Ever been pulled over by a cop? My first time was today. Bad experience.

Odd timing, I was just pulled over the other day. I used to get pulled over an awful lot when I was younger and a more aggressive driver, but strangely I get more tickets now than I did then, even though now I’m much more controlled than I was then.

I was “caught” going 32mph in a 20mph zone outside a high school. It was 1:40 in the afternoon and though I saw the posted speed limit sign that said 20, like everyone else in the world I believed the fine print on the bottom to say “When chilldren are present.”

Being the middle of a school day and seeing no children present I disregarded the posting of 20 and maintained my 30ish average.

It turns out that the fine print did not read “When children are present.” It is the only sign in the country (so far as I’ve ever seen) that reads, “Between 7:30am and 3:30pm,” or thereabouts.

Anyone else ever see a speed limit (especially in a school zone)sign reliant on the time of day? The whole thing is questionable ethics if you ask me. Borderline entrapment. And the motorcycle officer was so damn smug about it too…

I was pleasant and even chipper when he came to the car (it’s old hat for me now. Considering the contraband I used to carry, you get used to talking down officers and pretending everything is cool. They pounce on fear like a wild animal), but he still went out of his way to also write me a ticket for not having my vehicle registration.

You’d think he would be down the street breaking up the methamphetamine deals I drove past while cursing my luck and reading my ticket, but I guess you have to have priorities…

When I was in my early twenties, I was travelling in the left lane when a car in front stopped to turn left; I simply whipped over to the right lane and zipped around him, and I guess I didn’t depress the turn signal enough to close the switch. (I realize that if I saw someone doing the exact same thing today, I would say “Look at that maniac weaving in and out!”).

Nevertheless, a New Jersey state trooper pulled me over and we went through the whole routine. He asked me if I knew why I was pulled over; I didn’t. He then announced that he was going to give me a summons for “failure to use directional”.

Fine. I was displeased, but there wasn’t much I could do about it.

He went back to his car to fill out the paperwork. When he walked back up to my car, I observed another police cruiser approaching. The trooper said that his supervisor was stopping by for a minute. Uh oh…

They had a little chat, and then the senior officer got in his car went back onto the highway and turned left onto a cross street.

The trooper handed me the ticket, and that’s when my stupidity kicked in. I don’t know what was clouding my good judgment at that precise moment, but as he was walking away we had the following exchange:

Me: Officer…
Trooper: Yes?
Me: When your supervisor left, did you notice he failed to use his directional?

Trooper: (does double-take) Excuse me?

Me: (repeat smartass comment)

Some angel was looking over me at that precise moment because I watched the trooper’s expression quickly go from one of surprise to one of anger, and then pause – he was considering something – and then he told me to drive safely.

Looking back on this episode, I realize that that trooper was considering one of the following:

  1. Actively looking for, and finding, several other violations.
  2. Pummling my stupid ass and then saying I provoked it.
  3. Hauling me in, towing my car, and making my life miserable.

I am pleased that he apparently decided that I was just a smartass kid who should know better, but that there were bigger fish to fry.

I’ve been pulled over a total of four times in about 20 years of driving. Each time I’ve been released without a citation.

  1. Left turn into the oncoming lane of a split four-lane. It was late & dark and I didn’t know the area. There was no traffic (the police must’ve been lurking in the dark in sight of the intersection) so I turned left onto the road. I didn’t realize this was a split four-lane & was in the oncoming late. Something seemed wrong so I slowed & looked around to realize the road’s edge stripes were reversed. I found the first pull-through possible and pulled through it just as the lights came on behind me. The cops scanned the interior of my car with flashlights (to look for empties, I figure) decided I was confused & let me go.

  2. Speeding. I was coming home to my apartment & mentally raving about issues related to my in-progress divorce. The anger came out as too much pressure on the gas. When asked “Did you have a good reason for speeding?” I faltered and said “No.” Truly, while a good friend was sleeping with my wife before the divorce was final, speeding is not a “good” response to that situation. The cops warned me and let me go.

  3. Running a blinking-red light. It was 2:00 am in a nasty part of Kansas City & I was lost. In my confusion, I drove through a red-blinking light without stopping. (In my defense, I’m partially red/green color blind and red lights are hard to distinguish from yellow sometimes). I stopped my car for the cop, turned on the interior lights, rolled down the window & waited with my hands in clear sight on the steering wheel. The cop & I talked politely, he gave me directions to the interstate & let me go.

  4. Western colorado. I was traveling from Yellowstone to Mesa Verde through the high plains on the west side of the rockies. It was a high-speed two-lane (super-two) and I was driving smoothly - in the zone so to speak. The cop appeared behind me with lights on but no siren and had to wait for oncoming traffic to clear before he could pull around me. I simply didn’t notice him. When I arrived at the scene of the accident to which he was heading, he stopped me and gave me a lecture about pulling to the right when a cop was behind him. I kept my mouth shut but, frankly, if he was in such a hurry, he should’ve been running with his siren. No ticket, though.

The lesson I’ve learned. Be nice, cooperate, make their job easy.

Rookies…
I have been ticketed around 15 times in the 16 years I have been driving. Strangely enough i can’t remember EVER having been let go with a warning…kinda even makes me mad to hear from those of you who have. I have, however, not been pulled over in apprx. 3 years so I think I have learned my lesson (that and I live a block and a half from my work…). Everybody here has been relaying their experiences in such detail…I can barely remember half of mine. Heres a sample (if you care),

speeding x 5 or so…
dui
driving on suspended x 2
failure to yield
illegal lane change
illegal pass over double yellow
red light violation
stop sign violation
comuter lane violation x 2
…geez maybe it is more than 15…
exhibition of speed (peeling out)
failure to signal

there might be more I have forgotten.
And these don’t include non-vehicular violations and arrests.
Maybe I should start an “Ask The Fuck-Up Who Always Gets Busted” thread…
damn…what a loser I am.

I’ve been stopped maybe six or seven times in twenty-some years of driving, and every time it was justified; I was breaking the law (speeding, usually). About half the time the cop let me off with a warning.

My advice: Cops are typically alpha-male pack-leader personalities. So you want to be a beta: Give off submissive signals, don’t argue, be polite and obedient. Say neutral things like “I guess I just wasn’t paying attention.” Arguing is just gonna make things worse. Dinsdale is right; if you don’t get a ticket, it’s a victory for you; if it takes a little play-acting, so be it.

Once I was in Ocean Shores, doing maybe thirty in a twenty in my sister-in-law’s car. The cop pulls me over, looks in the car. There’s my wife, my mother-in-law, and my sister-in-law all in the car. He tells me to be more careful and lets me go; I figure he thought that if I got a ticket in front of all those female relatives I’d never hear the end of it :wink:

I have been pulled over twice, both in the first year of driving.

The first time I was pulled over for suspected DWI. I’d JUST gotten my license, and still had a little trouble staying in the center of the lane. When the cop asked how much I’d had to drink, I told him that I never drink. I don’t. He looked at me like I was not only lying, but I was telling the most absurd lie he’d ever heard. So I lied. I said I was Mormon. I don’t even drink caffiene. Amazingly I was dressed conservatively despite being on my way home from Rocky, and he bought it. He let me go.

The second time I was pulled over for speeding through a school zone, only I swear I never went through one. I was driving to work, and I think I’d know if my route to work went through a school zone. When he pulled me over I was like three miles from where he said the school zone was, and going the opposite direction. Still, I tried to be nice. I was terrified. The cop was rude and condescending the whole time; he acted like I was trying to cry my way out of the ticket and was not shy about showing his contempt. Then the moron didn’t even show up for court and the ticket was thrown out.

Every school zone I have ever seen was dependant on the time of day. School zones (in my area) are in effect during the hours that children are coming to school, and when they are leaving. Usually something like 7:30 - 8:30 and 3:15 - 4:15.

«Ðëëp¤F®ïêd»™, have you ever thought about changing your driving habits? I’d hate to see your insurance bills, assuming there’s a company out there that WILL insure you!

Most of the school zone signs I’ve seen WERE time-dependent. But they weren’t for all day; usually it was something like 7 AM to 9:30 AM and 2:30 PM to 4:30 PM. I hate the “when children are present” one because it seems like it’d be SO easy to ticket somebody based on it; after all, the cop could always claim that there HAD been a child around but they aren’t now, or something like that. I’m sure most cops wouldn’t outright lie like that, but there are some who would.

My stepdad got caught in a setup speed trap; he was going 30 on a smallish road because he hadn’t seen a sign, but there was a cop sitting by an intersection pulling EVERYBODY over. Turns out there WAS a sign; it was about twenty feet off the ground, behind a tree, on the wrong side of the road. I can’t blame him for that one! This area is noted for its speed traps. I honestly believe that the cops have quotas.

You bet whiterabbit . I have only had a speeding ticket, I took traffic school to get off my record, in the last 4 years or so. Most of my other transgressions were earlier in my “wasted youth” and have since drop off my record. I think they disappear in 5 years…or maybe 7, i can’t remember.
Your point is well taken though. I know I was a danger to others and myself on the road. I am lucky I didn’t kill anyone. I did come close when I hit a motorcyclist going around 90…That sure scared me straight. ( He survived with a concussion and a broken collarbone ). I am not proud of the way I was and the risks I took with others safety. I am, in fact, ashamed. That shame and the fact I have someone and her kids well-being to account for keeps me in line.
Regarding the OP, I have been a similar situation as you describe except it was a plain close firefighter who appearred to be waving me through with his hand held stop/slow sign. He apparently wasn’t. He ran to a nearby cop and together they pulled me over and pulled me from my car, cuffed me, searched me and my car, threw me in the back off the cop car and screamed till they were blue in the face. Eventually, they wrote me a ticket and released me. I ended up being 2 and a half hours late for a new job and was fired on the spot.
So all in all, IMHO, you got off easy.

I’ve gotten ONE ticket in the 23 years I’ve been driving - and that was for running a stop sign (it was in a part of town I wasn’t familiar with, and the sign was behind a tree branch). And here’s a quirk for you: The cop didn’t even see me running the stop sign!

{If only I hadn’t hit that Vega…)

The one time I’ve been pulled over was in Louisiana, in a little old lady car (my grandmother’s Reliant, which she’d handed down to me to drive to college) with New York plates. I was speeding - doing 81 in a 70 zone. I admitted to the speeding, because I knew I wasn’t going to get out of the ticket. But things got off on the wrong foot from the start because of a difference in police operations between Louisiana and New York. In New York you are taught very strictly to NEVER EVER EVER EVER get out of your car when a cop pulls you over. Don’t touch your seat belt, don’t act like you’re going to open the door, do NOTHING until the officer walks over to your window, THEN open the window to talk to him. In Louisiana, apparently you’re supposed to get out and stand behind your car. The cop stood behind my car for like fifteen minutes, tapping his feet, before he finally shouted at me to get out of the car. Then he proceeded to grill me on what I was doing in Louisiana when I obviously belonged in New York. Was I there for work? For school? It’s an awfully long way to drive. Was this my car? Why did I drive it to Louisiana? Where had I come from? Where was I going? Why wasn’t I in New York? I didn’t seem to have enough luggage in my car to justify taking a trip from New York to Louisiana. (I was on my way to Texas to be with my fiance, as I told him twice, only to be asked why my fiance lived in Texas if I lived in New York, how I met him, and why I was going to see him that weekend.) And by the way, why was I in Louisiana instead of in New York?

Then the damn ticket ended up being close to $200, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it but beg for money (I was flat broke, couldn’t find a job in my tiny, overpopulated college town) and mail it in.

Then there’s the time my sister and I were on our way back to her home in Biloxi after a night in New Orleans, and we got pulled over in Slidell without breaking a single law, just so the cop could run a Breathalyzer on my sister and then tell her she hadn’t been drinking. :rolleyes: