A story earlier in the week in the NY Times says there are special business cards available in the New York area that in many cases allow a driver in possession of the card to avoid getting cited if stopped for a traffic infraction. You can find the article by googling “get out of jail free card” , but may not be able to read it unless you have a nytimes account. Wikipedia mentions this also, in the “Law” section of this link.
Issued by the union they can allow you to get out of minor infractions but not for something worth jail time. The person who handed out the card is supposed to get a call confirming the person’s connection to them. Familiar with the concept from the CBS show Blue Bloods where friends and family members of Tom Selleck’s character flash the card to get favorable treatment from the officers.
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‘An Idealistic Cop, a Forbidden Ticket and a Police Career on the Brink’
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/16/nyregion/mathew-bianchi-nypd-traffic-tickets.html
‘ police unions distribute the wallet-sized courtesy cards – sometimes referred to as “get out of jail free” cards – to members, who in turn pass them out to friends and family. Bianchi had been instructed to let card carriers off without a ticket.
‘By the time he pulled over the Mazda in November 2018, drivers were handing Bianchi these cards six or seven times a day. But this woman’s card was a little older, a little tattered-looking. It was difficult to make out the contact information of the officer who had given it to her, which is usually written on the card’s back. So Bianchi did the wrong thing, which is to say, the right thing: He wrote the woman a ticket.’
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Thanks for posting the link. I found the article pretty disturbing.
Cheif of Police owes me a few cups of coffee,never had to cash them in.
I know an emergency room surgeon that got one. He and a colleague thought of scenarios where they had to do untried things to save a patient’s life. They had a police officer that was shot in the throat and his artery was torn by the bullet. He stuck his finger in the hole until they could prepare to sew it shut. That saved the officer’s life. My friend got a Police Doctor badge and was told to show it anytime he was stopped to get off without a problem.
About 1976 a friend of the family highway patrolman gave me a ticket one morning for 72 in a 55. At least he said good morning. He bragged about giving one of the twins baseball players a ticket too. Didn’t matter at all. Break the law pay the fine. Things are different out east I guess.
My chief was stopped for speeding in a neighboring State. He accepted the ticket and never mentioned he was a Chief of Police in N.C.
That was in the 1980’s ….another time , another world.
I knew a former chief of police who had some kind of card that prevent him from getting a speeding ticket. However his wife did mandate a limit on him that she enforced so he didn’t need to use this document.
Very interesting. I would like to get one of these cards just in case I end up in a school bus situation again 
To New Yorks finest, turn yourself in or we will hunt you down. . .
Then the heartwarming quote from a lawyer: “you run into burning buildings for us, we will run into a courthouse for you.” Like the shot
Heard around the world.