Someone reported my driving

General Discussion
21

This is all very silly.

If it happened to me, I would perhaps just explain the situation, say politely to the officer, “Thanks for letting me know”, keep it brief, and finish the conversation calmly. And get over it. No point in all the paranoia.

I also suspect that there’s more to the story than this. Either the OP did something to tick off the other driver, or the other driver thinks the OP did something to tick him off. Whichever, it’s a very minor matter, and not worth getting all road-raged about it. You can’t win arguments with a nutjob on the road—just like you can’t win arguments with nutjobs online : )

That being said, there are many times on highways here in the US that I’ve wished I could report reckless drivers (although certainly not someone like the OP, who is not only in GB but undoubtedly a model driver).

I would dearly love to have a uniformed officer pay a home visit to some of these bozos…

22
In NH an officer has to witness a violation in order to write a citation. An officier cannot write a traffic citation based on a citizen's complaint.

I suspect most state have similar statutes.

In pretty much ALL states that’s true. If it wasn’t…ANYONE who just didn’t like you because you were driving a Red Subaru could say anything…and the courts would be filled dealing with the false claims.

NH and some states will take action if there is MORE then one witness. But it’s not likely to go to court unless the cop sees it happen.

23

I was on the freeway one evening when someone in a police uniform waved me over. Since it was a busy well lit area, I pulled over. I waited for him to get out of his car and walked up to my car. I asked him for his badge number, and that was the end of the conversation. He hoped back into his car and drove off.

24

I would hope the guy taking pics of your car while driving got reprimanded as well.

25

In NH, in a case of a reported drunken driver, enraged driver, or some similar danger, a patrol car will be dispatched to try to find the vehicle. The officer will then trail the vehicle and try to witness the problem. If he/she does, the vehicle will be pulled over and further investigation ensue.

I myself have called in an occasional really dangerous incident, including extreme aggressiveness and obviously drunk drivers, and have seen the patrol cars pull in behind the driver, watch the situation, and pull the driver over. The cops I know would far rather do that than to have to work the “mess” after a major wreck with innocent victims.

26

@Redrum:

This is all very silly.... No point in all the paranoia.

After seeing this video, I beg to differ. Not knowing and not exercising your rights can have a very high price.

27

These videos might not help those in the UK, but every American driver should know how to assert her and his rights.

I know these videos look spammish, but they are sold by a nonprofit organization with which I am not affiliated, and if you don’t want to purchase them, all you have to remember is to calmly say, “With all due respect, I would like to exercise my 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendment rights. Thank you.”

28

Um, this may have been a rogue cop, it happens, but the driver of the car gave him good reason to be suspicious. Refuse to let a cop look in your car and what do you expect him to think? It honestly stuck me as the driver dong everything he could to give the cop a hard time. Nobody wins when you do that.

I didn’t see any inappropriate actions by the cop. But IMHO clearly the driver is a bit on the wacky side.

29
Refuse to let a cop look in your car and what do you expect him to think?
I expect the cop to think I know how to exercise my 4th Amendment rights, and nothing more. That is the only logical conclusion.
30

“Refuse to let a cop look in your car and what do you expect him to think?”

I expect him to think that he needs a warrant to inspect the car. The police are trained to know exactly what they can and cannot do. They do not make mistakes in this respect. If the officer is a bully, he may try to bully you into doing as he wishes. If you remain calm and do not threaten the officer, they have no reason to detain you longer than a few minutes.

31

When I was about 19 I pulled out of the Drive In theater with my female companion in my 59 bug. I was pulled over by a deputy sheriff who said he saw me drinking out of a can and thought it was alcohol. It was Coke and it was fine when he wanted to check the car over. Nothing there. No big deal.

32

@Bing,

If you’re willing to voluntarily waive your 4th Amendment rights, I understand your decision. Many people do it because they don’t understand their rights and what is at risk, and many people are intimidated by bullying from police officers. However, those of us who choose to exercise our constitutional rights should not be presumed to be guilty for doing so. You’re lucky there was nothing there you weren’t aware of. Sometimes police find things you didn’t know someone accidentally left in your car, and occasionally they plant evidence so they can seize your car. Personally, I don’t think there is anything to gain by taking the risk, and if I’ve done nothing wrong, I am supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, so I don’t let police treat me like I am guilty.

It might seem strange, but I just have a thing about not letting people trample my rights.

33

I’ve never called to report a car driver, but since the advent of cell phones, I’ve made several calls to report trucks when they have a “How am I driving?” number on the back. There have been a few where I’ve just called the company using the name on the cab. I notice there are fewer trucks with a number on the back…

My best friend’s father and uncles were all policemen. The advice we were given was:

  1. Be respectful. Always. Address them as sir, maam, officer, sargeant etc. Don’t make ridiculous excuses, they’re not stupid. If you’re a jerk, they will so note on the ticket meaning that if you try to plead not guilty, the prosecutor and judge will refuse to work with you and you should expect the max fine.

  2. If they ask to search the car, and you have nothing to hide, let them. It ties in to cooperation, and easing their suspicions. They are far more likely to not cite you if you’re cooperative and they are assured that you’re clean.

Remember, if your goal is to avoid a ticket/arrest, you need to ACT in a way that has the best chance of getting that, regardless of your true feelings.

After speaking with my friend’s family, and another friend who is a state trooper, I would suggest that unless you have something to hide, refusing a search of your car is going to arouse suspicion. They will then look for a reason to cite you and or justify the search. Depending on whether you’ve had other issues with the police, they may make it a point to stop you at another time, esp if you’re in a small town and become “known”.

34

Whitey, that is not the only logical conclusion. Nor is it the normal one. The logical and normal conclusion is that you’re hiding something.

Becoming obsessed with disparaging the reputtation of the officer that stopped you, to the extent of actually investigating him, even though no citation was issued, only illustrated to me that the driver in the video in (in my opinion) a paranoid nutcase with OCD.

You may give the cops a hard time if you wish. Personally, as long as the cop is professional about it (and this one appeared to be until the driver refused to let him look in the car), I’m happy to cooperate with him. Every time a cop makes a stop he’s putting himself in potential danger. He doesn’t know if there a stash of AK47s in the trunk or just a spare tire and a bag of peanuts. Besides, if he had let the driver take off without being allowed to check the car, and the driver went to the bank, pulled out an AK47 and killed the teller and robbed it, and you were one of the people that got robbed, you’d be the firat one screaming that the cop was derelict in his duty.

There are well known “drug highways” in some states where cops do routine stops of out of state plates to try to stop the flow of narcotics. If the driver acts suspicious, the cops look deeper. That’s exactly what appears to have happened here. Personally, I want to see the flow of drugs stopped. I’m willing to put up with a little inconvenience and cooperate with the cops in order for them to stop the flow of drugs. I wish you were too.

35

@mountainbike:

The logical and normal conclusion is that you're hiding something.
That is an emotional response, not a logical conclusion.
Becoming obsessed with disparaging the reputtation of the officer that stopped you, to the extent of actually investigating him, even though no citation was issued, only illustrated to me that the driver in the video in (in my opinion) a paranoid nutcase with OCD
I disagree with your assessment. You don't have to issue a citation to violate a man's constitutional rights, and I think violating someone's constitutional rights is enough to warrant an investigation.
You may give the cops a hard time if you wish.
I don't "give the cops a hard time" unless they try to violate my rights or bully me. I very often cooperate with officers. They have a tough job, and anything I can do to help, short of waiving my rights, I will do.
Besides, if he had let the driver take off without being allowed to check the car, and the driver went to the bank, pulled out an AK47 and killed the teller and robbed it, and you were one of the people that got robbed, you'd be the firat one screaming that the cop was derelict in his duty.
You couldn't be more wrong. I recognize police have a hard job to do, and preserving my rights might make it more difficult, but disregarding my rights isn't the answer to the fact that they have a hard job to do. Just like everyone else, they need to learn to do their jobs within the rules that govern their profession.
Personally, I want to see the flow of drugs stopped. I'm willing to put up with a little inconvenience and cooperate with the cops in order for them to stop the flow of drugs. I wish you were too
Personally, I think the so-called "war on drugs" is a huge waste of taxpayer money. By every measurable benchmark, it is ineffective, and I don't believe that is because of our constitutional rights. I think it is because the drug problem would be better addressed by confronting demand for drugs, not the supply. As long as there is demand, there will always be a supply, no matter how many people's rights you violate.

Violating the rights of innocent people is not the answer to the drug problem, and I think evidence of this can easily be found everywhere drugs have proliferated in spite of a heavy police presence and routine violation of people’s rights (i.e. the ghetto).

What I find most disturbing is that people have died to preserve your rights and freedom, yet you seem willing to give up your rights and freedom so easily. If these ideals are worth dying for, they’re worth exercising. I’m not going to relinquish my rights and freedom without a fight. If you choose to relinquish your rights without putting up a fight, that’s fine for you, but when authorities force that decision on others, we call it tyranny.

36

I’m with Whitey on this one. I had several very bad experiences with Military Police when in the Army. On a military base your vehicle can be searched for no reason at any time what-so-ever. And the military police can be total jerks. They are trying to make a name for themselves. I had my vehicle searched numerous times (nothing found EVER). And on a couple of those times the jerk doing the search actually destroyed part of my car. One became very abusive when he couldn’t find anything. The following day he gave me a ticket for doing 31 in a 30 zone. Luckily the judge threw it out.

Police want to search any of my vehicles then they better get a warrant. They want me to get out of the car…they better have a warrant or probably cause. If they do search my vehicle…anything they found would be planted by them. It DOES happen. Maybe not too often…but it DOES happen.

37

While I see both points, I have to agree with Whitey because I’ve been stopped more than a few times by the police for no reason at all and subjected to an interrogation. This was generally due to my personal appearance, which could be described as a long haired, bearded hippie although I can’t stand being described as one.

In one case the cop asked me if I had drugs or alcohol after a stop on a bogus traffic violation and he got the truth; NO. He was pretty belligerent and wanted to search my glovebox. Fine, have at it.
Finding nothing, he frisked me again and insinuated jail time if I did not consent to a trunk search.
Again, fine and have at it.
Finding nothing, he frisked me for the 3rd time, pulled his fellow officer aside and said something to him out of earshot.
Next thing I know, I’m on my way to the OK CIty jail where I spent the entire night without ever being told why I was jailed. They even made me sit in the corner and put a K9 on me while awaiting the jailer. That dog was about 4 feet away and snarling the entire time so I wasn’t even batting an eye until they pulled the dog back.

So after a 98 degree night in a roach infested cell I was bailed out the next morning and discovered there were 2 trumped up traffic violations and 1 charge for “concealed weapon”.
What was the weapon? A flat piece of 2" wide steel stock to be used for spring shackles and which had been drilled for bolts but not cut to length yet and which had new bolts taped to it.
When I showed up for court some weeks later the DA did not want for one second that case to hit the courtroom and headed me off outside the doors. All of the bail money was refunded and the DA apologized “for any mistake that might have been made and any inconvenience”.

In another case I was stopped and coerced into a trunk search (again, fine with me just to get it settled and over with) and was threatened with a concealed weapons charge when the cop pulled the weapon out of the trunk and asked me quote, "whose head are you going to bust open with this?"
My response was that what he was holding was called a lug wrench and I do the same thing with it most folks do; remove lug nuts while changing a flat tire.

As I said, this kind of thing has happened to more than a few times and not just in Oklahoma.

38

Clearly this thread has brought to the surface differences in perspective. And I respect that there are differences in perspective. I dont believe cooperating with the cop is equivalent to not standing up for my rights. Everything doesn;t need to be turned into a fight. If I believed there was an agenda by the cop other than simply looking into a situation, I’d stand up and fight, but I’ve never had a traffic stop turn into anything like that. When stopped I’ve always been respectful of the cop and I’ve always been treated in a professional manner.

Perhaps it’s the military stickers in my rear window.

39

You’re right. Everything doesn’t need to be turned into a fight, but I take it personally whenever someone (i.e. a police officer) assumes I am guilty and treats me like a criminal. The assumption that I am hiding something just because I choose to exercise my constitutional rights is an assumption of guilt. I’m pretty sure the guys who wrote the Bill of Rights and the folks who have served on the Supreme Court have outlawed that with good reason.

If I take the protection of my constitutional rights too personally, I apologize, but I don’t think something as important as this should be taken lightly. “Innocent until proven guilty” might be a value we don’t share. If that’s the case, I can agree to disagree, and continue to respect you.

40

No need to apologize, you’ve only expressed a different perspective than I, and you’ve stood up for what you believe. That all comes from having had different life experiences. If what happened to OK4450 had happened to me, I have no doubt that I’d look at things very differently.

I’ve become a stickler for conmstitutional rights lately, but toward a different endeavor. Ours are being trampled into the ground right now, especiallly the 10th amendment. The feds have taken over far, far too many state’s rights by using the Interstate Commerce Clause as an excuse.

Anyway, that’s a different subject. You’ve no reason to apologize.