Welcome aboard(s), xiaoping!
Remember, it’s not who you know, but Hu Yao Bang.
Absolutely; getting out of the car demonstrates a willingness to comply.
Probably mostly to do with the general presence/absence of guns.
I got stopped once at the jersey shore going 40 in a 25 mph.
The police officer did a u-turn in the middle of the street and pulled me over.
I sat there hands on the wheel, answered his questions when asked, and got out the docs when asked. He wrote the ticket and I was on my way crawling outta there at 15mph.
BUT I went to traffic court a few weeks later and being that this was a small town and no longer in tourist season the cop was there at the proceedings.
He pulled me aside and told me that he remember me and that I was “polite and didn’t give me any problems” so he reduced it to a moving violation. OK the ticket cost more but I didn’t get any points on my license and NJ insurancewise that’s saves you a helluva lot of money.
What about being pulled over by an unmarked police car?
As a UK cop in training, we’re going through a lot of roleplays at the moment on the various different situations you get when pulling someone over. The worst is when you pull over someone, they become aggressive and then get out of the car without being asked : you know you’ve got a problem straight away. If they become aggressive or stubborn at the wheel then they can expect us to grab the keys so they don’t drive off whilst we run checks.
Basically, it’s much easier for us (and that means much more likely that you won’t get a ticket) if you just do what we tell you. Doesn’t really matter if you get out of the car before we ask you to or not, as long as you’re not belligerant.
I’m glad to live in a country where the cop would say please and thank you, not raise his/her voice or point anything at you because you move, and automatically give you a warning or more minor fine than the law calls for (you were doing 140 clicks, but I’ll say it was 120).
I fear that this thread is making the US look like the wild west. I think that in 99% of the cases, if you act calm and don’t do anything silly, the stop will be over in a few minutes, and you will be on your way. If you lunge for the glove box, I would think a police officer in any country would be nervous.
Well, I just have to chime in here. I’ve been pulled over by the police about 5 or 6 times, and have gotten 1 ticket.
Anyways, On a busy highway, I pulled over pretty soon after I saw the cop. On a 2 line highway, I drove for about a mile or so before I pulled over because I waited for lots of room on the shoulder. After driving on the sidewalk, I got out of the car. Cops dont like that.
After the cop talked to me I asked if I could get out of the car and talk, he didn’t like that either. Also asked if my friends could go since it was in the parking lot in front of their apartment. He didn’t like that either.
Recently on the news here, they said the best thing to do is to turn on your dome light, sit tight and just wait. They didn’t say anything about shutting off your car or putting your hands on the wheel.
I have very dark tinted windows though, so i’m a bit more cautious because I know the cop doesn’t like coming up to a car he can’t see into. So I might roll down a couple windows to get some light in.
I had a friend that was pulled over and had an unloaded shotgun in his back seat. Of course, that ended in an entire car search, and he had a rifle in the trunk, and his ammo back there to. He told them all about it, and he didn’t break any laws. So I think that just answering them when they ask you questions is pretty key.
Plus, depending on the cop, asking them to hurry sometimes doesn’t hurt (especially if you know you’re getting a ticket anyways). I told one cop that I was really in a hurry, and had an appointment in five minutes, and he was very nice and quick, and gave me directions to where I was going. And a ticket. But hey, thems the breaks.
Rhum Runner, I can’t speak for the Americans who have posted to this, but for the rest of us, I don’t think we are trying to make your country look bad in any way. You really have to understand exactly how much of a culture shock this is to some of us, is all.
Now, we know that the US has a strong gun culture, and I don’t think anybody wants to debate that here (Gawd knows that happens enough in GD), but that the simple act of being pulled over is such a potentially threatening scenario for both motorist and police officer alike is well… somewhat surprising to us. My main concern in being pulled over is “not seeming to be a smartarse to the cop”. Other things like not getting nervous and forgetting to signal so I get a potential extra ticket are also considered. But to a non-American, such things as “keeping both hands on the steering wheel”, “making slow movements”, and “telling the cop what you’re about to do before you do it” are utterly alien to us. If I were being pulled over for robbing a bank maybe. But for a traffic infringement, those things wouldn’t even cross our minds.
Again, not being judgemental here one way or the other, just outlining the differences.
Unfortunately we’ve had an incident which reflects on the subject of the OP. At 2 am, a policeman pulls over a speeding vehicle. As he walks up to the vehicle, the driver gets out and starts shooting. Mortally wounded, the cop returns fire and kills the perp. The perp and accomplice in the passenger seat had just robbed (20 minutes before) a 24 hour pancake joint. Needless to say, traffic stops around here will be a little bit more tense for a while.
My, my, aren’t we just the aggressively self-righteous little poster. First you say to me “The AIM was never into assassination as far as I know. Can you provide evidence of this claim?” Gee, this would seem to me to be unsupported opinion. Then you criticise me for relying on memory. Seems inconsistent, to say the least.
You must have been asleep during the entire AIM/FBI mess, or perhaps your reading/comprehension skills are not the best, if you believe that violence and murder were not common for the AIM. Here are a couple of cites concerning the mayhem:
http://ishgooda.nativeweb.org/peltier/copap7b.htm
As to the gun in the door scheme, I have no cite. However, I do remember (there I go again) being briefed on the matter when I worked with the police department in Idaho. Of course, we know how those fascist pigs lie, but I believed it at the time and still do today.
I’ve a simple routine for the occasions I’ve been pulled over… based on the advice of a MA State Trooper (my uncle).
- signal your intent to pull over in a safe spot, and do so promptly.
- pull off as far as you can, to provide as much space for the officer as possible between you and traffic.
- turn on your interior lights, leave the headlights on (if already on)
- turn OFF your car!
- keep the hands on the wheel, and look forward until the officer is at your window.
- when he/she arrives, roll down the window and ask “What’s going on.”
- answer all questions directly and honestly with NO attitude
- make sure that all your motions are slow and in sight
- be polite, and appologetic.
- when he/she returns to the cruiser, don’t fiddle around, or make any movements, just sit and remain calm.
The job of a cop is tough enough, and I don’t need to add any stress. I’m not worried about being shot, but I am worried about the ticket I may face. By following the simple rules above, I’ve gotten out of many tickets, and most of them I should have been nailed for. Some of my friends, as a comparison, don’t do any of this, and seem to get more tickets than I, with comparable numbers of stops.
JMO.
-Butler
Well, it might be inconsistent if i ever said it. But if you look back and actually read the thread, you’ll see that those comments were posted by SOMEONE ELSE. All i did was ask you to back up your assertions with some evidence.
No, not asleep; but also not willing to swallow whole everything the FBI said about AIM. Maybe YOU were the one asleep. Ever heard of the COINTELPRO hearings, in which the FBI was roundly condemned for its handling of groups like AIM by the Final Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities of the United States Senate, 94th Congress, 2nd Session, 1976?
I’ve also read Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall’s Cointelpro Papers: Documents from the FBI’s Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States, which reprints many of the FBI’s internal letters, reports and memoranda from the period.
Yes, some of them do lie, as established by the Select Committee Report referred to above. Again, this does not mean that it never happened, only that, in the absence of evidence, i choose to be somewhat skeptical. And such an unlikely incident perpetrated by a particular small, relatively localized group would hardly, by itself, justify the general level of police nervousness in the United States, which is what you implied in your first post on the issue.
Things are pretty lax in Canada. Whenever I’ve been pulled over, I already had my license and registration pulled by the time the cop got to my window. I can’t imagine they would ever pull a gun for getting out of the car etc. I don’t even think they are allowed to pull their gun unless they have one pulled on them. I couldn’t find a cite for that though.
Of the 6 times I’ve been pulled over, I’ve been let off twice.
Now, you see? If you had approached this whole thing with this sort of intelligent discourse, we could have avoided the entire snotty give and take. I really do not mind being called to task on citations, etc., but do object to being spoken to in a less than civilized manner. Unfortunately, I also can’t resist answering in kind, but I’m working on it. Anyway, I hope you’re done with this discussion, because I sure am.