The problem with profiling isn’t so much with cops using their informed judgment about who to pay attention to, but with what they do after that. There’s nothing wrong with a cop looking at me, or even following me for a few blocks or an exit or two, but if he tailgates me for miles and miles, a) I get nervous, and b) he isn’t looking for other potentially lawbreaking drivers.
It doesn’t help that not getting out of the way of emergency or police vehicles enough room is illegal… *if *their flashy lights are flashing (and sometimes even if not). It’s hard to internalize that and not get nervous when one won’t LET you “get out of their way” even if their lights aren’t on. In fact, the only moving violation I’ve ever had was a “failure to yield right of way to a police vehicle” with a cop who had stopped at a 4-way intersection on the other street and just wouldn’t move. I waited a while, and he still didn’t take his turn, so I shrugged and went. He whipped around and pulled me over. Turns out he had paused at the intersection to glare at me in hopes I’d think to turn my headlights on, as I’d just pulled out of a parking lot and it was dusk, but that’s not what he wrote out the ticket for. Naturally I now have a deep lizard-brain fear that there must be SOME law I’m breaking, in some minor way that I just can’t think of right now, if a cop is following me.
There’s a difference between simply following a car that looks suspicious, and manufacturing an excuse to pull them over for that reason. I’m not saying that cops should pull over all cheap cars in expensive neighborhoods and interrogate them.
Pulling someone over without probable cause to suspect they’ve committed a crime is illegal and wrong, and I agree that doing so solely because someone looks suspicious is especially heinous, and would constitute harassment. And I don’t know where people are getting the idea that I think cops should hand out tickets to people merely for looking suspicious.
However, I don’t see anything wrong with a cop simply following a car that he thinks looks “out of place” in a neighborhood, either to see where it’s going, or to spook potential troublemakers into not sticking around. And there’s nothing wrong with a cop using the appearance of the car or the people in it to determine whether it warrants extra scrutiny.
If you’re so highly-strung that the mere presence of a cop behind you makes you so nervous that you can’t drive safely, you shouldn’t be driving. What do you on the highway when you come across a cop who’s simply trying to get to the same place you are?
I like to drive - it’s relaxing - and I often find myself driving through some sleepy little hamlet in Massachusetts at 1:00 AM. Occasionally a cop will come up behind me and follow behind for a little while, and at that point I pay a bit more attention to speed limits. I’ve never thought of it as harassment, just as the cops doing their jobs.
I think most people would agree with you, but I talso think most folks here are talking about something slightly different: when they follow behind for a little while… and then follow, and follow, and follow, and follow some more. Especially if they tailgate.
This is why cops should not do traffic enforcement. In theory, a law-abiding citizen should feel safe with a police car behind him, instead he is worried.
I get the impression that some cops would consider anyone driving after midnight to be a case of “probable cause” worthy of investigation. I used to work in a restaurant, and I’d get off my shift at 1 a.m. I’d be driving home, tired as hell, one of the very few drivers on the road at that time, and sure enough, here comes a cop, tailing me at close range. At the time I was pretty young (19) and got nervous, checking in my rearview mirror to see what was up. In doing so, I must have shifted the steering wheel just enough to make it look like I was swerving. On came the lights, and the first thing the cop asked me when he approached my car was, “You coming from a party?”
Next time a cruiser is following at 30 feet, do a quick brake-check. Let the police explain why his cruiser is now inside your trunk because you ‘saw a cat’.
This is absolutely the best way to handle it. They can’t pull you over for driving badly if you’ve already pulled over. I do this when I think I’m being tailed by a drunk, too.
Usually pull off into a parking lot or something until they pass. I shared a toll way across a large chunk of NY state with a state cop once. Must have driven together for 3 hours. Sometimes he was ahead of me, sometimes behind. Usually ahead. Didn’t really bother me because I didn’t feel like he was following me. He didn’t seem to be paying anymore attention to me then the other drivers.
That wasn’t creepy, what is creepy is someone turning when you turn. Speeding up when you speed up, and all around tailing you. Also consider tickets around here can be as much as someone’s weekly pay. A ticket could mean choosing between license, car insurance, food or rent. Wouldn’t you be nervous?
Have you ever had a history of being pulled over a lot? Could you afford a ticket? What if you couldn’t?
At any rate MOST people, as this thread shows, find some random stranger who could cause them a lot of problems following them to be creepy, and rightly so.
I was driving home once after dark when I came across an intersection where I could either go straight or turn right and still get home at the same time. The light just changed to red so I switched lanes to turn right since I could turn on the red.
As I was making the turn, I saw a white SUV suddenly switch from my old lane to the turn lane and take off after me. I did some lane changes and speed changes and the guy kept on me. Made a turn without signalling and he still followed. Finally, I pulled into a gas station figuring that if I pissed someone off and he was following me home to brain me, it might as well be with witnesses.
Nope, it was an unmarked cop. I did make a traffic violation when I turned (I guess I didn’t come to a complete stop at the light) but the cop asked if I was drinking and why I was driving erratically. I said “Frankly, you didn’t put your lights on or pull me over immediately so you looked like some random guy I accidentally pissed off who was following me to beat the shit out of me once I got home.”
I guess the cop felt bad about it or something because he let me off with a warning.
I passed a slow car on an almost empty country road one night. He speeded up and tailed me much too closely. WTF? Then I saw the flashing red light, so I stopped. When I got out of the car, the driver in the camper (that’s right, a fucking camper) approached me, wearing hospital scrubs and yelling that I was driving too fast on “his” road.
Thinking quickly, I considered the possibility that this was a new undercover ploy, dressing cops in green scrubs and putting them in slow, old campers on rural roads. Could be.
But I considered it more likely that it was some nut on the way home from his hospital job after a few drinks and he had some kind of light gadget on his dash that he used to get his jollies. So I flipped him off, told him to kiss my ass and drove away too fast for him to follow on a winding road that I knew very well.
And I didn’t care if he wrote down my car license number, as it was a rented car, and I checked with the rental agency who said they would never give out the driver’s info without a court order. Nothing ever came of it. Give me a real cop any day.
One time I was driving my El Camino to my friend’s apartment when a cop started following me. I figured he was just gonna scope me out, since my car did look like a street-racer type car (even though it was really a total POS). I figured I would just have to make sure to drive carefully for a few minutes.
A few minutes turned into several miles, with several turns along the way. The cop even cut someone off who had changed lanes between me and him, so he could stay behind me.
I decided then that I was hungry, so I slowed down, blinker on, and went into a Carl’s Jr. drive through. And what does the cop do? He goes and parks in a nearby parking lot and waited while I was in line at the drive-through! He continued following me all the way to my friends apartment, and stopped and watched me as I parked in a guest spot and walked to my friend’s place.
Damn douchebags were straight up harassing me - I hadn’t done a single thing wrong, I had a perfect driving record. It’s pigs like that that really make me dislike and distrust cops. I think too many cops are just straight up dipshit bullies who get their jollies off on borderline-abusing (or even outright abusing) their authority. It disgusts me.
I used to have a huge problem with being followed and pulled over for BS reasons when I drove my beloved '74 VW bug. Apparently, the mere act of driving one made me a stoner hippie who needed to be harrassed at all times. After making me late for work on one too many occasions, I reluctantly gave it up and got a small truck. Never been pulled over in the 15 years since. Never had a ticket either. I heard the “tags will be expiring soon” excuse a lot. They always got a little sheepish when they saw a professionally dressed accountant-type in the car instead of - what? Stoned surfer chick, I guess. (FTR, I never surfed in my life),
Regardless of the type of road it is, if the road is empty, and you have a cop sitting less than 2 car-lengths behind you for what seems to be 3-5 minutes, it turns you into a nervous wreck. Who knows what the hell this cop might be thinking… People drive best when they are relaxed and knowing a cop is right behind you isn’t very relaxing, whether you be a criminal or a law-abiding citizen - the longer this guy tails you the more nervous you become. I understand him pulling behind me 10-20 seconds to check a tag but 3-5 minutes… come on.
Also, if a cop was “trying to get to the same place I was” I highly doubt they’d be tailgating. I have had this happen often, but they keep a average following distance and there’s nothing unusual about their presence. Him being on my tail on empty streets lets me know he’s interested in me, and not the Dunkin Donuts 20 blocks away.
As for these late night statistics showing that drivers are more apt to be in a drunken stage, wouldn’t this be discrimination to be following/pulling over just any car they might think came from a party?..
Should I go hang out at a friends house and typically enjoy staying out late, I find it pretty irritating knowing that I’m probably going to be getting “tested” just because I fall into this category of “probably drunk because it’s late”… Fuck, we all have different schedules in how we live, just because I enjoy being a night owl or have a shift that lets me off late doesn’t mean I have just left a party or night club. If you want to follow people you are sure came from a club, maybe follow them from there so you’re sure that is where they came from.
Well, an intelligent cop would simply test the speed of both vehicles and then move on to look for an actual speeder rather than wasting the gas to tail a red car for miles and miles.
Since cops do not have a particularly good track record at identifying criminals by sight, I see no reason why we should cut a cop any slack for tailing a driver for three or nine or forty miles.
Look like me, be flying colors and riding an old chopper. You get over it … You will be checked and rechecked again and again and again.
Why? Because I look like I just did something I shouldn’t.
If I can take it any more, there is a really solution.
Shave my beard, dress reasonable, wear a helmet and ride a Honda. I’ll never get stopped again…
I will pay the price to ride and look like I do.
Nice thing about being in a small country type place now and not wearing colors any more is that the local officials now know me, know I am totally legal and I am really Santa.
They get a laugh when I hold a whole train of cars behind me at 5 MPH lower than the speed limit because they are afraid to pass the big mean biker… Bawahahaha
The drivers are freaking out when the cops are waving and giving thumbs up to the big scary biker dude…
Then who should do traffic enforcement? Are you arguing for a separate branch of traffic from crime (like some areas have for parking vs. cops)?