Nice chatting with you; here's your ticket!

The BBQ Pit
1

Well, someone’s watched “Super Troopers” one time too many, huh, CHICKENFUCKER?

The scene: My husband, a delivery driver, is on his way back to the store at 1:30 a.m. on New Year’s Day. The street is hilly, twisting and sparsely lit. Suddenly the calm is broken by a siren. He pulls over. Across the street is a local cop. Behind him, lights flashing, is a highway patrol car. A tap comes on the window.

Asshole Cop: “Do you know what the speed limit is?”

Husband: “It’s thirty-five.”

A. C.: “Do you know how fast you were going?”

H.: “Sorry, no.”

A. C.: “Well, you were doing . . . thirty-eight.”

A. C.: “I’ll have to ask you to step out of your vehicle and come sit with me awhile. Please bring your license and registration.”

H.: :eek:

A. C. has H. sit in the front seat and begins chatting. “So, you do deliveries? How long have you been working there, when did you buy your car, I see you’re married, how long, what’s your favorite color” etc.

H.: “Is there some reason you asked me back to your car?”

A. C.: “Not really, I just wanted to visit. Well, here’s your ticket; it’ll be ten dollars for not wearing a seatbelt, and I’m giving you warnings for speeding, having a chunk missing from your tail-light cover and not having the proper driver’s license.”

H.: “What’s wrong with my license?”

A. C.: “You deliver commercially, so you’re supposed to have a Class E license.”

H.: Was not aware of this, his company having no such requirement.

A. C. walks H. back to his car then waves goodbye, calling, “Happy New Year, meow!”

Okay, I made that last part up. I’m not contesting the actual ticket - seatbelts are mandatory - but is the rest of that stuff even illegal? What’s more, you do not haul people out of their cars, causing them to fear arrest, rape, who knows what, and then “visit.” You know what, Asshole Cop? A guy you just pulled over is not going to become your new best friend. You both have jobs to do; just get the information you need, write your ticket, and let the man go.

P.S. Fuck you. This was his first ticket and you really freaked him out.

2

WAG: The officer might have been trying to determine if your husband was driving drunk.

If he really did want to have a chat - at the expense of your husband’s time and nerves - then that’s ridiculous.

3

I bet the A.C. wanted to learn more about your hubby in the ‘visit’, like were there any grounds for A.C. to search said delivery van, in hopes of making some huge drug/purse knock-offs/white slavery ring bust - or better yet make tired Hubby frustrated and mad enough to warrant a beat down. He was bored and looking for a way to spice up his night at Hubby’s expense. This is what many cops do, best I can tell; their jobs are boring for the most part, punctuated by short periods of great excitement of their own making, like blowing some situation out of proportion so they have an excuse to draw their weapon. My grampa was a cop for over 40 years in total, and he always said how much he liked the idea of ‘reasonable suspicion’. It gave him and his buddies something to do besides paperwork, which they all hate.

When your hubby appears for the citations, make sure he takes the owner of the business w/ him to explain that they don’t require him to have the ‘big truck’ licence. Chances are when the cop sees them both in the lobby of the courthouse, he’ll go over and talk to them and offer to make some of the charges go away in exchange for a guilty plea. They don’t like to be challenged in front of the magistrate, it’s embarrassing.

4

The policeman was bored and decide to light up your hubby and chat him up. Normally a policeman can find something to ticket if they really want to. It happens all the time to people operating at odd hours in unfamilar places.

5

Couple of guesses:
Cop wanted to see if he was under the influence.
Cop wanted to see if he was likely to be carrying contraband.
Cop needed a couple more tix to meet his quota.
Cop is gay and just kinda liked the cut of his jib, if you know what I mean.
Cop is just a jerk.

As to the ticket – ten bucks is nothing to fight over. It would cost more in time and missing work to contest it. And it’s not a moving violation, which means it doesn’t affect insurance rates, points, etc. Cop could, strictly speaking, have given a much more expensive ticket for the 3 mph over the limit. Granted, the driver could then have gone to court over it, and most reasonable judges would throw out the charge, but there might be court costs anyway.

IANAL, but I am under the impression that if you are not under arrest, you don’t have to go sit in the police car. One could possibly just say “I’d prefer to wait out here, if you don’t mind, officer.”

6

It was New Year’s Eve. I vote the cop wanted to sit in an enclosed space with the driver so he could smell if there was liquor on his breath.

I drove a brand new (157 miles on the odometer) Mercedes 500SL, pearl black, to Philadelphia from Chicago. Cop in Ohio pulled me over going 4 miles over the limit. Brought me to the cruiser, and proceeded to grill me over what it was like to drive such a car. He was in heaven. "How’s she handle? she smooth? how’s she accelerate? Man, that’s a beautiful car . . . " etc. etc., while he wrote me out a $100+ ticket. I had the distinct impression the only reason he pulled me over was because he wanted to go to bed with the damn car.

7

Just furthers proves my point that laws are set up so you can be stopped for nothing.

8

I’m confused (though I agree that the cop wanting to “visit” was weird and unecessarily unnerving for your hubby), which one pulled him over, the local cop, or the state trooper?

And didn’t the other cop do anything at all, or was he just sitting there the whole time?

Weird if you ask me, are you sure it wasn’t the COPS who were perhaps tipsy?

9

I thought a police officer should never sit a civilian in the front seat.

10

You got a $ 100. ticket for going *4 miles * over the limit?

11

Yeah, that cop was such a fucker for being polite, he really deserves a pitting. Next time, maybe your husband can flick the cop’s hat off his head and call him a “fucking pig.” Then he can catch a baton in the gut, get cuffed and his ass thrown in the stir overnight, and you can pit police brutality.

12

Actually, that’s likely the scenario. I’ve done the same thing myself when I’ve seen someone swerve off the road. Hell, I did it last week (the guy wasn’t drunk, walked straight as an arrow, and when I told him what happened, he said he’d dropped his coffee. We went back to his car, and there was indeed an open thermos and a big wet stain, but no liquor smell.) Its either that, or begin a field sobriety test (which an officer is more than able to do on the slightest provocation, but some find distasteful unless the person is obviously drunk.)

~Mang

13

That’s exactly what I was thinking. I mean, I can see leting a civilian sit in the front AFTER you ran their license but not BEFORE. At least not unhandcuffed anyway.

Also, $10 for a no seatbelt ticket? Man! What state does the OP live in I wonder?

14

I’ve sat in the front seat of a NH State cruiser when my car died on the Interstate in winter. The cop let me sit in the front seat of the car while he called a tow truck and waited for it to arrive. Didn’t seem like a big deal to him or me.

15

I’m also interested to know the state in which this allegedly took place. In PA, the minimum over limit is 5 MPH before a citation can be issued.

16

So you weren’t a suspect, unlike the driver in the OP.
I once rode in the back of a cruiser, even though I wasn’t a suspect. (I don’t remember the exact reason) but the officer said I had to ride in the back. I guessed it was because of the loaded shotgun in the front. (this was in Edmond Oklahoma, so YMMV)

17

CHICKENFUCKER

No, no! Chicken LOVER. The kids might hear.

18

I gotta disagree. I get pulled over all the fucking time because the damn front end of my car’s smashed in and there’s no headlight on the passenger side (front end’s got to be replaced, and I don’t have the money for that, so I don’t drive after dark too much), and it’s pretty obvious that the only reason the cops are pulling me over is that they’re hoping they’ve got a DUI on their hands. Most of the time, they don’t even bother to call in my info or look at my papers (You know, license, registration, insurance,) as they quickly realize that I’m not drunk.

The conversations almost always go like this:

Cop: Did you know you have a headlight out?

Me: And if you’ll notice that whole side of the car’s missing and there’s no where to mount a headlight. (So far I’ve managed to restrain myself from saying, “Gee, you think the fact that my hood’s jacked up might have something to do with it, dumbass?”)

Cop: Oh, yeah. Need to get that fixed.

Me: Well, whenever I have a spare grand laying around I’ll do that.

Cop: Okay, have a good night.

Most likely he wanted to pull your husband back to his car to see if he flaked out and confessed that the van was filled with stolen goods or the body was made of fiberweed or similar.

19

Just to clarify: I am not complaining about the actual ticket. My husband drives a Ford Taurus, a small car not a van. He was pulled over by the highway patrol, not the local cop, who just watched. We live in Missouri.

Thanks to those who pointed out that the officer might have suspected a DUI; I didn’t think of that.

And yes, I’m glad the officer was polite, I just think he should not have asked my husband to go sit in his car. He could have walked in a straight line or something.

20

Now that’s a shitty attitude to have towards cops. Thank Your lucky stars the cops you’ve been pulled over by, so far, have been cool. (Despite your condescending attitude.) I’m fairly certain the cop could have gave you a ticket for a busted headlight.