the cop that passed me this morning (at a legal 70 mph) who was talking on the phone?
In TN it is only illegal to text while driving, talking is fine. Only school bus drivers and people with limited licenses or learner’s permits may not use a cell phone. It’s fair game for the rest of us.
I agree with the others that while you are focused on getting someone’s plate# and thinking about calling it it, then slowing and pulling off to do so you are EVERY bit as distracted and dangerous as the person you are reporting.
I have come very close to rear ending more than a few people who decide that they need to pull over to take a call. If they’d signal first, then go over at speed and slow down once on the verge it would be one thing. Most of these self absorbed ass hats though just take their foot off the gas and slowly drift over, with maybe a twitch of a signal. It sure gets my adrenaline going whenI’m in a giant pickup pulling a horse trailer with horses in it. That’s not a rig to make fancy moves with, and if I hit you because you’ve gone from 60 to 40 with no warning, it ain’t gonna be pretty.
So yes, other drivers misbehaving is a pain in the ass and potentially dangerous. Do what the rest of us do - keep you wits about you and your eyes oiled, and take out your frustration in creative cursing. Leave the poor 911 operators alone.
Does the OP have any special training in traffic laws, etc? Should the police have probable cause to pull me over just because (s)he (The OP) believes I am in violation of his interpretation of the law?
But thats not the same kind of situation. A clearly deranged person without a pistol can be immediately dangerous. A deranged person with a pistol in front of my house or on the street presents a clear, present danger to life and property.
A jackass making an illegl lane change? Not so much. People on cell phones? Dangerous and illegal, but I wouldn’t call 911 about it. (Though if a cop pulls them over I’d cheer)
Again, even if you call 911 a police officer isn’t going to hunt down that license plate and ticket the driver for talking on his cell phone earlier in the day as reported by some anonymous caller. Nothing is being accomplished.
** quietly applauding a very articulate response **
Also, Clocky’s line
makes a good point. The cops don’t play he-said-she-said. Can you imagine being pulled over, and the cop says: “Ma’am, do you know why I pulled you over? No? I pulled you over because somebody told me they saw you make a lane change without signaling. I didn’t see it, but some random dude did, so here’s your ticket.”
Pulykamell - Here is what I,ve been told, When I call 911 to report an erratic or agressive possibly dangerous driver the operator takes the information passes it on to the troopers in the area and they keep an eye out for that vehicle. What the troopers do from that point I can only presume, and I presume they may or may not shadow the vehicle to see how it is being driven or possibly stop the vehicle and explain to the driver that they have received a report about them. I am sure that state troopers are very well trained on how to determine culpability. I also feel that if a driver is behaving aggresively just seeing a police crusier in their rear view may be enough of a deterrent to make the driver behave a little more “fiendly” to the rest of the road users.
I have also done as Cadence said called to report a disabled vehicle though not so much now as in the past, due to the prolference of cellular phones.
Kayaker- No I do not have the training that a trooper or police officer has. I have been a professional driver for msny years though and have many safe driving miles behind me, and I do spend alot of time on the road even to the present day.The point I seem to be unable to make is that there is really no good reason not to report a bad driver, and many good reasons to do so.
1: The driver may have just committed a crime
2: They driver may be intoxicated, or ill or just plain tired
3: the driver may be crazy or trying to commit suicide by vehicle
One never really knows does one? I always call to report an accident, and many times I’ve been told “thank you, we already have that report.” So, I don’t feel that our 911 operatos are being overwhelmed with more calls than thay can handle as some of the posters have mentioned. Actually I did go to school to be an emergency dispatcher and got to see several of the call centers one of which was the SPD. Unfortunately I was unable to complete the requirements to become certified as an EMD, I can say though that once the candidate has passed the course that is only the beginning of their training. In the EMD centers around here there are Call Recievers and EMDs who do the actual dispatch.
When you drive on the freeway and see debris in the road that may cause an accident I’ve had just that happen to me, a recap that was lying in the the road, and I was too close to the vehicle in front to see it in time to preform a safe evassive so I had to run over it caught my front wheel and tore part of my bumper off. The cap wasn’t an accident had someone called it in sooner though a trooper may have gotten there in time to remove it safely. Had I tried to swerve to avoid the recap I more then likely would have caused a more serious accident.
Also for KAYAKER agressive driving is against the law in the state of WA as is not using a hands free device whil;e using a cellular phone, these are not my interpertations of the law, they are the law. Do you KAYAKER feel that you are above the law? That you shouldn’t be stopped by the police if you do break the law?
I guess where we’re getting hung up is here: do you actually call the police for minor infractions like tailgating, illegal lane changes, and cell phone usage, or do you call when you see somebody driving completely erratically, like they’re intoxicated or crazy, as you say above? I mean, I hate tailgaters as much as you do. I hate people who change lanes without signaling. I’d wipe 'em off the face of the earth if I could. But, at least where I’m at, there’s really nothing I can do about it. It’s literally impossible to drive the city without witnessing multiple infractions of tailgating, and the cops will very, very rarely cite you for it unless you’ve been in an accident. I honestly don’t know anyone who’s gotten a tailgating ticket, yet drive the interstate at almost any time of day and you will see continuous tailgating infractions. Same with illegal lane changes.
My common sense solution is, unless I see somebody that really looks like they’re going to kill someone (swerving in and out of lanes appearing intoxicated or other incapacitated), I’ll just let the law enforcement take care of it on their own, if they should choose to do so. And most of the time, they don’t care, either. Everybody breaks a driving law from time to time. Every. Single. Person. It’s not Joe Q. Public’s responsibility, in my opinion, to spy and snitch on their neighbors for minor infractions like this.
And did you report yourself for failing to keep a safe distance? :dubious:
If you did not have time to react, you either were too close (as per your own admission) or you have a physical problem; vision or reflexes (but that’s for a doctor to decide), either way you’re a menace to traffic; I think I have to report you, what’s your name and registration number?
Right. In contrast to what some others have said, its clear to me that it is just fine in the OP’s location to call 911 for non-emergency reasons.
Clearly, the kinds of things he is calling about are not emergencies. But also, they are not possible felonies. They are not even possible misdemeanors. They are simple traffic infractions.
This is akin to calling the authorities to complain about your neighbors allowing their lawn to overgrow (because it could catch on fire and burn down the neighborhood!), calling the meter maids because someone is parked in a handicapped space (because some real handicapped person could have a heart attack trying to walk across the whole parking lot!) or calling the police because someone is lingering too long at an airport loading/unloading only zone (because they could be terrorists!).
These may be annoying (I get a little pissed when people misuse handicapped spaces), but they aren’t serious crimes. They are chickenshit issues.
If the OP wants to call the “800-HOW-AM-I-DRIVING” numbers, go for it. I applaud him. But for the rest of the stuff, don’t bother the police with minor traffic infractions. Again, they are chickenshit issues.
How do we know that they are chickenshit issues? Because even if the perpetrators are caught, they would get chickenshit traffic tickets. Case closed.
In the state of WA aggressive driving is a primary offense; driving while using a cellular Phone (sans handsfree device) is a primary offense the state troopers are mandated to patrol the freeways they cannot be every where, the 911 call takers and disp. persons are well trained in thei jobs, they know when to pass calls on to the troopers and when not to.
No I do not patrol the parking lots looking for handicap violaters, perhaps were I ihandicap I would,I have evry confidence that the handicap can take pretty good care of themselves as far as reporting space violators. Why do troopers use radar,and set up speed traps if not to catch speeders then why? Is speeding just a minor infraction? I suppose it depends on how fast the speed is over the speed limit Suppose the flow of traffic is moving along smoothley at 7mph. over the posted limit, I don’t call 911 and report 203 cars exceeding the speed limit moving South at 67 mph. BUT, if there is one jag off going 75 and weaving in and out of traffic or a couple of cars racing as if they were the only vehicles on the road,yes I would try to report them, because they are a danger not only to themselves but to others as well you and your family, your spouse and children. Yes, the troopers may not beable to catch the racers, but they have a discription, yes the troopers may not be able to charge the drivers with a violation but I will goldurn gauruntee you when the troopers are done talking to the drivers they will drive in a more friendly fashion. At least for awhile. I beleive that any adult with common sense can tell the difference between negligant agressive behavior and the occasional misguided driver who has a momentary lapse of good judgement, and changes lanes without signaling. I also would say that most aggressive driving is done by the citizen motorist ,not the commercial driver. People like you and I .“Crap I over slept, can’t be late for work again this week, will I be late for the sale? We gotta get there early if we wanna get the good seats.” I will report the commercial driver if need be. I will ask this question of the posters who say that 911 should only be called if there is an accident crime fire or other who knows what emergency, i if you could have prevented said emegency by making a single free phone call ,would you have placed that call?
AClockworkMelon: why don’t you try this experiment? Go to your nearest freeway, pull off to the breakdown lane call your local emegency disp. # and give the operator your vehicle lic. # and discription and say perhaps " i am reporting an erratic driver, they are weaving in and out of traffic pulling on and then off the shoulder." then say " it looks like they have parked on the shoulder." Then give the nearest mile marker number, hang up and wait. let us all know what happens
The problem is that most traffic violations do not result in any problems. People violate all the time, and nothing happens. This means, that when you are calling on them, you are tattling.
You indicate that your reasoning has nothing to do with safety. You are irritated, and thus call. Even if the police do come out, what you are doing is bullying, which is also wrong.
When you are doing something that involves other people, and every person you talk to tells you to stop, then you do. It is not up to you to decide how safe I want to be. There are police officers that have that job, but you are not one of them.
And this is beside the fact that, since there are a limited number of cops, and a limited number of hours available to work, that most of what you say is going to be ignored. You are likely being laughed about behind all the cops backs for calling so much. Most people learn in grade school that minor offenses should not be reported–that’s called tattling. And all traffic violations are minor offenses, or they would be crimes.
Really? Since you are the one who is so convinced someone will show up, how about you do that and report back? The rest of us have other things to do. How long will you wait?
I’m really starting to think you are trolling this thread because you keep comparing apples to lima beans. But, what the heck… I’ve got time on my hands.
Pulling over and stopping on the shoulder of a freeway is something a cop would always stop for. I can see a few outcomes. First of all he would ask if there was a problem. If you respond “just taking a quick break” or “got a phone call” etc he would tell you to move on. Highly unlikely but if he said we had a report of you weaving and driving erratically and you respond with “sorry, got a call, tried to pull over and noticed a car in my blind spot, then slowed to merge over behind him” he would tell you to be careful and move on. If you said “well, yes I was” he would tell you to knock it off and move on. If you told him you were conducting an experiment based on a web post he would likely cite you for false reporting.
Now, and I don’t recommend this… is if you called and reported yourself, and continued driving and either took some random exit or whatever you would likely never see any cop. If on the off chance you did and were driving properly at the time you did you would never get bothered.
At least you have gotten closer than comparing no signal to a madman waiving a gun. Still, 99.9% of the people responding are telling you that you are wrong. Did you ever stop to think of that for a second? Unless of course you are just looking for reactions to absurd posts (which is fine… I’m the first to laugh at being taken).