I’m curious about what happens when police pull over families. What is the interaction like between the officer and the family? Do they engage or only talk to the driver? Are officers sometimes convinced to let a driver get off with a warning if they see, for example, a young child, a senior citizen, a disabled person? Put bluntly, I don’t want to be the officer that gives a speeding ticket to a driver whose passenger looks vulnerable and elicits sympathy. At the same time, I’d want to enforce the law too.
On a similar note, why does law enforcement ask where the driver is coming from and where they are going? Do they take into account these factors when deciding whether to issue a ticket?
The cop is hoping you’ll trip up and say you came from Moe’s (Tavern), then when they ask what kind of establishment it is, you have to lie and say it’s a pornography store.
In Texas, they threaten to send the children to Family Services if the driver doesn’t hand over all his cash.
The suit accused law enforcement in Tenaha of threatening to have children removed from their families if the drivers they’d stopped on U.S. Highway 59 didn’t sign waivers allowing officers to seize their property without a court proceeding.
For whatever its worth, before I had kids whenever I would get pulled over I would get a ticket. Since I have had a car seat in my car for the past 12 years (3 kids), I have only gotten warnings when pulled over. I will probably leave the car seats in my car until my kids are 40.
I was once driving my mom from Sun City AZ to the L.A. area (where I lived and she used to). I got stopped by a cop in one of those little speedtrap towns on 60 (was it?) – kinda near Wickenberg. I was talking to the cop by his car behind my car when he asked where I was heading. I said I was driving my mom to L.A., and she made the perfectly timed, completely innocent head turn in the rear window and gave us the most piteous look.
Loach retired last month. PKBites is still an active LEO IIRC. IIRC MikeF is a former LEO whose been out of the game for a few years. Bolding not @-ing the names since they’ve already been paged.
If the driver is endangering a vulnerable person who elicits sympathy, isn’t that all the more reason to give them a ticket? Driving dangerously with your kid in the car is a worse offense.
Sometimes there is a specific reason why they are asking where you are coming from or going to. High drug activity areas for instance. But really that’s not going to be the reason 99% of the time. It’s not a very natural situation to meet people and there are a few patented ways to start a conversation. Don’t really care where you are going. Having a conversation helps to keep people cooperative and calm and has the added benefit of helping to see if they are impaired. Often drunk people have no idea where they are and there answer makes no geographical sense.
As for people getting let go with a warning, it depends. It depends on the cop. I was never a hammer on the road except the short time I was with the traffic division and had to write a lot of tickets. I would give warnings for a multitude of reasons. If someone has a car full of kids and there wasn’t anything obviously dangerous a veteran cop learns to not start digging.
No. Other people in the car does not affect my decision.
I only talk to other people in the car if they engage me or something seems off and the spidey senses are tingling.
Shit, I’m 62 and still doing this shit on a second career. I was going to retire this year for good but they offered me an advanced backdrop to stay on until 65. The offer was too good to refuse. And they can’t get anyone to apply to do this shit any more. I’m putting my store up for sale next year and plan to actually pull the plug at 65. And this time…I mean it!
my uncle used to count on the fact that every time he for pulled over and they’d see my wheelchair-bound non verbal nephew sitting there getting upset that his cheeseburgers were getting cold they’d just frown and growl at him and he’d just get a warning … even the one time he was stopped when he wasnt in the car they knew he was the only driver for him and my aunt and they said " you lucky sob if I didn’t know the rest of the family id haul you off for a few days "
Here in the UK, if you get stopped for no insurance, the cops will take your car.
Really - they will put you (and your luggage) on the pavement and tow the car away. However, if there are kids or vulnerable adults in the car, they try hard to find a solution that doesn’t leave them on the side of the road. This might mean arranging insurance on the phone while they wait, or calling a taxi. Under no circumstances will they allow an uninsured driver to continue driving.
Thanks for the reply. Do the other people in the car frequently engage with you? Or are they most often silent? Do they threaten or try and defend the driver?
In Arkansas, a cop wrote me a speeding ticket with my elderly parents in the car with me. The wheelchair and commode chair were both in full view through the van windows. Didn’t phase the cop at all. Yes, I deserved to be ticketed.
That Texas “your kids or your car” bullshit is plain extortion and robbery. Those police belong behind bars.
