I was on a grand jury investigating allegations of police corruption in the 30th precinct of NYC, and one guy who testified had his car stolen by the police because he’d been driving while Black. He’d recently moved out of Harlem, and his pregnant wife wanted some jerk chicken from where they used to get it. So he drove down to buy it. On the way back he was pulled over, the police planted weed in his car, threw him in jail, and told him that if he pled guilty they would release him, but if he wanted to fight the charge he might be there for weeks. His wife was due in a few days. They didn’t tell him that they got to keep his car if he pled guilty.
I’m still angry about that. Most of the corruption we saw was police being shitty to shitty people. Stealing from drug dealers, that kind of thing. This guy was totally innocent. Just a random person trying to care for his pregnant wife.
I don’t consider this weird. It’s like a “fix-it” ticket. If you fix it (the problem), you no longer are liable for the ticket. It’s a step more complicated than just having him let you off with a warning, but better than paying a could-be big fine and/or having your insurance company informed about it.
I’m assuming you weren’t deliberately not paying the registration; you just forgot about it.
Yes, of course. It was an oversight. And he made me fix it before he let me drive the car. (Well, he made me promise to fix it. But it proved really easy, and would have been really dumb not to.) He could have given me a warning, i assume.
Usually. I was given a ticket for a headlight being out. The cop suggested replacing the light and contesting the ticket, then I’d be found not guilty.
When I showed up for my hearing there were tv reporters who were covering whoever was before me, delaying everything an hour. The magistrate was flustered/pissed off. He asked me if I was Amish, because the state motor vehicle code exempts them. He pulled out a copy of the code and read that part aloud. He berated my wasting of the court’s time.
After, the cop approached me in the parking lot and said he owed me one. We both laughed about how worked up the guy was.
On third shift they give us night vision goggles so we can pick out non-white drivers and make up some excuse to pull them over while intoxicated Caucasians weave past us.
In Wisconsin equipment cites, like lights and mufflers come with a 5-15 day grace period (depending on the infraction) in which the driver can fix the equipment within that time frame and have any peace officer in the state sign the ticket with their name, ID number and agency code a stamp goes on it and it’s mailed to the agency that issued the cite and it goes bye-bye. It’s the easiest and fairest thing in the world, no court appearance required and it motivates people to fix the problem. The cite doesn’t become an actual cite unless the violators fails to make the repair on time.
My husband’s grandmother frequently got pulled over - she was a speed demon! She was this little white-haired lady who apparently reminded all the policemen of their own dear sainted mothers. Lots of warnings, nary a ticket.
Frankly, it sounds to me like she was a genuine danger to herself and others and was just lucky. A few tickets might have slowed her down a bit.
I’ve been pulled over 3 times in the past 20ish years. Once for speeding on my way to work (solo in the car; I was clearly guilty, and I paid the fine). Once for a burned out headlight (I don’t recall whether I was solo or not): for that one, I had to appear in court to show that the thing had been fixed, then they dismissed it. And once (entire family in tow) for a burned-out license plate light (warning).
Relevant or not? I’m a white, middle-aged, female native English speaker in a relatively well-to-do area. I freely admit things might have gone differently in all cases had I fit into a different demographic.
I don’t get pulled over very often. But once, after we’d been in a fender bender and the car looked like a junker, i got pulled over twice in 3 weeks. The cites had nothing to do with what was wrong with the car. But I’m pretty sure that i was pulled over because i no longer “looked like i belonged” in the upscale area i was driving in.
Yeah, I don’t get Wisconsonites on that. If they think Illinois drivers are bad (and some sure are), they haven’t left the Midwest. I find it positively polite and serene compares to, I dunno, Boston, Philly, Southern California, Houston, etc. LIke if you use a blinker, people here actually will let you in, whereas elsewhere it’s seen as a sign of weakness. And I’ve literally never seen traffic move 110 here. We’ll get to 90, I grant you that.
I have, out on I-88 in DuPage County, in the evening, but it’s nearly always a group of motorcycles, which are blowing the doors off of the cars that are “poking along” at 80.
If you want to drive 80, get the hell over into the slow lane where you belong. This said on a 6-lane freeway with at least 10 different “speeds of traffic” going on all at once.
Hell, this said on the 15N about 12:15pm on the Friday of a 3-day weekend. 2 lanes, where the left lane is “Get out of my way, I have money to lose!” and the right lane travels at the speed of truck.
puly, it isn’t that we see it as a sign of weakness. It’s that traffic in SoCal is a very intricate dance, and by using your blinker you have said “May I cut in?” AND “I don’t know the steps.” Plus, in Los Angeles trying to merge in front of a car that is more expensive than yours is a traffic violation.
When I was driving in Los Angeles some years ago, I thought the drivers were very courteous. I regularly saw a driver pause to let someone else in, but if the other driver didn’t take advantage of the gap right away, the first driver would speed up and close the gap. As you say, a dance, and if you watched and learnt the steps, it was quite pleasant.
I grew up in Los Angeles. As greater LA has gotten more and more crowded, the legendary patience and courtesy of 1970s LA driving has given way to a rather more aggressive style. You’ll still be offered a gap … usually. But you have exactly 6 milliseconds to take it. After that if you snooze you lose.
