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

OK. So, say, for the sake of argument that it is illegal in CT. Say I have my car registered in NY (where, say, it isn't illegal) and I drive into CT. Can I be ticketed? How about for the tinting example that someone else gave here?

 

Well, they might forget after a week, However, every time you speed the camera lets you know its there. The camera doesn't just take a picture without letting you know... it flashes camera lights at whoever speeds so you know for sure your picture is getting taken. And if the 5% don't stop speeding, you would think they would wise up the next time they get a ticket.. or the next... or the next.... Each ticket gets points added onto your record right? Well then, won't they take away your license? Unless they are truuuully stupid and drive without a license, in which case they should be wiped off this planet :lol:

 

Actually I think this is good way to balance an actual offender with a minor offense. Letting people go without any ramifcations creates a bad precedent. However it seems here that the punishment fit the crime so to speak as long as nothing dangerous was involved.

The Son of Sam case in NYC was solved on a traffic violation as was the Okla City bombing. Congratulations to those involved.

 

You're a good guy, Schmika. You care about your job and you have compassion for people. If everyone was like that, your job would be a lot easier. I think that a lot of people don't pay attention to a lot in their lives. It's great that you can maintain your humanity while having to deal, daily, with people who are at their worst.

 

Now I may have not gotten the wording quite right, as it was about 15 years ago, but I do remember that ticket quite well. It was very clearly expressed to me by the officer that the charge would be reduced (along with the points charged against my licences, which has big insurance ramifications) if I paid the fine by mail. The alternative was also clearly expressed; if I showed up on the court date instead of paying the fine by mail, I would be charged with the full violation and would receive the full points against my license.

Now, I admit I was really speeding. Was I going 52? Who knows. But I was certainly going more than 44, so I didn't really have a leg to stand on. So, in reality, getting the reduced charge was a good thing for me.

But, the flip side was that implication that if I stood up for my rights, and pleaded the case in court, then they were going to beat me with a bigger stick than if I gave up my rights. Sure sounded like extortion to me.

That annoyed me quite a bit at the time. However, the relief of getting the reduced points against my license far outweighed my annoyance, since I did acknoledge that I was indeed guilty of the higher charge.

(Of course, I also acknoledge that this wasn't the officer's doing, but rather the policy of the city or county)

 

I believe that in most jurisdictions that use speed or red-light cameras, no points can be added to the record because it is difficult to prove who was driving the car. This argument is also used by many opponents of these devices - is the owner of car responsible if someone else is driving the car and gets nabbed by a camera?

 

http://www.autoblog.com/2006/02/24/say-che...l-in-scottsdal/

it doesnt matter. the point is that they are there, people know, and people will eventually stop speeding so they dont take the risk.

 

Thanks for our response. I think out views on DWB might be slightly different. I should rename it to driving 'while being perceived as a suspicious person without having done anything overtly suspicious'. That way you could include a young white man driving around in a 'known drug location' getting pulled over. I never had a feeling that this particular officer was racist. I have had racist officers pull me over for valid reason, but then it would be my own fault for not checking my headlight. His questioning of my destination before anything else made me feel like he was trying to figure out if I were a NYC to Boston drug runner. The plate thing was like an afterthought to justify the stop. Now I will entertain the idea that my plate was taking a really long time to run. The encounter was just really strage from my perspective. Due to other negative experiences with police officers in the past, being pulled over makes me really uncomfortable. I consider myself to be someone who obeys the law, so if I get pulled over while doing so it upsets me. From my standpoint as a person who does not work in law enforcment I felt that I should not have been stopped unless I comitted a moving violation or had a dangerous condition such as a broken taillight. In the absence of a reason that seems reasonable to me, I start to grasp at straws for reasons so the default one ends up being DWB. From what you have said, if it were a slow night and the cop was bored then he could have pulled me over just to have something to do. I actually found this particular encounter to be funny even though I suspected that it was DWB.

I also never mentioned that the cop was white. I have no doubt that black cops can make an inference that a young black male driving on the highway might be more likely than a middle aged white person to be up to no good. When I use the DWB term I'm thinking more along the lines of the profiling.

I totally understand your viewpoint about limiting the claims. For the record, I have never once filed any complaint but have been verbally abused by officers in the past. I remember my mother calling me in to listen to a news report about a course for young black men to take on how to conduct themselves when pulled over. I still ask permission to open the glove box to get my registration. My goal is not to antagonize the officer in any way.

Like you stated, I do think that DWB existed, at least in the east coast where I have lived all my life. I do get pulled over less now that years ago so perhaps some progress has been made. There really is no easy way to tell. There are good and bad people and police officers are people.

 

omitting key elements such as that you didn't get a ticket, only a warning and the skin color of the police officer comes across to me as misrepresentation. Why would you ommit things like that?