I drive back and forth to work on Interstate 78, for about 6 miles here in Central NJ. Although I’m not a speed demon, it’s usually pretty free of cops. Sometimes you do see someone get pulled over. It amuses me to witness a sea of red brake lights when this happens. The cops are already eatin’, they’re not gonna drop the dish to go after another one!
Nevertheless … What’s the likelyhood of another copper waiting around the bend when there’s someone already pulled over? For how far?
cheers!
Not an answer to your question but it reminded me of an interview of a police officer I heard on the radio (In the U.K.).
He said that whenever he was driving along a motorway there would be a bubble of law abiding motorists keeping to the seventy MPH speed limit around him.
(Normally people drive much much faster then that.)
And I bet they hate that. I would.
Those reactions are expected and desired, if you believe that speed limit enforcement is actually about safety and getting people to drive more slowly.
Every department, of course, works differently, but I have absolutely seen multiple officers/cars team up like this (sometimes up to 4 or 5 cars at once) in Illinois and Missouri.
Yep, you can see the chase car w/ pulled-over victim, but you may not see the shooting car until it’s too late. Never assume…
Another police officer could be very close. Last year, I was driving through a residental neighborhood when I noticed someone had been pulled over. However, my attention was more on the driver who was tailgating me despite my braking to get him to back off. Apparently, this caught the attention of a motorcycle officer who was waiting in the driveway of a house (is that even legal?) about 6 house down from the pulled over car. I wasn’t sure if we were both being pulled over, so I did, but the officer told me it wasn’t me and to continue driving.
Several area I noticed that always had several police waiting are downhill areas or streets with long distances between stoplights. I drive slow and maybe count 2-3 motorcycle officers along one street during rush hour in the morning.
Some departments will park an empty cop car somewhere visible, just to get folks to slow down on that particular stretch of road…
Aren’t there laws in some states about slowing down if you’re driving past an officer who’s pulled someone over, anyway?
I passed through the intersection on I-77 and I-40 a few weeks ago. I saw approx 10 cars pulled over in the space of about 2 miles.
What really got my attention was passing back through less than a week later, I didn’t see a single cop car in 2 plus hours on the same highways. It was March 30 one way, and April 2 the other. No quotas, my ass.
Here in San Diego, there is a stretch of the 163 freeway that passes over the 805 with a nice shadow area just beyond the interchange. Without fail, TWO motorcycle cops work this route every bright sunny day, which we get a lot of in San Diego. They were there this morning. It will take them a good two freeway exits to catch up to a speeding car from a dead stop, and they take turns nailing people. Sometimes one cop pulls over two cars at once. I have also seen the cop immediately pursue someone else from the new spot where he pulled someone over. Ergo, if you are passing the first motorcycle cop who has just pulled someone over in this stretch, there is a very good chance, the next one will be just one freeway exit further down. So speeding up is a bad idea.
In the US, it is not uncommon for officers to work in teams of two, with two vehicles. Pretty much the norm for motorcycle officers.
I can see a fairly busy highway from my house. I can see when they have a crackdown pulling over drivers. After living there for a few years ,I can tell my wife when to be careful. She is a terrible driver. There absolutely are more pullovers at the end of a month. Perhaps it is just cops who have not passed out enough tickets, just trying to keep up appearances. Nevertheless they are writing more frequently at the end of the month.