Why do you think there ever was such a day? The policing system, especially in rural areas and in the South, was created to maintain the social hierarchy.
Well, then the problem has been fixed, so the Judge should be willing to dismiss the ticket.
Around here, those would be issued as fix-it tickets: you have 14 days to get the problem fixed and then bring the car to any police officer, who can look at the fixed problem/repair bill from a mechanic and then void the ticket. (In some towns, the police even give out coupons provided by local repair shops that give X $ off on such repairs.)
I realize state laws differ, and OP doesn’t say which state. But OP’s public profile says ‘Midwest’ and the first three states I checked (IL, WI, IN) had laws similar to NY’s, all with the 50’ visibility requirement, all mentioning a white light, none specifically saying or even implying IMO that multiple license plate lights all have to work just because they are there even if one sufficiently illuminates the plate.
I think like other cases of revenue-oriented traffic stops, it ends up as a ticket for the most plausible thing, in this case that valid insurance card wasn’t produced immediately, and the validity of other claims or the original pretext for the stop is only important if person challenges the ticket and the local court is in any mood to consider throwing out the ticket because of that. Which is many cases they wouldn’t be, which is why realistically most people vent and commiserate about stuff like this but just pay it.
My 50% similar story is one of three times in 40+ yrs I’ve been pulled over (warning for expired inspection sticker in LA where I lived, warning for speeding in IN when passing passing through, I think he was exaggerating my speed just after a 55>45mph transition but could have caught me going 90 [on small rural road] a few miles back so I’m not up on my high horse about it 
and the following). ‘Pulled over’ by a pedestrian cop, in Jersey City NJ near where I live, for supposedly blocking an intersection in a traffic jam, actually avoiding another guy who recklessly cut me off, in front of near zero traffic side street to/from an area of abandoned warehouses. Anyway that kind of went away and it ended up as a ticket for no valid insurance card…which I later found I just hadn’t dug deep enough in the glove box to find, but after everything was over. He said it would it be fine if I showed up in court with the valid card. Nope, that just reduced it from a shitload to pretty expensive. Revenue raising.
Back when I was young and very poor, I drove a range of different jalopies. I’m talking a beat up Pinto, a Datsun B610 that had been rolled, a super oxidized late 60’s VW bug, etc. During this decade of my life, I was routinely pulled over for having lights out, not coming to complete stops, having a cracked windshield, having a bald tire (that was a real excuse for pulling me over), etc. Most of these incidents didn’t end up with a citation after they had looked through my car as much as possible (I did get a few well deserved speeding tickets).
Now that I drive a “nice” car and have gray hair, I never get pulled over.
That’s my anecdotal evidence.
From my brother-in-law, the policeman: The sergeant shouting as roll call ends and the police officers are leaving the room, “Fifteen tickets! I need fifteen tickets from each of you tonight!”
Would the OP mind telling us the name of this podunk shithole town where the fleecing occurred so we can all avoid it.
Unless of course a public news article has since appeared saying that a certain officer was removed from the force for unreported reasons.
It’s named Anytown, USA.
Regards,
Shodan
We have owned our place in Connecticut since 1991, and I am now officially a resident of NY because of needing to be near my Mom in her managed care facility and keeping the family house from being robbed after my brother passed so my vehicle has NY tags on it. I got pulled over by the local state cops in WIllimantic on my way home a couple nights ago. The novice statie and his old timer trainer walked up to the van and he started to give me the whole deal figuring I was out of state and touristy until the trainer who I have known for about 20 years and I started chatting about his sheep. Trainee objected, figuring I guess that since I was out of state he had to find something to give me a ticket for, so my buddie told him to back off, I was only out of state because my bro had died and I was living at the family home taking care of my mom and that my husband had been Navy and we had lived in state for longer than the trainee had been alive 
You know, I hear stuff like this about quotas all the time - and the number always seems to be around 10-15. Maybe it’s an actual problem somewhere- but I have a 15 minute drive to work and on most days, there are at least 15 tickets that could be written on that commute. A cop working a full shift here shouldn’t have any problems writing 15 legit tickets.
Tell me the sergeant wants 100 tickets from each, and I can see where that’s an incentive to write bogus tickets. But a quota of 15 tickets a shift in itself doesn’t really explain it.
I don’t know about your jurisdiction, but you aren’t entitled to a jury trial for civil infractions in mine.
I’ve often thought that most places could solve any budget issues by enforcing cellphone while driving laws. I would be shocked if I couldn’t write at least 2-3 during each of my 6 minute suburban commutes.
Set up an unmarked car w/ cameras set to video the car next to them, then fall back to video the license plate. Hell - don’t even stop - just mail the ticket like redlight cameras. Ka-CHING!
People act differently when there’s a cop around. I had two Taurus SHO’s in a row; that front grille looks like po-lice. People got out my way in the left lane they don’t when I’m in a Fusion, Mustang, or Expedition. I’ve got an Explorer on the way. Can’t wait to see what happens.
Happened to me once or twice a few years back on the way to work. “Kids” tearing up farm fields with a pickup of the same color. By the time he got to me in the truck he most likely knew it wasn’t me. Two wheel drive S-10s are not really reliable off road trucks. Plus run the plates for an old guy and see the lunch pail on the seat next to me.
Hmmm, been pulled over more times than I can recall. I’ve even been able to argue with the cop and walk away without so much as a warning once or twice. No, I don’t recommend that. The side of the road is a poor place to adjudicate such things for an almost limitless list of reasons. In those cases the cop was so stupid and wrong I couldn’t help myself, and I got lucky.
My point being - I’ve been pulled over at least a hundred times, and been arrested. They approach whatever window they prefer, and almost always have a look around with their flashlight if it’s dark. I’d really wonder about the sanity of a cop that didn’t. I have never met a cop who was that much of a dickwad over minor ass crap like that, though. I would have almost certainly said something to him about how he can waste his life how he likes, but I resent him wasting part of mine with a ticket that’s almost always going to be dismissed.*
In every instance where I’ve gotten an insurance ticket, it was because I didn’t have the current card on me. I’ve always had insurance. You’d be an idiot to drive like me, and without insurance I would be too. Most cops give up on asking after I’ve produced the fourth or fifth expired 6-month card from my wallet and just say, “OK, I believe you have insurance.” Sometimes I actually find the current one before that. As mentioned before, an honest judge will see this as a “fix it ticket”. If you show up with an insurance card that was valid for the date, it’s usually dismissed with a small fee (if that). I want to say the last fee I paid for that was $15. Heck, if it were even a medium sized city, you could probably handle it by only talking to the clerk.
So, in my expert traffic scofflaw/perpetrator’s opinion you should feel mildly disgusted with this cop over this stop. The bastard was obviously fishing for something, and he suuuuuucks at his job for not finding a truly valid reason to stop you. Because as noted, you could follow anyone for 15 minutes and find a valid reason for stopping them if you really need to. This guy can’t even do that. Should you make a complaint? Hmm, I don’t know. I don’t file complaints about most people I encounter sucking at their jobs, but those folks also aren’t entrusted with the state’s monopoly on violence. I’d at least look up on how to file a complaint, and consider it. I’ve never filed a complaint on a cop. Even if I wasn’t breaking the law on most of my nonsense stops, the car or I gave off enough of a weirdo vibe that they were justified in stopping me and seeing what was going on just out of healthy curiosity for what was happening on the road. If I was cited, there was a genuine reason for doing it.
*Hey, since I’m also the person who goes “Wow, I said that out loud, huh?”, it’s better that I actually intend to say something. At least when I mean to say it, it’s not my unfiltered subconscious getting control of my language centers and going nuts. That’s often exciting, but never pretty
As far as proof of insurance, why not just throw away the old insurance card/document when you put the new one in your glovebox/wallet?
Welcome to the game. For the most part this kind of traffic policing is simply revenue generation and they don’t really care if you are “innocent” or not.
I’ve been playing the police game for many years, you win some, you lose some. If you really care you just get a lawyer to take care of it (always get a local one btw).
As I hang out with a lot of car guys on and go on “drives” with car clubs I’ve seen some pretty insane stuff. Probably the craziest are the cops my friend has video of who literally did slight u-turns at 60mph to turn around quickly just because they wanted to pull someone over for speeding. These cops all think they are above the law, and when it comes to driving offences they basically are.
Of course my friends also feel they are above the law. For example one time a cop threatened to tow my friends car. He just said “Go ahead, I’ll have another car here in an hour.” Rich guys, whatcha gonna do lol?
In my state you are now allowed to show a digital proof of insurance on your phone btw. I thought that was cool.
Because I’m not really an organized person, and it’s kind of fun to hand them a bunch of different, almost identical, insurance cards until they get one they like?
Yeah, it wasn’t a great plan coming to fruition. It just ended up being part of getting stopped that I find hilarious now. I was actually kind of disappointed when I found the right one on the first try the last time I got stopped. Then the trooper got sputteringly angry when I said I didn’t know how fast I was going and then tried to make me try to feel bad for going 20 over, which I found funny as hell. That made up for it.
I used to get maybe a ticket a year when I lived in the DC area (7 or 8 total). Since I worked at night, I had plenty of time to fight them in court. Every ticket I fought, I fought successfully (though there were two I didn’t bother, I was too obviously in the wrong). I noticed a couple of things:
–Most people who show up to traffic court dress the way they would if they were going to 7-11. Judges appreciate it if you wear a jacket and tie, and it greatly improves your chances of beating a ticket.
–Cops often write something wrong on the ticket, like a wrong address, and they sometimes lose their notebook. One time, while i was waiting for my case to come up, the cop was trying a little too hard to look smug and confident. It was kind of conspicuous. After the judge explained that there was a double-or-nothing penalty for pleading not guilty and being found guilty, I pled guilty and the cop had to admit he lost his notebook and didn’t even remember the incident.
Go to traffic court and treat it like a really great game of poker.
We researched what happened to you a while back and your Police officer friend is right.
One other thing, what happened to you happens about 20 times more in low income Black and minority communities. The difference is, people in those communities, most often are driving vehicles that are older and in most cases have citable issues that allow Police Officer to dig more into the lives of the driver and occupants thereby costing them more money and in a few cases unwarranted arrests and or incidents that make the news. It’s worse if it is a young Black man driving with his friends and maybe smoking something that is now legal in most states. They somehow will either all get arrested, told to sit on the curbside for about a half hour or worse yet lie face down on the road, handcuffed and thrown into the back of a cruiser and off to the station to be booked and if they did not have a record, now have a record and are KNOWN TO THE POLICE.
No
Yes. They are also the one’s driving the revenue stream train. Not only are you not required to do business in that town but you have an unlimited number of electrons at your disposal to encourage others not to shop there.
If the town’s entire revenue stream is tickets then you’re out of luck. However, I ran into this issue in a small town and the Major was also the judge. When the officer didn’t show up for the nuisance ticket I was called into the judge’s office. He put me first on the docket and dismissed it. Privately expressed an intent to deal with the officer for pulling the same stunt before.
As Mayor he was well aware that people came in from out of town to spend money there and this wasn’t productive in the long run.
If I was the op and had time I would fight the ticket first by challenging the charge that the plate was not illuminated. I’d question how the officer determined it was insufficiently lit. His “opinion” counts when there is a number attached to it. Not so much if he’s just guessing. That’s why they have measuring devices for speed, window tint and alcohol content. If the car was in line with other cars when was the plate visible and how far was that from the officer’s location. Was the officer’s window clean. Prove it.