Y’know, as the author of the Autopian Asks series, I’m supposed to provide the copy – it’s kind of baked into the whole “author” concept. Sometimes, however, I don’t have enough juice to supply a suitably entertaining (to me, anyway) personal history or spicy hot-take on the question of the day, so I hit up The Gang for their stories. Today was not supposed to be one of those days. Despite assuring everyone that I had today’s Autopian Asks handled with my own tale, I suspected they might have their own silly-stop stories to share. And boy did they! David alone offered three! Now all I have to do is copy-paste; happy Friday to me.
Torch
In college, I was pulled over because I was a 19-year-old kid with longish hair driving a VW Beetle. There was a Dead show around Atlanta, where I was driving, and I think I just fit a profile. I never liked the Dead. They searched my car, too, looking for drugs. Can’t cops just get their drugs from the evidence room? Anyway, they didn’t find anything though I did find out later my girlfriend at the time was carrying. I had no idea.
Another: I once drove my Beetle while it was stuck in reverse backwards through town at three in the morning to get it to a shop to fix it, and had zero cop interactions. But in LA, I’ve had my truck impounded for being a month out of registration.
Matt
I’ve only been pulled over three times in 25 years of driving and those stops mostly made sense, although I was once pulled over for crossing a double yellow into a parking spot on a normal ass road. [Ed note: I agree, this isn’t much of a story. I just like that Matt left the hyphen out of “normal ass road,” which means there’s a non-zero chance it was a “normal ass-road.” – Pete]
Thomas
I once got pulled over because my license plates were too new for the ALPR system. I had a back seat full of winter tires, an exhaust leak the size of a baseball, no license plate light because it had rotted off, and I was driving an Ontario-registered car that the ministry accidentally registered to an address I didn’t even live at anymore, on a BC license … and they just let me go without even so much as a warning.
Stephen
Pulled twice for drugs (no drugs found either time), but mostly for being a kid in a rusty ’84 Cougar and a ’96 LHS. “Pulled” once for being a potential mass shooter. I pulled up to a beach bar by the pedestrian barricades and pulled a mic stand out of the trunk of my New Yorker for a beach bar gig. Sheriffs mistook it for a long gun and had me on my knees with a gun to my back in 30 sec. “DROP THE WEAPON!”
“It’s a mic stand! I’m a musician!”
Laurence
Last year my partner and I were on a backroad and late to a mate’s wedding in Project Cactus. We were going down a long straight into a valley and I wasn’t watching my speed. The one time I let the speed creep up, and of course there was a highway patrol car parked in the valley. I pulled over right after I went past him before he even put his lights on. The cop came up to my window and just laughed. He said “I had to check the radar a few times to make sure, didn’t think this thing could get over 100kmh!” We had a chat about what Project Cactus is and he let me off with a warning since I pulled over before he even turned his lights on. Of all the road trips I’ve done in that ute, taking it into the centre of Brisbane and everything, my one cop interaction is on an abandoned backroad when the cop was probably having a nap!
David
1. I was once pulled over for literally no reason. I had just been off-roading with my brother in my 1992 Jeep Cherokee XJ, which was already a bit old and rusty. Add the mud to it, and I looked both poor and a bit, I dunno, adventurous. Regardless of what looked like, I wasn’t doing anything wrong – I was just sitting in my car in a northern Michigan hotel parking lot taking a bit of a break. I pulled out of the lot, got the reds and blues, and the cop asked me for my license. I asked why he’d pulled me over, he raised his voice: “LICENSE AND REGISTRATION.” He then later gave it back and stated his reason: “You were looking suspicious.”
2. I got pulled over for doing 40 in a 40. Both cops ran to my car on either side and beamed flashlights into my eyes. Why would driving the speed limit get me pulled over? Because there was an inch of snow on the ground and I drove past a cop. This was the situation that made me lose faith in the American judicial system; I had great tires on my Jeep, tons of snow-driving experience, and an inch of snow wasn’t causing any significant handling issues. When I fought the ticket in court, they agreed to take the three points off my license but made me pay $190. Why? Because the damn magistrate was friends with the cop! The judge asked me “Did you or did you not drive past officer [what’shisname]” and when I responded with “Yes, but …” he cut me off and said, “We’re done here.” What an absolutely pathetic judge, pathetic cop, and pathetic system there in Troy.
3. On i-75 in Michigan, no drivers observe the speed limit of 70 MPH. Everyone does closer to 80. Everyone. If you were to use a radar gun, you’d probably find that 95% of all cars are doing over 75. That’s just how it is. One day I noticed that I was driving past everyone, and I was only doing 77. “What the?” I wondered. Then I saw it: There was a cop at the front of this big line of cars, and no car ahead of him for miles. “This is strange,” I thought. I set my cruise control for 71 MPH, and I slowly, slowly, SLOWLY passed the officer who IMMEDIATELY pulled me over to fulfill what was simply a power trip. Look, I appreciate cops and what they do for our communities, but in Michigan, especially driving my old junky cars, police were extremely unfair towards me (and I’m sure to many, many others — I hate to even think about what others have had to deal with), and it was simply unacceptable.
Your turn! What’s The Dumbest Reason You’ve Been Pulled Over?
Top image: framestock/stock.adobe.com
Back in 2007, driving a rented example of the then new-look Mustang in South Dakota on a work trip, I was pulled over for 22 in a 20 in some tiny ass-end-of-nowhere town. The cop freely admitted he really just wanted to check out the car. No harm, no foul, IMHO.
I also had to give a local deputy the eagle-eye award here in SW FL. When I bought my Fiata, the dealer registered it on a regular generic FL plate. I ordered an “Endless Summer” plate for it out of FL’s myriad plate options (color matched better). When it came and I went to swap plates, the plastic screws holding the plate on sheered off. So I had to drive to the hardware store for screws with no plate on the car. I was at the last intersection before the store, in a line of traffic, when a deputy drives by in the other direction. He turns around and pulls me over on the other side of the intersection, having noticed the lack of plate on the car. I had both plates in the passenger seat, so he just my paperwork, looked the car over (he thought it was cool) and I was on my way.
Wife got pulled over & ticketed on the way to work for expired tags on her 2001 VW TDI. The tags were on the seat but I had not put them on yet due to weather. We were about one week past the old tag date and he still gave her a $10 ticket. I had to pay it in person and the clerk kept asking why he ticketed her.
We had the UK plates on the back of our dodge journey after we brought it back to the states from being stationed in the UK. The Texas plate was bolted over the top. Got pulled over by a Texas highway patrol because the extra numbers might confuse someone. I pointed out that by that logic, bumper stickers and license plate surrounds might confuse someone and coloring and lettering outside of the actual license plate isn’t going to cause anyone issues. I wasn’t even driving, my wife was, but he wouldn’t talk to her, only me.
The first time I was ever pulled over was in my 89 mk2 CRX 16i16 while driving home from work at 2am. I used to work shifts and had a 20 mile commute and I knew if I saw any other traffic it was probably the police, so I was always really careful not to speed, if I could see any headlights.
So I’m driving along in a 30 and this car pulls behind me and follows me for a mile or so of exactly 30mph, then the blue lights come on. I pull over and both the cops get out. I get out of the car to talk (it’s polite, and in the UK in the 90’s there was zero chance of getting shot) and one cop is all business, asking for name and address and all that (we don’t have to carry a licence, or documents or even ID, because freedom) while the other cop just keeps walking round and round the car staring at it.
When Officer Business was finished the other guy came up to me smiling and said “we chased one of these yesterday. Couldn’t catch it.” Then they got in their car and drove off.
Another time I was driving my ‘86 MR2 in the North of England, lovely deserted twisty road, great visibility, no traffic. For ten miles I was driving as fast as felt safe for the conditions, redlining through the gears, hitting over 100 on the straights, it was fantastic. It was also loud, and way, way over the speed limit.
Then I crested a hill, and the road lead straight down in to a village about half a mile away, where there was a police road block. I’d never seen a police road block in real life before, but there were two cars parked across the road at jaunty angles with their blue lights on.
Fuck, I thought, this is going to be bad, they’ve radioed ahead.
I slowly coasted to a stop next to this police officer in the middle of the road holding her hand up. I lowered my window and I can here the exhaust tinking from the heat, the smell of hot engine wafted in.
She lent down to talk to me and said “sorry for stopping you sir, but we’re trialling a new kind of breathalyser, would you mind giving a sample for our trial?”
That was all. They’d just picked a quiet road so they could do their trial without backing up traffic. She must have known I was guilty of something, no one has ever been that grateful to be breathalysed.
The dumbest reason was when I was driving down a narrow road at night, and a police car caught me up with its full beams on. So I pulled over when it was safe to let them past, then pulled out and kept driving. Then they stopped in a lay-by, so I kept going. Seconds later they are right behind me, full beams and then the blue lights.
I pull over, cop gets out of the drivers side and starts asking me what the fuck I was playing at, pulling over to evade them and then chasing them down.
I explained that they had their full beams on, and that I assumed they were in a hurry, so I got out of the way. You could see the light bulb go on in the cops head “oops, full beams” but they wouldn’t back down, and kept giving me shit for doing exactly what I’d have done if they hadn’t have been cops. The accusations of what suspicious activities I’d been doing got really weird, so I offered to let them search the car, it was empty and I was doing nothing wrong. After maybe ten minutes of this she spotted that my tax disc wasn’t stuck to my windscreen (we used to have these paper discs that sort of stuck to the glass in plastic holders). So she told me to stick it up, but it wouldn’t stick.
So she told me to lick it and stick it to the screen with spit. Weird and creepy. I figure I don’t really have a choice so I lick it and wedge it in the corner and it kind of hangs there.
Then she let me go. No reason, no apology, and my first ever interaction with the police where they acted like a dick.
I got pulled over for doing 25 in a 25. I was 19 and home for winter break. A cop was posted up in the parking lot of a shitty bar and immediately pulled out and tailed me after I drove past him. When I asked why he pulled me over he said “no one toes the line at 25 unless they have something to hide.” I think it had more to do with the fact that my friend, who is black and had a ‘fro you could easily see from behind us, was in the back seat.
After some terse questions and answers the cop sent us on our way but warned that if he saw us “pass through his town again” that night he was going to haul all of us to jail.
You know who does 25 in a 25?
Everyone being followed by a cop. FFS.
Speak for yourself. I’m happy to do 25 or less whether a cop is around or not.
In many places around here, doing the speed limit is dangerous because the flow of traffic isn’t traveling anywhere near that slowly. Unless there’s a cop…
Sounds like you need a lot more cops.
We must live in very different places, almost no one does the speed limit or under on any hwy around here. And if they’re doing less it’s because of the crippling traffic. Otherwise, even on I95 the majority are doing well over 55. If you get far enough North to be traveling on I91, the actual traffic minimum is closer to 70, not 55.
I live in California. We have plenty of traffic here too and despite very similar claims I’ve read of “safety in speed” by others who also claim to drive the same roads I do I find I have no problem driving at my preferred speeds anywhere in the state, north, central or south. Yes others speed but as long as I drive my 10 below in the slow lane it’s no problem. It helps that anything towing a trailer or that has the or more axles has their own speed limit of 55 mph even if everyone else gets to do 70.
I don’t speed in built up areas, at all, ever. But if there’s a cop behind me I’ll be checking the speedo every couple of seconds, so I’ll be doing the posted speed.
Do you not have crude control? It’s be a lot less stressful than checking speed by eye.
Pulled over for ‘limb protruding’. A hot day in my 20 yr old non air conditioned Celica. Window down, elbow on the sill and holding the roof. Cop followed me into a small suburban street and pulled me over. Small fine (felt big because I was at university) and what was worse was I saw a cop the next day doing exactly the same thing. I think he wanted to get me for speeding but missed the opportunity.
What a jerk! Too bad you didn’t take it to court so the judge could yell at the cop for wasting the court’s time.
I was already pulled over because I got a serious text from GF, was writing a serious reply in the parking lot of a casino next to a neighborhood idling, cops spotlight me, come up to the car, I show them, they let me keep on texting.
1. Expired tags. I had them but hadn’t put them on. Got a fix-it ticket.
2. Speeding a bit (70 in a 55 off a bridge). I was tired, traffic was going 70. Technically true but practically? I’m guessing the cop was trying to make quota.
3. Going too slowly on the freeway. My car barely ran and the cops didn’t like me going 45 flat out in the slow lane. They told me to take surface streets. Like hell was I going to take surface streets through the hood at night in LA. So I got off the freeway and sat for a while then got back on the freeway.
Depends.
There was the time I got pulled over because I hadn’t registered my newly purchased auction car yet and had no temp tags yet. Boxster and the weather was beautiful so I drove it anyway…stupid me
There was the time when I was 17 and sped through an orange light while changing lanes. Made eye contact with the officer getting into his car at the gas staion on the opposite corner of the intersection. When he caught up and came to the window he asked my why he pulled me over. I honestly replied I didn’t know (could have been any number of things). He said I didn’t use my turn signal…stupid me
Officer just the other day pulled me over for driving “80 in a 60 and 78 in a 65”. Except I was using my cruise control the entire time because I knew he was behind me and didn’t come anywhere near 80 or 75…stupid cop
Grew up in a small, monochromatic, suburban town in Northern California and bought a 3rd gen Toyota pickup (Hilux to the rest of the world) when I was in high school. By the time I was in grad school it was about 20 years old, too new to be vintage, just an older truck that was very popular with landscapers.
When I drove home from my school in SoCal I would leave at 10:30 pm to avoid LA traffic and would arrive around 3:30 am. I always drove the speed limit in town because the local cops had absolutely nothing better to do, especially at 3 am.
One early morning in driving into town, going 29 in a 30, hands at 10 and 2. I have my bike in the bed of my truck and a couple duffels. A cop happens to be driving towards me in the opposite direction and as soon as he sees me he puts his lights on, overshoots me and pulls a U to pull me over. He walks up with a big grin on his face which starts to fade when he sees my complexion and then disappears completely when he sees the local address on my driver’s license. He mumbled something about pull me over because my license plate light was out (it wasn’t) and then tells me to get it fixed and sends me on my way.
To this day I’m not totally sure why he pulled me over; maybe he thought I was Latino because of my truck and wanted to hassle me for being in “his” town, maybe he thought I was stealing bikes? Regardless I know there’s no way he could have seen my license plate lights when he was coming at me head on.
TLDR: Sometimes cops just don’t like your car.
I got pulled over once from a line of traffic because I was “speeding”. I was doing 10 under like everyone else, so I guess the guy just wanted to pick on the guy in the Lotus for a few minutes.
Got pulled over for doing 75 in a 60 when I was in fact doing 65 (in Texas, so basically not speeding).
Was driving to work (admittedly in a Challenger, so a bit of a cop magnet) saw a state trooper on a side street, so was only going 5 over (again, Texas). He pulls out behind me and stays there for like 2 miles until I turn off the road with nice wide shoulders onto one with no shoulders and deep ditches at which point he decides now is the time to turn his lights on. Once I finally find somewhere to pull over (twice, the first time he yelled at me on the megaphone to pull over somewhere else) the two of them walk up and the guy says he paced me doing 75. I was so flabbergasted (and ticked off by where he decided to put his lights on) that I just automatically replied “I wasn’t. I saw you back there, I was going 65.” “Well that’s still speeding” “Yes, but it’s not 75”. Thankfully he presumably realized that I was 100% going to be contesting that one, so he gave me a warning.
Also the boring one of getting pulled over for “speeding” (having out of state plates) in rural Oklahoma, which at least had the mild amusement of him briefly being concerned because the car came back under my wife’s name and we have different last names.
Most amusing was getting a warning for speeding in my Miata that mostly consisted of the cop admiring it and shaking my hand through the open top before letting me go.
in Texas, so basically not speeding
Hard to say. You MIGHT have been able to fight it:
https://beltzlaw.com/what-is-prima-facie-evidence-as-it-relates-to-speeding-in-texas/
Its my understanding Texas gives more wiggle room with speed limits than some other states; however you have to prove the cop is wrong and that going faster than the posted speed was safe. You might have an argument if conditions were ideal and the road was otherwise empty. Anything less than ideal…well good luck.
I have two:
1) I was turning left at an intersection and had the green arrow. As I was going through the intersection a car rolls the red and turns right nearly clipping me. I honk my horn and then the lights and sirens come on – unmarked police car. I’m not sure what he thought he could ticket me for, but no ticket was issue once I recounted the incident and pointed out that he ran a red AND failed to yield right of way.
2) Another left at an intersection, but second in line behind a sport bike in a 250,000 mile worn out work truck. The green turn arrow lights up and the bike takes off like a bat out of hell and is pretty much out of my sight before I make it through the intersection. Of course I look behind me and there’s a cop with his lights on pulling me over maybe 200′ from the intersection. The cop starts yelling at me that he clocked me doing 68mph in 40mph zone, which means I did 0-68mph in about 50′ while turning 90 degrees (in a truck that had all of 150 horsepower) before he put his radar gun away and pulled me over. I pointed out the sport bike, and the fact that I was barely going 20mph when he pulled me over, hence why we were so close to the intersection, and he just screamed at me that he didn’t want excuses and that I was lucky that he didn’t send me to lockup and impound my vehicle. Luckily, the ticket was dismissed at court.
Man, these two stories just reinforce how unbelievably stupid most police officers are. Like, no critical thinking at all. Just anger.
I got pulled over for making a right turn from a right-turn-only lane, supposedly for not using my blinker.
I was in an F-150 and it’s possible I either didn’t touch the blinker or I only bumped it enough so it did the three blink thing and quit blinking before I got to the corner. Regardless, it was a green light and there was no other traffic in the immediate area.
The deputy’s excuse was “I didn’t know if you were going straight or turning”. It was BS, and he knew that I knew it was BS.
Had I actually gone straight instead of turning, he actually would have had cause to pull me over, so in essence he admitted he was pulling me over no matter what.
I bit my tongue so things didn’t escalate, but I was extremely pissed. I’m sure he could tell. He “let me off” with a warning.
I’m so looking forward to moving out of this hell hole as soon as possible.
To where? Is there anyplace that isn’t a hell hole of one kind or another?
Fair point.
That said, it will be a county over and out in the country, where the retired sheriff isn’t the mayor and I won’t have to deal with a code enforcing municipality.
I see SWG recalled he was pulled over a couple of times for drugs, but that no drugs were found. That’s not the same thing as saying no drugs were there, eh Stephen?
My stupidest pullover tale occurred with me riding a bicycle at night. I was tooling along at about 20 mph on a dead straight 35 mph road when out of a side street the blue and red gumball machines began to strobe.
I initially thought the officer was responding to a call, but no, he rolled up behind me and blipped the siren. I duly pulled over.
Now bear in mind, I’ve got fore and aft lights, left and right reflectors, a fluorescent green reflective vest and ankle cuffs, a helmet with fluorescent stripes and clear goggles. I wasn’t weaving all over the road nor blowing stop signs or terrorizing pedestrians, so I had no clue as to why he pulled over.
It took him a full five minutes to get his ass out of the cruiser and approach. I know because I had a running stop watch going for my workout.
He asked, “Do you have any ID?” Now I understood him perfectly, and also know that legally you don’t have to present an ID to a police officer just because they ask, especially if they don’t tell you why they’re asking. It’s not particularly smart to refuse, but legally you can. So I played dumb, gave him a bewildered look, and replied, “No sir, I have no idea (pronouncing it idee) why you pulled me over.”
He immediately got flustered and probably thought he was dealing with an idiot, which, yeah, sometimes, then he said, “I pulled you over because you were going too fast.” Which I wasn’t and probably couldn’t without a sizeable hill to aid in effort.
I just stared at him, didn’t say a word. He stared back. At this point he could see I wasn’t drunk or high, just an old guy putting in some workout miles late at night because the air was cooler and traffic was low.
Finally, I took pity and asked him, “You really want go with that?” He looked some more, then replied, “Get out of here, and be careful.” Then he walked back to his car and drove away.
I saw him three more times that night on my riding circuit and on the third time he briefly flipped on his lights and waved. That became our thing each time he saw me out riding that summer.
I later found out he’d been on the job for less than a week and reacted to my zipping by in front of him like a dog to a mail truck. Once he caught me, he wasn’t sure why he had, but thought he’d better come up with something. When I didn’t respond as expected, he started looking for a way out without losing face. He thought at first that I might be mentally challenged based upon my first response and just staring at him, which threw him off, but realized I was letting him hang himself. He thought it was funny, but wasn’t going to let on to me.
Got pulled over in Georgia for as far as I can figure having Quebec plates, on my Lada. Passenger had a Cuban passport and a permanent resident card but I wa the one in trouble because my drivers license was completely in French. About 2 hours on the side of the road until a supervisor agreed that I could go.
I don’t know why a French drivers license would matter, I don’t think Georgia highway patrol officers can read, anyway.
They said because they couldn’t read it, some people got idls to deal with this but the US said quebec licenses were valid as is
My worst was when I was maybe 18? I hadn’t had my license very long. Living in Philly, adding a young male driver to insurance was a commitment. My parents made me stay on a learner’s permit for a long time.
So one evening I was driving home on 76 which is about 18 lanes too narrow for the amount of traffic that you get during rush hour. I was in the left lane and a cop pulled up behind me. Didn’t turn his lights on, didn’t do anything except tailgate me to the point I was sweating. Seriously uncomfortable having him that close that long. But there were no breaks in the right lane for me to move over.
Finally found a gap, felt relief, jumped to get out of this fartclown’s way… only to have him turn on his lights and pull me over because I didn’t signal before changing lanes.
Because my car “matched an APB”.
1) This was a REALLY small town in East Texas, there were never more than 2 cops on duty at any time. An “all points bulletin” would be the one cop telling the other one something in the parking lot they were always parked in talking to each other.
2) This cop knew me personally, pulled me over at least once a week, and on the occasion he saw me walking down the street he’d stop me and ask “where’s your little black sportscar?” APB my ass.
Anyways, he hauled my friends out of my backseat and threw them in the back of his patrol car with no explanation and instructed me to get out of town before he threw me in jail. I drove to the first payphone in the next town over to call my friend’s mom and let them know the cops had him.
I got pulled over in that town dozens of times but that’s the most ridiculous one I can think of off the top of my head. There were definitely other instances that were more abusive of power.
This reminds me of an experience that doesn’t really qualify… I wasn’t driving. I have had insomnia for ages, and grew up in the middle of nowhere (graduating class numbered like forty kids). I couldn’t sleep and was walking down a country road at three AM (probably dumb, but what else does a seventeen year old kid do with no cable and no sleep). I was stopped by a cop and told I looked like somebody else in the area. This was a tiny town, and I’m pretty sure I was the only 140 pound goth kid with hair to my shoulders in town. I was exceedingly polite, and the look on the cop’s face… He asked me if I had anything dangerous and I told him I had a keychain Swiss army knife, blue, attached to my keychain in my right hand pocket, and a ballpoint pen in the inside pocket of my leather jacket.
I love it when they ask me if I have anything dangerous and when I point to my pocket knife they always look at me in disbelief and ask, “Is that it?”
My other favorite is when they ask me if I have any warrants. I assumed this was a standard question that cops asked anyone they interacted with but when I brought it up with my clean cut friends they said they’ve never been asked that. So again, if your hair is a little too long or you’re driving the wrong car or wearing the wrong clothes cops will assume you have warrants.
Speaking of warrants (not the band) that same cop in my story above pulled me over one night for not signalling which is BS because that’s my pet-peeve and I am adamant about signalling so he decided to let me go with a warning. The only problem is he went back to the station and entered it as a citation. So a few months later I apparently had a warrant for missing my court date that I knew absolutely nothing about and that cop showed up at my house at 530AM on a Saturday. Luckily I wasn’t home that morning but when my mom told him that he threatened to arrest her for protecting me. I’ve got tons of stories about growing up with the podunk cops.
I was 16 years old and it was summer. I was riding my bicycle on a street when I heard a car approaching from behind me. I glanced back and saw it was a sheriff’s patrol car. I kept pedaling. A few moments later I heard the chirp of a siren and looked back again. The car had its lights on. I pulled over and stopped.
I couldn’t figure out why I was being stopped. I wasn’t speeding, I had a helmet on, and that street was a bike route. The deputy got out of his car and approached me. He then said “Now that I look at you, you’re too young.” I’m thinking “Huh?” He said “We’re looking for a guy who exposed himself. He has dark hair, is wearing a Cubs shirt, and blue jeans. Have you seen him?” That described me and what I was wearing. I said no, and he got back in his car and drove off. I understand why he pulled me over, but it felt weird being pulled over on my bicycle.
That has a creepy sort of Barry Zuckerkorn, “I thought you were the flasher but now I see you’re not and that makes me sad” energy. Shudder.
Colorado Springs, Co, ~2003.
I’m in college dutifully studying for my ME degree, and also a full on kandy raver. Some friends and I liked to cruise around in my bitchin 1998 Dodge Neon R/T (bright blue with silver stripes) smoking weed and blasting happy hardcore.
Often I’d just point the Raver Rover in a direction and see where we ended up. One day we ended up in a ~fancy~ neighborhood west of the city, I’m driving shockingly normal as it was new street and full of curves in the foothills and involved in a conversation about whatever brilliant nonsense early-20s stoners talk about.
Pig pulls out after me, I immedihtedy start driving like I’m the star of an instructional video, and start to try to head toward the interstate.
He follows me for 10-15 mins, finally lights me up.
“Do you know why I pulled you over?”
“no sir”
“well there’s been reports of burgadaries in the neighborhood and you’re acting suspicious”
I had to stifle a laugh, as if I was doing crimes in the most recognizeable car in the city.
He took his sweet time running *everyone’s* info and sent us on our way.
I never went back to that neighborhood though.
(man I miss thht shitbox)
It’s probably voice to text or just a typo, but I love the word “burgadaries.” Also, the ’98 Neon R/T was pretty fun for the times.
I don’t know if they’re dumb, but memorable. One, at a border crossing going into Canada… Going into Canada, you get Canadian guards. Mine was a young kid, nose piercing, shaggy hair. I told him I was going to Vancouver to visit a friend and see some things in Gastown. He was all “Hell yeah” and gave me some recommendations on things to check out then asked me to pull aside for a full search. Et tu, bro?
The second, I was pulled over for having a headlight out in the daytime (it was drizzly, I had my lights on). He asked me why I thought he pulled me over and I picked up the replacement light that was sitting on my passenger seat, which I had picked up ten minutes earlier.
I was with a buddy in his S-10 Blazer when he got pulled over for a non-functional headlight. His headlights were working fine and then we hit a bump and one shut off, five seconds before we passed the cop. The cop did the “You know why I pulled you over?” thing and before we could say anything he just chuckled and said “I know, I saw it go out right before you passed me. Pop the hood, I think I know what the issue is.” Sure enough, he fiddled around and figured out the issue (I can’t recall what it was – this was decades ago) and the light came back on and then he told us about his S-10 pickup and S-15 Jimmy that were both lowered on hydraulics. Apparently, he had seen my friend’s Blazer around and had been hoping for a reason to pull it over so he could look at it and hopefully have a conversation with an fan of the trucks. He also warned us that one of the license plate bulbs was burned out. It went so much better than either of us expected, so of course he got pulled over two minutes later on the same road by another cop for a burned out license plate bulb….
None. I deserved it every time. Apparently you should follow the posted speed.
Me too. Dumb doesn’t have to apply to the cop..
Official reason the cop told my uncle, the air freshener hanging from my rear view mirror.
The real reason, I hung out with a rough crowd, there was an incident that happened earlier in the day, leaving the hs school parking lot, cop pulled me over. I guess they recognized me or i was on some sort of list? No idea, I just hung out with that crowd but never did anything that would get myself in serious trouble. Anyways got pulled over, got hassled, Uncle happened to be in the same parking lot, he asked the cop what was going on, that’s what the cop told him.
I grew up on a country road with less than 20 houses over its 3.5 miles length. People drove and pulled all kinds of unlicensed, uninspected junk over it all the time. We had a small trailer that we only used to carry our lawnmower the 1.5 miles up this road from our house to the cemetery at our church, which I mowed during high school and college. The one damn time I ever saw a cop on our road…. I got pulled over for not having said trailer plated and registered…
So it goes…
Was pulled over on I80 in BFE Illinois, rental car. Driving from our company facility on the Iowa border to Chicago to fly home from a business trip. State Trooper tailed me for miles, finally pulled ahead and passed. A bit later I see him on the median and he pulls out and flashes the lights. Claims he heard me hit the rumble strip going by him. Proceeds to ask why I have out of state plates (the rental had Ohio plates) and a PA license. He is trying to accuse me of being a drug runner! I present my business card and corporate e-mails confirming my trip dates, reservations and purpose. I have all the valid paperwork for the rental car. Ultimately he lets me go after wasting 30 minutes of my time. Yes, I still made my flight out of Midway.
Dubuque? I’ve driven that stretch of road…BFE indeed
May have been near DeKalb. I was early 40s, Caucasian driving a Camry at the speed of traffic. The Trooper told me this is a big drug running corridor and the Ohio plates were a red flag.
When I was 19 and in college I was out visiting my long distance girlfriend, a few hours away from where I went to school. I was headed home, doing 90+, smoking a cigarette, when I saw a police car coming from the other direction slam on his brakes and pull a u-turn across the grassy divide between the highway lanes. I knew I was busted, but I had no idea how ugly it was going to get.
He pulled me over, and in an angry voice he told me I was doing 92 in a 70 (true), then told me he smelled pot. I told him I didn’t smoke pot and wasn’t carrying (both true statements) but, citing my nervousness as cause, proceeded to pull me out of my car, sit me in his squad car, and search my vehicle. After he was done with that, he searched me, right there on the side of the highway. He stopped short of a cavity search, but he did pockets, belt line, under my shirt, the top of my socks, the whole bit.
Upon not finding anything (I told him), he takes me over to my trunk, pulls out a handful of seeds from a compartment in the trunk I hadn’t cleaned (the car was new to me), and proceeds to read me the riot act about these being pot seeds and how he could take me in and charge me. They clearly weren’t pot seeds, and when I looked in the trunk, I saw the previous owner had spilled bird seed. I pointed out the sunflower seeds and numerous other seed types, to which responded by throwing the seeds on the ground, yelling at me some more, writing me a massive ticket, and (after 45 minutes) sending me on my way.
To add insult to injury, he called my parents to tell them what happened (the car was in their name), so I had to recount the whole thing, why I was hours away from school, and no, mom and dad, I was not nor did I ever smoke pot, etc. etc. etc.
But the worst part – the part that still chafes my @$$ when I think about it – he popped the trunk from inside the car. In the entire time I owned it, I never figured out how to do that.
I’ve always wanted to ask a lawyer (conversationally) exactly how many violations of my rights occurred that day. My parents would never have let me pursue it, but I’m genuinely curious . . .
Yah, I managed to once make it through a border patrol checkpoint in a stoners BRAT. I was fully expecting to have to explain something, but apparently removing scooby doo stickers beforehand was enough.
So good on avoiding the cop’s idea of the law.