Ever been driving on a lonely road or at a quiet time and notice oh hey officer friendly is tailing you, and he continues to do so for MILES! So you are making sure you abide by all motor vehicle regulations and speed limits, which only seems to interest the officer further.
What is the best course of action here? My vote is to pull into the nearest open business if there is one like a fast food place or gas station as soon as you notice the tail, I have seen from experience that after a certain amount of time spent following someone a cop will just make up a ticket. I think it is best to bring the whole thing to a decision point early on for the officer to pursue or give up, which will likely be give up.
I was once a passenger in a car when after one of these multi-mile followings the cop pulled the car over and claimed they were going to write a citation for failure to remain in lane(claiming the car strayed too far during a turn a few miles back:rolleyes::rolleyes: ) and started asking passengers for ID which no one had when it started raining and the officer said the driver would be let off with a warning and left. Guessing that running the passengers for warrants and searching them was the real goal.
My nephew was followed by a cruiser when he was on foot, he was followed home and then the cop knocked on the door and wrote him a ticket for supposedly littering at some point while being followed.
There have been a few more experiences that say to me the best thing to do is bring the tail to an end early.
IMHO your best course of action is to continue on your merry way with just a bit more caution than you might normal use. It sounds like paranoia is your worst enemy here. It’s like watching traffic on the highway back up because everyone is afraid to pass the patrol car that’s doing 50mph in a 55 zone. Be safe, be careful but don’t let it rattle you.
I got used to being followed by cops back when I was delivering newspapers. Usually once they figured out what I was doing they’d drive off and leave me alone.
One night though I was being followed by a state trooper. He had a head light out and was in an unmarked car but I knew it was a cop.
I was driving my then bf’s recently deceased father’s truck. I was buying it but it was still titled in his father’s name. My then bf was a junior.
So the cop pulls me over, asks me how I’m doing, blah blah and asks for the registration. I can’t find it so he asks me whose truck is it and I tell him. So he asks me how bf is doing and I say fine as far as I know, why is there something wrong? So the cop says when is the last time I talked to bf. I said a few hours ago. The look on his face as he backed away was priceless. Then I realized he was asking about the deceased father.
Then he tried to tell me the tags were suspended and the truck was going to be towed. I said no they are not suspended they are valid until the expiration date but they can’t be renewed. I knew because I had just had that same conversation earlier with my bf who got a letter from the MVA and he wanted to know what I did to get the tags suspended. I really had to argue with the cop until he finally checked and said I was right, the tags weren’t suspended his driver’s license was.
I got pulled over one winter night, by a MA State cop. He had followed me for 3 miles… I had a burned out taillight. He left after issuing a warning…great use of police resources.
I pull over and get some gas or a coffee. If the officer initiates contact with me there, he was probably going to do so anyway and I like my interactions with the police to be in brightly lit areas with other people around.
This is what I would do, for a while. Drive precisely the speed limit. Full stop at stop signs. Eventually, I’d go to some public business with people around.
A couple of months ago, I covered a late night shift at a location I’d never been to before. The whole area was dark and empty when it was time for me to head home. As I navigated this huge parking-lot-commercial-park-infernal-curb-and-transplanted-dehydrated-palm-tree-maze searching for the right place to turn and hit a real road, I noticed I had picked up a tail. No flashing lights, yet.
I did the best I could, under the pressure. Got on the right road, headed straight for the state highway.
Red light.
Rolled up to it and stopped gently. Cop car right behind me.
Red light… Red light…
The light finally turns green, and I casually drive on down the street. He’s still behind me, but that’s okay. No worries. I’m not drunk, not high, the car is legal, no body parts in the trunk, and AWWW FUCK! THAT WAS ONLY THE LEFT TURN LIGHT THAT WENT GREEN I JUST TOTALLY RAN THAT RED LIGHT LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER!
He followed me for another mile or so to see what would happen, pulled me over, [del]I used the Force[/del] he saw I wasn’t DUI, and we all went home happy. True story.
I mentioned this incident in another thread recently. After all this time, it still rankles.
I was on vacation with Mrs. J. in Arizona long ago, driving a rental car and noticed we were being followed by a state trooper. I was heading towards the Interstate, merged onto it…the trooper followed. I stayed in the right lane, doing a little under the speed limit…the trooper followed. After miles of this, with me glancing apprehensively in the rear-view mirror from time to time, he finally put on his flashers and pulled me over. His explanation was that I was wavering from side to side in my lane. Not out of my lane, but in it.
I explained (not hiding my pissedoffness very well) that any wavering was due to checking in the rear-view to see when and if he was going to pull me over). He let me go.
I have no idea what I did to provoke suspicion, besides being under the age of 30.
These days if the same thing happened, I would drive as carefully as possible until I could get to an open restaurant or other business and pull in, following all applicable regulations. I am not going to prolong their cat and mouse game any more than necessary.
Back in the late 90s I worked a strange second shift at ADT, getting me off at 1 am. Since ADT was in Hartford, and I live 50 miles away out in the sticks, it means that I roll through Willimantic at some ungodly hour when normal people are asleep. This was right after a snowfall so everything was white and very quiet [I love driving late at night on a couple inches of snow so I can hear the wheel crunch] So I am headed down rt 6 and doing a bit under the speed limit when a car starts tailgating my IH scout. Since I am not in a hurry, I slow down to get them to pass me. I down shift. I am now going 30 and downshift again, and they still tailgate me. Just as I get into first gear and am doing about 5 miles per hour the lights come on and I stop. Very young guy in statie uniform comes crunching up to the window, and I pass over license, insurance, registration and military ID [to explain why I have a Virginia license and a CT license plate] He starts grilling me, and I notice that there is an older cop with him. I get slightly stroppy because I happen to know that I firstly was not driving an illegal vehicle, all my paperwork is correct and the only thing I did was actually fall under the minimum road speed and not turn on my flashers. I point out that the reason I was going slower than the speed limit was it was late at night and I was enjoying the drive. I was not drunk nor tired as I have been working this shift for at least 7 months. I started slowing down because someone was tailgating me with their high beams on, so I was attempting to get them to pass me. The older cop finally drags the younger one back a bit, and lectures him, then they both come forward, the young guy apologizes and the older one tells me that the younger one is fresh out of the academy, and needs to learn NOT to try to make someone do something illegal and I could leave now …:dubious:
The other night, a cop followed me for a few blocks. He was stopped at a well-known speed trap close to my home, and pulled out after me. I still don’t know why. I wasn’t speeding. He tailgated me until I pulled into my driveway, then kept going. My heart was pounding like hell, but I wasn’t doing anything wrong.
If it really bothers you that much. find a fast food drive through and go through it. They will not go through a drive through because if they get a call they may not be able to immediately respond.
It doesn’t bother me per se, but I’m not interested in a totally spurious ticket either which as I said is in my experience the usual end result of this cat and mouse game.
What bugs me is when you’re being followed on a rural highway and you don’t know what the speed limit is, and there are NO speed limit signs for miles!
Whatever you do, don’t pull into your driveway! That apparantly was suspicious enough for the cop tailing me to pull in behind me and THEN kick in his lights. :rolleyes:
They made me open the front door and GET MY SISTER OUT OF BED to prove that I lived there. WTF.
<—white woman who likes junky cars, which apparantly is suspicious. Can’t WAIT for the cop who asks me “So, how can you afford this fine, fine vehicle?”
This happened to my father-in-law once; he was followed for miles by a police car at night through a rural area. Using his hands-free phone, he called the police department and reported that he was being followed by a suspicious car and was concerned. End of tail.
