I was driving home at 1 a.m. from a friends house and there are no other cars on the road. I was coming to a part in the road where it narrows from two lanes to one lane. There is a cop that’s in the left lane and I’m in the right. The left lane ends and he deliberately waits for me to go ahead so he can follow me! He slows down so much and so do I because I feel intimidated by him. I keep slowing down until he stops so I go ahead and I thought he was right behind me until I see there’s another car he let go ahead of him too. He’s following both of us and I’m feeling nervous. I have nothing to hide but I know cops have quotas to fill. The person behind me attempts to make a lane change with a blinker, but decides to stay in the lane behind me. I see flashing lights in the rear view mirror and sure enough the person behind me gets pulled over. I don’t know if they had expired tags or if what he did was an illegal lane change (putting a blinker on, but deciding to stay in the same lane you were in). I am just pissed off that I have to feel intimidated while cops probably run my license plate to see what they can get me for just to fill a quota. I’ll take a diffferent route this time to avoid traps like this. I get very intimidated by cops because if I’m scared I think I might do something wrong.
Sounds to me like you’re just a pussy and you need to grow up a little. Do you spend your entire day paranoid, frightened and nervous like this??
I’m betting none of this had anything to do with you. The car behind you was probably speeding or something and so he waited to get behind him. You just happened to be in between.
Or maybe not.
Either way, it must be a sad world you live in to be so intimidated…
So he was in the left lane and the left lane ended, you say? That means YOU had the right-of-way and he has to let the other traffic clear before he can enter the other lane.
I love how people think they are being targeted or oppressed when absolutely NOTHING happens. You weren’t beaten, dragged out of the car, issued a ticket, pulled over, or even looked at strangely.
Someday, when your guard slips, and you accidentally reveal what really frightens or intimidates you, remind be to berate you unnecessarily for it.
Or could it possibly be that there was a problem with the other driver and instead of a high speed chase, the cop near you was radioed by a cop elsewhere that there was a suspicious person in a XYZ car with the plate ABC123 and the cop was waiting for the guy behind you who was a suspect in beating the crap out of his little puppy and is otherwise generally a BAD GUY ™?
No, you’re right, he knew you had a mile-wide paranoid streak and did it to fuck with you.
If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have no need to fear or fight the cops. And, if he was looking to fill a quota, he would have pulled you over a written you a ticket for erratic driving and if he was just there to fuck with you, he would have given you a field sobriety test for like and hour or so. Grow the hell up.
I’ll say the same thing, too, that if a cop gets behind you don’t get nervous and just follow traffic laws. Perhaps there are cops out there to get you, but most of the cops I’ve met have pulled people over for justifiable reasons, myself included.
He was probably just running your plates to make sure your car wasn’t stolen or the driver wanted for anything. That’s a good way for the boys in blue to keep law and order.
They’re so cute when they’re naive.
You’ll probably *need reminding if it’s as inconsequential as being followed by a cop!! *
Really, if someone is going to get freaked out every time they stick their ass out the door they should leave it on the couch.
Once in Arizona a state trooper was directly behind me for several miles on a secondary road, then followed me onto an interstate for at least five more miles. This caused a certain amount of anxiety and repeated checks in the rear view mirror as I wondered what the guy’s problem was and when I could expect to be pulled over.
Eventually he hit his flashing lights and pulled me over. His explanation was that I had almost swerved over the center line. After I explained that any irregularity in my driving was caused by the distraction of checking the mirror to see what he was up to, he let me go without a citation. I don’t know if the real reason he was following me was because I resembled a Wanted Hoodlum, had out-of-state plates, or he was just being an ass pain.
It does tick you off when you appear to be targeted for no particular reason.
At 1 a.m. the cop is probably looking for drunk drivers. He can’t stop you for no reason at all, so he probably is looking for any reason to pull you over. It happened to me once at 3 in the morning, and it’s just something that’s going to happen late at night. I stopped at a rest area and opened my trunk to get some water out of the trunk for my dog. The cop must have been parked there, as I didn’t even see him. I guess he saw me and was a bit suspicious (the dog stayed in the car, so maybe he thought I was getting a gallon of vodka to entertain me for the few miles). As I was leaving, I didn’t come to a complete stop at a stop sign. No traffic at all, and the road I was getting on ended at the road I was turning from. He stopped me, asked to search my trunk. I consented to the search and explained what I was doing. What pissed me off is that he ended up writing a ticket anyway.I didn’t mind the bullshit stop, but when everything else checked out (license, registration, insurance, sober, no cases of vodka or dead bodies or packages of drugs in the trunk) couldn’t he just let me off with a warning?
Actually, it’s more a matter of knowing and/or being related to a large number of law enforcement officers, having done ride alongs, having heard them toss stories around, and having common sense. Cops, in general, are decent people who do things for logical reasons that may not seem logical to you, but seem logical to them in the course of doing their job. Are there asshole cops out there? Sure there are, there are assholes in every profession. I even know some asshole law-enforcement officers and I make no excuses for them. I get a little nervous when there is a cruiser behind me because there is a good chance I was or am speeding, but I keep driving normally and they go on their merry way. By slowing down excessively, you look suspicious and invite further scrutiny. Inability to maintain speed is one of the behaviors that impaired drivers exhibit. Trying to avoid law enforcement looks suspicious because they assume you are hiding something. Behaving normally and treating law enforcement officers like normal people goes a long way to not getting pulled over or not getting a ticket when you do. Acting strangely and being an asshole will get you pulled over and get you a ticket if you broke a law.
Actually, there’s one road near me where I get paranoid about the police. One morning a few months ago I was pulled over for running a stop sign on that road. I was in the middle of a line of 5 or more cars, and I distinctly remembered stopping when the car ahead of me stopped; on the other hand, I wasn’t sure whether I’d stopped completely or not. The policeman who wrote me a ticket said I didn’t. The thing is, the only way he could have seen me was if he’d been right behind me, and I’m pretty sure I would have noticed that since he wasn’t in an unmarked car. I was distracted that morning because I was getting MRI results that afternoon. I was polite and pleasant to the policeman, but he was cold as ice to me. Given that I had a pair of crutches and a cane in the back seat, not to mention I’m a woman over 40, I hardly looked like a hardened criminal or scofflaw. Since then, I’ve learned from other people who live in my building that they’ve been ticketed for running stop signs on that street when they haven’t necessarily done so. They’ve also dropped the speed limit from 25 mph to 15 mph, but the traffic light at the far end of the street still doesn’t indicate to traffic making a left turn when traffic heading the opposite direction gets a green light, which strikes me as a far greater safety hazard.
I’m a reasonably cautious driver, but I do get nervous when I see a policeman behind me. Even if I’m travelling the same speed as other people on the road, if I’m going over the speed limit, I can still get ticketed. I’ve also taken to driving down that road I got ticketed on a lot less, especially on my way to work in the morning.
CJ
I’m definitely with those who think the OP overreacted. NOTHING HAPPENED. I wonder if the OP had had a few to drink at hte friend’s house and that was the reason for such anxiety.
I also know a lot of cops personally. Good cops don’t follow people around just becuase they have to “fill quotas.” Just driving behind you is not assholish behaviour.
All irrational fears are, by definition, inconsequential. I wonder what yours are?
Me too.
Uh huh.
Yyyyyup. Beer?
Gah! I fear two word posts!!!
AND THERE’S THREE IN A ROW!!!
I have an irrational fear of being stabbed in the eye…I don’t pit people who carry a pointy thing near me.
The wholly ironic thing is that the people who complain when there are cops around enforcing the law when they are the ones breaking it, are also the first to complain when the cops aren’t around to protect the victims of crimes.
Whine I got a ticket for going 30 in a school zone
Outrage My little girl almost got hit by a car crossing the road on her way to school…why aren’t the cops sitting here running radar?!
PinkShoes made her(?) trip home safely because somewhere out there, there were cops pulling over speeders and drunk drivers and stoplight runners and unlicensed drivers.