Can someone point me to a YT video (or any video) where the cop pulls the SC over, the latter flashes all his gaudy but fake documents at him, utters all the right catchphrases and lingo, and the cop just goes wink wink nudge nudge and sends him on his merry way with a hearty pat on the back, and no citation?
Obviously there MUST be plenty of such videos out there, vs. the ones, you know, where they are dragged out of their car and arrested, else NOBODY would ever deign to think and do and say such idiotic things.
Clearly, you aren’t from the US and have yet to personally interact with average Americans. You know - the type who would, for example, elect a felon and con-man with a decades long public record of malfeasance to high political office and think it was a defensible decision.
Or maybe if the infraction is minor, and the cop really doesn’t want to spend the next 2 hours with this moron getting backup, dragging them out of the car, hauling them off to jail, etc. The cop is just looking at their personal aggravation-o-meter and saying “Naah, I ain’t feelin’ it right now”.
Cops have a lot of discretion to not be aggressive if they want.
I don’t know how it’s in the US, but for any of these infractions, German police will have your car towed and you’ll not drive one more meter, no matter how nicely you behave. You won’t get arrested, but you’ll spend some time being interrogated and registered at the police station and the police will file a criminal charge.
Good point. Thank you. I was thinking just in terms of whatever driving mal-manuever they pulled. But yeah, you’re right that 100% of SovCits won’t have their papers in order.
As much as I’d like the authorities to get real aggressive with enforcement against these twerps, now is not the era in US history to be encouraging the authorities to be aggressive about anything.
In the US this is handled by state law, so I’m sure it will vary depending on where people live within the US.
In my own state, driving without a license depends on whether or not you are someone who has never possessed a license, or your license expired and was not renewed. It also depends on whether your license expired because it was suspended or revoked. If it’s a simple case of your license just not being renewed, you are fined $250 and not charged with a crime, and if you renew your license and show up in court with proof then it’s reduced to a $50 fine.
If you never had a license in the first place, or your license was suspended or revoked, you are not supposed to be driving a vehicle at all and that is a misdemeanor. I don’t know what the penalty is for that, but I believe it’s more severe than a small fine (and jail time is possible).
Driving without insurance, that I have personal experience with. The fine is about the same as driving with an expired license. I was once pulled over for a spurious reason (the cop didn’t say I ran a red light, but I went through a yellow light “late” whatever that’s supposed to mean) and I found out that my insurance card had fallen out. (They were literally a thin slip of paper that the company sent out and it was easy to fall out of a wallet.) I went to court and showed proof that I’d had insurance at the time of the traffic stop, and the judge lowered my fine to $5. (Not $50, just $5 for court fees.)
Again though, that applies to expired insurance; if you never had insurance then you can potentially face suspension of your license and even jail time depending on the situation.
Driving an unregistered vehicle in my state can be pretty expensive. It starts with a $529 fee, and potentially an additional $1,000 fee on top of that. You also might owe delinquent taxes and fees as well. On a second or third offense you may face up to a year in county jail, and pay $5,000. In all cases if your car has a registration more than 45 days expired and it’s parked on a public street it might be impounded.
So again, it depends on the state, and in my state the penalties range from just fines to potential jail time for any of these infractions individually.
Note by “aggressive” I did not mean to suggest physical abuse. There’s never a right time for that.
What I meant was a no-tolerance policy: If police encounter a SovCit their car is impounded 100% guaranteed and if the laws of the state so indicate, they get a ride to jail for [whatever] violation is relevant to their situation.
Oh sure, that’s the same here, if you just have left your wallet at home, the police will be able to determine online if you possess a valid license and are the owner of the car. If you’re unlucky, they will fine you a small sum and have you provide your license later at a police station, but I guess that only happens if they really don’t like you. I don’t know what happens if your license has expired, because until a few years ago, German driving licenses were unlimited, that only changed with the installation of EU-wide licenses, which have to be renewed every 15 or 20 years, I don’t remember exactly, so this case hasn’t come up yet. But I guess that’ll also only get you a slap on the wrist.
If your license has been revoked though, driving a car is just as illegal as if you’d never had one, and you’re criminally liable in both cases.
I imagine with SovCits, they run the range. I’m sure most are people who fell into the conspiracy theory rabbit hole and chose not to renew their license because they believe that it’s not necessary, and then there will be those who have their license revoked because of other shenanigans they’ve been involved in as a “traveler”. And maybe you have someone who never had one in the first place, as I’ve seen videos of SovCit families that raise their kids with their insanity.
In the post just above mine that you replied to @Saint_Cad asserts he’s seen them. Few and far between but he claims they’re out there. I do not care to watch vexing YT vids, so I can’t say either way.
But I do agree w you that any SovCit selling a book or whatever would love to have a vid of his (good bet) BS line deflecting a traffic stop. SovCit adherents who’re not boosters / grifters might well post such events if they experience one, but without followers the algorithm won’t tend to serve it up to casual observers like most of us here.
The registration on my vehicle is currently expired; ran out at midnight. I renewed it online a gew days ago, but haven’t received the new sticker in the mail, yet. When I renewed, I printed a page that confirms the transaction, and it says I’m okay as long as I carry that in the car.
It would suck to get towed because of it, but I assume the new tags will arrive in less than 45 days.
I have been trying to find any example of a SovCit “winning” in any capacity, and after a lot of searching I sort of found one? Not in a traffic stop, but in a hearing.
In this case, he got an 8 month delay. He didn’t win the case but the outcome of this particular hearing was positive for him. This is the best thing I could find. Their tactics almost universally backfire.
Now, it’s very possible that nobody bothers to upload examples of SovCits being let go with a warning or other uncontroversial situations, because those videos are boring. That doesn’t mean it never happens.
I’m not so sure. It seems like SovCits want confrontations. When a sane person sees a SovCit being handcuffed and taken to jail as a loser, the SovCit believes they are a winner because they are showing how ignorant the cops are for not understanding the law they are supposed to enforce.
I think that’s the key. SovCits don’t necessarily think that they have some magic spell that keeps them free of consequences. They believe that they are right and society is wrong. They like being martyrs. That’s why they keep up the front all the way to the end. I don’t think I’ve seen a SovCit suddenly break down and start crying and begging for leniency. They are convinced that they are right and authorities are wrong, and that self-righteousness is what they take comfort from. They see themselves as rebels against a corrupt system.
For police, trusting their discretion may make sense. However there should be no-tolerance policy in courts because these are fix-its. Go get a license, registration and insurance in 60 days and case dismissed.
