Talk to a Cop- The good, bad, and ugly!

Oh WOW! Awesome post!

Gotta think up some good, relevant questions...

 

I commend your service to the public. Well Done.

 

Speed traps are my personal favorite. In Houston, there was a decelleration ramp off I-10 (Studewood) that was very short, dropping the speed from the highway 55MPH to the road 25MPH with no stop in between. What was curious is each weekday afternoon there were no less than THREE patrol cars at the end of the street, and an "assembly line" of cops - one working the laser, one standing ready, and a number writing tickets to motorists along the road. Living in the area, I was never stopped, because I knew what was coming and SLAMMED on my brakes as soon as I merged off. It was the best example of a revenue generating speed trap I'd ever seen.

Safety is great, but traffic enforcement has financial incentive for many, including insurance companies who generously donate traffic enforcement equipment. The insurance penalty from a ticket is FAR FAR greater than I'd ever pay from the fine itself.

 

I don't understand. Does this mean you are using quotas or not?

I don't advocate the use of quotas but that doesn't mean I advocate the complete halt of issuing tickets... If people are legitimately speeding and causing a danger, I think they should be penalized, and everytime I drive I will see at least one person speeding excessively... If someone gets pulled over and ticketed for "not slowing to 0mph at a stop sign" which few of us rarely ever do and isn't as much of a safety concern as speeding, well I think that's unfair and most people will try to find a reason to blame it on the cop b/c its natural human nature.

You can't expect one to be understanding if they are pulled over for a very minor thing, then ticketed, while every day there is someone else doing worse than you and nothing (or so you think) happens to them (and you think this because you still see someone speedign excessively every day). However, if I do see someone getting pulled over for excessively speeding - I am happy

Quotas exist, but imo it's not helping fatalities or traffic accidents when they aren't used for legitimate reasons. Especially if people are being ticketed for very very minor and subjective things just because someone needs to fulfill a quota.

Working 8 hours a day, a reasonable number of traffic violators being stopped and ticked should VARY.

 

great post

 

hmm.

outside the traffic realm. because this is just about the stupidest thing i've ever heard (and was overturned by the DA)

you know those little kitchen sink sprayer things? and how when you turn off the sink there are maybe 12 drops of water in that sprayer, along with enough pressure to launch them 6 inches or so?

say someone took one of those sprayers, and sprayed those 12 drops of water, with next to no pressure behind them, at someone else.

does that constitute assault? and if so, why??

(my answer was: to the wicked witch of the west it might...)

 

I don't find quotas bad, in and of themselves. As long as the tickets are deserved and represent a truly hazardous situation, then I have no beef. The more the merrier!

It's the penny-ante stuff that irks me. A ticket for a 5mph rolling stop in the absence of traffic or peds is stupid, whether or not there is a quota.

The driver's suspicion is that a quota is behind the minor tickets. This presumes that the officer is pushed to write a nigher number of tickets, even if it means tix for truly minor offenses. What makes it worse is that this practice then creates a mindset that as long as "X" tickets are written, "the job is done" and even worse offenders go free.

As for warnings, I think they are underused. Sure, there is a deterrent for the SINGLE DRIVER who gets a ticket instead of a warning. But the real value of deterrent is for the 100 drivers who pass the poor sap pulled over, and re-think their speed, if only for a week or two. They have no idea whether it was a warning or a ticket, so the deterrent value is there regardless.

But if there is a quota, the officer will often take the attitude, "as long as I have to pull them over, I'll make it worthwhile on my record."

But a quota for warnings instead of tickets would be just as effective for promoting safer driving, without the bad rep for unfairness.

 

Oh, here's a good one:

Around here, as of the last several years, it appears, in an effort to keep more people like me from running EVERY ticket up the flagpole, officers have now been using a similar play on a statement much like this:

"I'm writing your up for ______, I'm giving you a break, as I could have written you up for __________."

I fail to believe it is pure coincidence. Nothing more than a psychological tactic to make you feel like you really did get a good deal (which isn't the case unless you get a warning, a warning, is a real MEANINGFUL good deal), and/or it sort of makes you feel a bit bad for dragging the cop into court to fight it. In other words, it seems like they are trying to create a particular suggestive mindset.

 

Karl:

Yes, I do believe there are quota’s in traffic enforcement. As traffic enforcement is not uniformly applied, it is *not* an effective traffic control measure or a deterrent as it now is.

As you may already know, my work career is about as long as yours, except I'm a Systems Analyst. However, up until 10 years ago, I did perform consulting for local/regional law enforcement, until I made a very firm decision to no longer offer consulting services to the law enforcement field.

IMHO I find Law Enforcement to be highly political. That is, it's not what you know, but WHO you know. Thus, a wealthy and highly influential local business leader will rarely be bothered, unless that person does something really dumb like get s*** faced and mow down a bunch of kids at a school crosswalk.

Or if a young brat has wealthy parents, and you happen to nail that young brat driving reckless/speeding, the wealthy parents will apply pressure and the case is dropped.

Likewise, some working schmuck who barely has 2 nickels to rub together can expect the full "weight" of the law with little recourse.

Indeed, there was a case last year in Winnipeg where a fellow had a very bad neighbor, loud music and wild parties, in winter always driving a snowmobile on the fellow's yard, etc. The poor fellow could have called the Winnipeg Police Service, except the Neighbor From Hell actually *was* a Winnipeg Police Officer.

The poor fellow finally did complain when the Neighbor From Hell’s 2 teenage boys committed acts of property damage against the poor fellow. From that point on, the poor fellow was *constantly* harassed by Winnipeg Police. Patrol cars followed him around to try to catch him at traffic violations, they would park in front of his house for hours at a time. Very intimidating.

He finally went to a well-known defense attorney, explained what had happened, and the defense attorney set up a hidden video camera in the fellow’s car and at his home. Within a week there was enough evidence to launch an IA investigation, and the best part: that Neighbor From Hell police officer was caught with contraband. He was fired, moved away, and the intimidation instantly stopped.

Although these sort of incidents are thankfully rare, enough of them happen for the average public to be highly suspicious of law enforcement in general. I have found city and some state trooper agencies to be the worst offenders, and here in Canada the RCMP is consistently very bad for "selective" law enforcement.

You may argue that there are only a few bad apples out there in uniform. I have to counter by stating that one bad apple is too much. There is a lot of responsibility behind that badge, and any officer who is corrupt or dishonest deserves harsh penalty. Too much is at stake.

jay

 

Here's one I love from my college days in South Carolina.

"Son, I clocked you with the radar gun going 52 in a 35 MPH zone. That is a 4 point voilation against your license. However, I am authorized to write the ticket up as going 44 in a 35 MPH zone, which is only a 2 point violation. If you pay the fine by mail, the ticket will be recorded as going 44 in 35 MPH zone. However, your actual speed will be noted on the ticket and if you show up on the scheduled court date instead of paying the fine by mail, then the ticket will be recorded as going 52 in a 35 MPH zone and a 4 point voilation."

Now, I realize that the city, county, state, or whatever, allows the charge to be reduced if you pay the fine by mail in order to encourage people to pay by mail instead of taking up court time. However, it seems a bit slimy to me and a bit like extortion.

 

quotas aren't bad if there are more legitimate violators than the quota suggests on every single time period dictated by that quota. but then again, do you need the quota if you can already meet it?

i also think warnings are great. warnings would be great for 10 overs and real tickets for 15 overs.. or somethign to that degree.

one thing i found effective was a speed camera. it flashes when you go 5 over and you instantly slow down. and then you constantly think... oh man.. am i going to get a ticket? At the time i was going 7 over and it flashed on me, and I was like... wow. And as a look back on it, I now realize why all the other cars around me (actually they were already behind me) were going the speed limit. Because usually, people will go 5 over.

and to the post about the speed trap: i think that's very immoral because it sounds like they are exploiting a flaw in the design of the ramp. what is their purpose? protect and serve? or bring in the paycheck?

 

oop -- Schmika, I asked a question in the "orange county" thread
before I saw that this one had been started -- please go see.
.
_H*

 

Schmika, why do COPS call me house every 2 weeks or so begging for money? I already gave them about $300. How do I get rid of them?

 

Schmika,

When I took a career placement test in college, the results said I like helping people get out of bad situations and have a highly developed sense of spirituality. They recommended I investigate becoming a minister, ombudsman, or police officer!

I was flabbergasted. What in the world do those three careers have in common, I wondered. And aren't I a virginal pagan, back-slide'n ex-Evangelical (back in the 70's, way before it was hip)?

Went into nursing and then lab research but always wondered what if...

 

Amongst these same lines, I read somewhere that some potential candidates for the State Police (it was either in CT or MA, I forget which), were actually denied employment because they scored too high on their tests. The idea being that most police work is dreadfully tedious, thus the candidate would not likely not be happy.

 

Get caller ID and an answering machine. If it's a number that you don't recognize as a friend or relative, screen the call. If they don't leave a message, what they want isn't important to you anyway.

 

:lol:

If it's in MA, it's probably the "Fraternal Order of Police"...

I got a call from them once, and they used this line on me:

"Can the officers count on your support?"

Me: "No."

:lol:

...and that's the last time they ever called...