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

The state troopers here are considered the elite or the best of the best. In order to become one, you have to be a police officer in the state somewhere else (county sheriff, city police) for, as I recall, five years. Their testing is rigorous and they don't disqualify someone for scoring too high on the tests. I used to know a state trooper so I'm familiar with the process and the requirements show up in a newspaper article from time to time. Michigan State Troopers are also the nicest, easiest to get along with cops in Michigan.

 

Ok, did a little search, turns out it was for a local shop, not State, but nonetheless... (although the same might apply for the State, I won't exclude that possibility)

Article

 

Galaxee can vouch for this - the majority of lab research work is "dreadfully tedious".
My work schedule was determined by my cells' growth cycles. If they were ready to rock and roll, be it at 3 in the morning on Christmas eve or 2 pm every Sunday for a couple of months, I had to be in the lab.
One project involved counting cells, thousands of them, under a microscope. I got motion sickness from scrolling the plates past the lens, my eyes would bug out of my head. Four or five hours of that, every blankity-blank day for weeks! Argh!

 

Yes, but there's more behind it...

 

yep. one of my fellow students does stereology, complains of exactly what you describe.

i love how you get so much education... and then spend your life pipetting crap into a little glass tube and throwing it in a shaking incubator.

or splitting cells every other day (sometimes at 3am, sometimes during basketball games) for weeks until you have enough to harvest and do some other tedious experiment with.

or pouring SDS gels. oh, that has to be the worst. argh!

sorry, a bit off topic. but spunky prompted the rant! i just spent a looong day in lab...

eta: and on that note, i'm heading off to hang out with the girls and a friendly entity who shall remain known only as "pierre"

 

...actually, I know precisely what both of you are talking about... h34r:

I can't tell you how many times I visited my best friend at his lab as opposed to apartment... :lol:

We used to do all sorts of stupid things after hours while he was waiting for this or that... Up to, and including, various sportbike related shenanigans in the parking lot...

:lol:

 

Okay, the "ticket in Orange County" thread is already buried,
so I'll repost my query to Schmika over here and hopefully
he'll see it. This is a serious question -- how often do
you and your colleagues issue citations for *tailgating* and
other clearly dangerous close-proximity behavior, as opposed to
simply exceeding posted speed limits? Does your jurisdiction
include faster highways, on which you could pick off any number
of people bouncing along at 70+ half a car length from each
other in the left lane? Does anyone actually *care* about that,
which is likely more dangerous than mildly exceeding speed
limits with a reasonable safety buffer around one's self?
.
I am seriously looking for law enforcement's take on this, because
it's so bad around here I want to start making a few queries
around the Mass. staties' neck of the woods to see if any better
awareness could be raised. When people crowd my butt at well
*above* the local limit, it really bugs the F* out of me. Doesn't
matter what I'm driving, either, so this is hardly prius-specific.
.
thanx for any meaningful discussion of this you can engage in...
.
_H*

 

I'd like to comment about how institutional prejudice skews the "justice" system by contrasting two actual events at which I was present as a participant, and dealing with how the law permits a higher degree of severity than is actually practiced against favored classes, while unfavored classes take the full brunt:

Case 1:

For about 5 years I did volunteer work at a homeless shelter, the Dorothy Day House of Hospitality of Fargo-Moorhead. In those days (this has since changed) the full-time staff were unpaid volunteers who lived at the house, with the homeless people they served. I was a part-time live-in volunteer, not officially staff, but treated as an equal by the staff on the 3 days per week that I lived and worked at the house. We had a strict rule that nobody was allowed into the house if he was intoxicated, and we often had to ask someone to leave because he had been drinking. There was a man (I will change the name and call him Joe) who was alcoholic, but unlike many alcoholics, Joe was never violent or abusive in any way when he was drunk. He was well known to the local police as he had often been in detox, and they knew him to be completely passive, whether drunk or sober. So on the day in question Joe came to the house drunk, and I told him he could not stay. So he asked for a ride to detox. I was the only worker at the house at the moment, and there was nobody there with a car, so I asked Joe if he'd like me to call the police to give him a ride. he said yes, and I called and explained the situation. I told them who it was, and I told them that he was not making any trouble at all, but that he wanted a ride to detox. The officer showed up and Joe went out to meet him. Through the kitchen window, where I was chopping up ingredients for the evening's supper, I saw the officer handcuffing Joe behind his back. I went outside and explained to the officer that it was not necessary to handcuff Joe, and certainly not behind his back (which is somewhat painful) because he was not violent, and never had been. The officer said that he was required by regulations to handcuff anybody he transported in his car. Considering that the cop car has that barrier between the front and back seats, and that Joe was known to the police as never ever getting violent or abusive, I thought this was unreasonable. But especially when compared to the next case I'll mention:

Case 2:

As regular readers of PC will know, I have participated in nonviolent civil disobedience, broken the law (most often simple trespass, in open daylight, with a protest sign) and been arrested for it. Although the Air Force security guards always handcuff protesters behind their back (using a sort of plastic fastener resembling the kind you sometimes see in packages of yard leaf bags) I have never been handcuffed behind my back by a police officer, and about half the times I've been arrested, I was not even handcuffed at all. Twice I was arrested and put in the FRONT SEAT of the police car, once cuffed in front and once without any handcuffs at all.

The only reason I can see for the difference is that Joe is an American Indian and I am white and middle-class. What happened to the REQUIREMENT that arrestees be handcuffed? Why was Joe handcuffed behind his back, while I've been arrested and not handcuffed at all?

The answer is institutional racism. I'm not talking about overt hatred, because it's obvious that the officer who arrested Joe did not hate him. He spoke to him in a friendly manner, and he knew him personally. But Joe was an Indian, so he got the full brunt of the rules. I, on the other hand, merited special treatment, by officers who knew nothing about me, merely because I am white. (My protests took place at the Grand Forks air base, and the associated missile silos, far enough from Fargo that the police there did not know me.)

Sorry for the length of this post. I think that traffic control is an important job, and that stopping speeders and other safety violators saves lives. But I also think that in many areas there is an institutional bias against the poor and people of color. The cops NEVER bust down doors in Beverly Hills looking for evidence of drugs, but they do it in Watts all the time. And this sort of unequal treatment is one reason why many people harbor so much animosity toward the police.

 

:lol: All jobs suck, that's why they call them jobs. If the job didn't suck, they'd do it themselves.

 

Here's one that has always vexed me, although it doesn't appear to be a place where the local police hang out to ticket people. Often, I'm coming down a very busy two-lane road that crosses a very busy five-lane road. Once you cross the five-lane road, the two-lane road is less busy than before. There is a "no left turn" sign. In order to get in to my neighborhood, from the light, I just keep going on the two-lane road and eventually turn left on to a sidestreet. However, across the five-lane street and to the left of the road that I'm on, there is a street that you can take by veering slightly to the left because it's a dogleg from the main two-lane road. Now, technically, is taking that sidestreet a left turn? The busy five-lane road is the one that I presume they don't want you to turn on to and the sidestreet is not really much of a turn. I asked one of the local cops about this, summing up by asking if I would get a ticket if I veered left on to the sidestreet. His response, and he had a definite southern accent so bear that in mind when I quote hime because I remember his response to this day, was 'it depends on the son of a bitch who stops you.'

 

What is the drunk driver profile I saw you mention in the Orange county post? The only reason I ask is because I've been pulled over twice in about a year for suspected drunk driving, both times on a single lane road (no weaving), had a friend or three in the car, and doing the exact speed limit (for fuel efficiency, darn it!) Both times were Sunday nights around midnight-1am (which I wouldn't think would be a high time for it.) Both times I could have blown a .00, as I don't drink but once in a while, and neither time had drank within at least a couple of days. It really annoys me that it happens, and wastes my time.

 

Just to post a reply to MS's story (post #10) about the bad neighbor cop. Just last month a local police chief got pulled over and cited for DUI. I think it was the State Troopers. He was given no breaks and is going to a rehab program. In discussing this with a cop aquiaintence, his personal take was that he, my aquiantence would have done exactly the same thing.

 

Good topic. Tickets seem to be a hot thing here in S FL. No shortage of students in driver improvement classes.

 

Funny you should mention that. My son is a police officer in a small city in California (population somewhere around 45,000, but growing rapidly). A few weeks ago, I asked him about tickets and quotas in his jurisdiction. He told me there were no formal quotas, but there was a general expectation that officers average at least a ticket per shift, averaged over a month. Their shifts are 10 hours rather than your 8, but the similarity to your policy is plain. He said that it just basically demonstrates to management that officers are doing their jobs, but it's not exactly a hard-and-fast quota per se.

I spend a lot less time on the road than officers do, but it's a rare day that I don't see more than one egregious violation of traffic laws. I have no problem believing that officers can easily meet their superiors' expectations for ticket-writing without resorting to stops for marginal violations. And, as both you and my son noted, these "quotas" are averaged over an entire month, so it's not likely that an officer might "suddenly" need to write an arbitrary ticket because his shift was nearly over and he just realized he hadn't written his daily ticket yet! In short, while creating some minimal level of accountability that demonstrates they are doing their jobs, these "quotas" are so modest that an officer would really have to turn a blind eye to nearly everything to have any difficulty meeting these "performance standards". While I don't doubt that tickets are issued for revenue enhancement in some areas, I honestly don't know of anywhere around here where that really seems to be the case.

Joe

 

Ok for the first part: I think officers should write ticket to people who deserve them, no doubt. But I don't believe that an amount shows that an officer is doing his job. If a day has no violators, then there are no violators. A cop can still be doing his job and not issue any tickets for any given day. Maybe it just wasn't the right place at the right time, but where he was located, there were no violators. it's not fair to pick someone at the end of the day who rolled at 7mph because you need to fulfill a quota when the entire rest of the day you let people roll at 7mph without consequence. think about it. lazy cops aren't going to suddenly become unlazy because of a quota if they truly are lazy, then do you think they are going to go to the trouble of catching people who are speeding or causing trouble? Or the minor offenders which (i think) are much more plentiful. If a cop is truly lazy, that cop is going to fulfill his quota in the quickest way possible, and then do nothing for the rest of the day. that is truly lazy. Does having a quota change the amount of people who speed or violate? not at all! I think I said this, but I will reiterate it again.. if there are more violators than the quota suggests, there is no need for that quota. If there are less violators than the quota suggests, then who are you ticketing to fulfill that quota? There is no logic to quotas. If a cop is lazy, well then what is his purpose? Serve and protect? 'cause that's obviously not his goal if he will not do anything the entire day simply because he is lazy. I would understand if a cop said to me, I didn't catch anyone today, I didn't meet my quota because there simply were no violators today. (if there truly were no violators that day). If he is lazy, he's simply not doing his job.

Stop sign rolling: Well I guess that's pretty subjective. If your standard is 3mph, and people you catch are doing 10-15mph, then what happens if I am doing 7mph? I'm not trying to be the devil's advocate here but I'd like to know what demonstrates a clear difference between good rolling and bad rolling. And how do you measure how fast they are going when they roll? Eyeball it? Because then how do you know which side of 7mph are you going to take, the 3mph "it's okay" or the 10-15mph "no its not okay" (Btw, 7mph is just an arbitrary number i took because it lies inbetween 3 and 10-15.. roughly )

For the third part: I think she was careless to begin with. But I don't know if that directly relates to that phrase "if no one is coming it should be OK to roll". I don't agree with that sentence, but I also think that lady completely skimped out on the first part of that condition AKA "if no one is coming" She simply was careless, and since we are human, hey, it happens. I don't think its a result of rolling, but that she was just stupid to do such a thing so carelessly.

 

Due to the numbers of NuT drivers on the road, I'd say whatever your quota is, it needs to be doubled or tripled.

With that, MY QUESTION:
If technology could somehow double the efficiency of the officers – from the writing of the ticket through the associated court proceedings (if it goes to court) – would you have your officers write twice the tickets, or spend half the time they do now on traffic enforcement?

Either way you answer, it would be a benefit to society . . . assuming:
1) “society†isn't the recipients of the extra tickets.
2) The officers don't spend their extra time in a donut shop.

For the longest time I have wondered why police don't videotape traffic violations, show the recording to the perpetrator, then say, “If you wish to contest this in a court of law, that is your right, but, in my absence, this tape will be shown to the judge. It will also be available for you to see on the Internet. Should you contest and lose, you may also be liable for added court costs and possibly officer overtime.â€

Red light camera violations don't require an officer to show-up in court – this should do the same thing.

I would imagine videos would severely cut down the practice of the "obviously-guilty" contesting everything in court – hoping the officer does not show-up - and the severe wasting of the courts' and officers' time.

Not only would this hand held traffic citation camera/computer take the video, a snapshot of the driver would be taken, audio of the officer's interaction with the driver would be recorded, a record of the driver's license information captured (like an ATM), GPS location plotted, driver's signature for receipt of the ticket recorded, then the machine would print a ticket for the driver. ---- Total time from stop to release should be less than 5 minutes, and the officer would probably never hear another word about the stop or have to report to traffic court as often as they do.

 

then use a speed camera. double or tripling the quota isn't going to increase the amount of nut drivers being caught. If the police could double or triple the amount of nut drivers being caught, I'm sure they would already be doing it. It is my firm belief that they are doing their best, and the only way to increase nut drivers being caught is by increasing the number of police so that there are more patrols. It doesn't make sense to have a quota, period.

If doubling or tripling the quota doubles and triples the amount of legitimate violators being caught, what the hell were the police doing in the first place? Sitting by while nuts do whatever they want? Think about it. If the police could do so already, they would have. If a police officer is lazy, he'll still be lazy with the quota, rack up the quota's suggested tickets on easy prey and call it a day. Why? BECAUSE HE'S LAZY. Not all cops are lazy, and if a cop doesn't find any violators in a day, even though he's working hard to catch someone.. Does that mean you should penalize him for doing his job? No of course not! That's not fair at all! Priuschatters, you're smarter than this. There is no logic to quotas.