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
Not so much dumb reasons as funny results. I’ve been a volunteer SAR K9 handler for 20+ years and have three funny ones related to that:
Dumbest and most frustrating was driving home on I-25 in Denver when I lived there. A car cut me off, no signal, leaving precious little space and like immediately a police car hits its lights. I pull over figuring he wants the guy who just did the stupid move, but no, he’s pulling ME over and chastised me for following too close. I was confused and didn’t say anything. Not sure what the look was on my face. He yelled at me for about two minutes, handed back my info and then let me go on my way.
About 15 years ago, I drive to our local beach town to pick my son up from work about 1am. He worked at an ice cream shop in the summer. I pick him up and start driving up the main street for home. One of the summer OPP officers pulls off a side street and lights me up. I’m not speeding, as if you could on a narrow 2 lane street, or anything else illegal. He walks up to the car, looking fresh out of police College with something to prove. He asks for license, ownership, insurance, I ask why? He asks where are you going, I say none of your business. Now he doesn’t know what to do, he probably figured he was pulling over some young kid. He finally said we’re looking for impaired drivers. I cut him some slack then and said I just picked up my son and we’re going home. He said have a nice night. We drove home without ever telling him where home was or showing any ID. I told my son, don’t ever try that yourself until you’re my age, lol.
Seems like 90% of these fall into the broad category of asshole or idiot cop, or both. Lots of civil rights violations in the blog stories and comments’ anecdotes…
The horror….
I’m a long-haired-weirdo-hippie-freak given to driving junkers.
I’ve been pulled over for every reason imaginable and frequently, for no reason at all.
“Suspicious activity.”
My brother inherited my father’s Latino coloration. He lives in the LA area and travels to SD regularly. Imagine how often he gets pulled over–sometimes for driving a car that seems too nice.
My brother also absolutely panics at border checks. Instant cold sweat, clenched knuckles, shaking, diving for the glove box when asked for country of citizenship, etc.
“SIR: Please pull over to table twelve….”
I got pulled over so much during high school Im still scared of the cops in the town I learned to drive in.
I got pulled over a LOT after my then-gf got caught hitting a bowl at a stop sign in my silver-wedge Subaru XT. Given her issues with authority, I assume she was quite mouthy to BT Smith, who then decided to make my life hell.
The one that did it for me was having an officer in front of me take a hard left and roar down a residential street only to be waiting to pull me 3blocks later because ‘your windows looked tinted’ in a completely stock & legal early 80s Mercedes diesel. I kinda lost my cool. He mentioned drug dogs & disassembling my car right there. I mentioned my big-deal lawyer, and asked about the process for filing a grievance b/c I was tired of being pulled for bs due to BT Smith putting the word out on me. Somehow, we both calmed down, and I went on my way without a ticket. Having a list with the times & reasons I had been pulled may have helped.
Unwarranted stops ceased when I called the county & asked about grievance procedures—complete with reading the times, dates, reasons, and officer names on that list. They never called me back somehow
I wouldn’t say it was dumb, but it was the most minor reason I’ve been pulled over. Back in college I daily drove a Mitsubishi Starion. A common modification for these cars was to rewire the fog lights so they could be operated separate of the headlights. Fact of the matter is the fog lights were pretty excellent city driving lights and had a good beam pattern.
So one night I’m cruising down main street with only my fog lights on and got pulled. Either the cop saw me running the other way earlier with the pop-ups on or just happened to know this little quirk of the Starion. I’m guessing he thought it was an easy DUI, but I was stone sober and got off with a friendly warning.
ive always driven with parks and fogs on until its night time. ive always heard people say its illegal in some states but luckily ive never lived in some states.
Go pulled over doing 30 in a 30. I saw the cop ahead of time, so made sure I was on the money.
This is when I also learned: Do not get out of the car!! Cop will pull his gun on you…luckily I was just a plain white teen. This was back in the 80s. Still got a ticket.
This same road now has a 50mph speed limit (wide, divided 4 lane) …I’m still antsy about going over 30.
Got pulled over in my 89 Mustang LX 5.0 convertible for ‘turning around to fast’ in parking lot. No, was not doing a donut. Was literally just turning around to go other way. Was let go because the girl with me knew the cop.
I got my wife and kids pulled over once because I put the tag renewal sticker on the wrong 2006 Ford. Her tag showed expired, but when he ran it was renewed.
She still gives me crap every time I put tag renewal on cars….are you sure you did the right car??!!
I was once pulled over in my small town by a deputy who had never heard of an Audi before. (this was in 2003) and thought I had some kind of illegal car and wanted to impound it. He then, ” ran the tags” and it didn’t match the VIN. He never looked at my VIN, he didn’t even know where to look. All the while I hear over his radio that some one is shooting up a headstone in a near by cemetery. I was let go with a warning about making sure my car was “legal in this state” and went home. I still have no idea what he was on about. Maybe he just didn’t want to respond to the cemetery gunman. I wouldn’t want to either.
I don’t have a story myself, but my mom got pulled over because she had a license plate frame. Not one of those things that’s meant to block red light cameras, and not one of those rhinestone-encrusted monstrosities – just a little plastic frame with a cute saying on it. The problem? The frame obscured part of the plate. Not the plate number, not the registration stickers or even the name of the state…it obscured the “First in Flight” motto across the top. She didn’t get a ticket, but she was shaken up by the incident.
If I’d read this last Friday, I wouldn’t have responded because I hadn’t been pulled over in 20+ years. But just yesterday, I was coming back from Dunkin with donuts for the kids and a highway patrolman pulled me over. He told me that my registration had expired (so they just sit by the road and run plates?), I told him that couldn’t possibly be true… turns out, something went wrong on my birthday last September because out of three cars and one trailer, one of my cars wasn’t renewed and I’ve been driving it around since then. Course, there’s no telling what went wrong, so I renewed it and I can fortunately get the ticket cancelled. Annoying that with all the tech in play, you can drive around with an expired tag for almost six months without a single reminder from the state.
Rollerblading. At night. Ashamed to say it wasn’t even because I was breaking the speed limit….
I remember the troy article from the German parts site. Troy did not bother me, Redford MI at the end of the month don’t drive down telegraph.
Early 1990s, driving though Slower Delaware, i stopped to gas up as well as to get some snacks and drinks, which included a can of Arizona iced Tea.
Next thing I know, i’m being pulled over by a Sussex County Sheriff who sees me take a swig of my iced tea and thought it was a Coors Light Tall Boy.
It was the only time i had a cop apologize to me.
Similar situation, except I was drinking a Full Throttle.
Driving home after a weekend of partying and whitewater rafting. We were all exhausted and didn’t want to deal with traffic so we set the cruise at exactly 55 mph and stayed in the right lane. Cop pulled us over because we had a CD hanging from our rear view mirror. I think the real reason he pulled us over is because he suspected we were following the law so closely we might be transporting drugs.
I was driving a “Dodge” Colt on a rural road in North Jersey (they exist) at something like 2am. The speed limit was 45 and I was doing 45ish, because I was a young driver and knew better. But I did not know that the yellow sign at the curve that displayed “35” should be strictly obeyed. I was pulled over for doing 45 in a 35. I got a ticket.
I was driving my 1998 Saturn SL1 through Brookline Mass., also about 2ish in the morning, in the early 2000’s, when a police car started tailgating me within an inch of my bumper. I was used to this behavior from police in Brookline, because I had to pass through it often to get from Allston to Jamaica Plain (both superior neighborhoods at the time.) I had in my glove box a printed receipt and email for my online registration renewal. But, the cop had seen my sticker and decided that I was unregistered and wrote me a summons. I had presented the printed email to the cop, and he kept repeating “An email is not a legal document!” several times over. At the hearing, which the cop also showed up to, the judge ripped the cop a new one for knowing my car was legit just by running it through the computer, and said if it had really been an expired reg. it should have been towed. Long story over. Not the last time I’d be tailgated in Brookline for being out past the witching hour, either.
My favorite was sort of a non-pulling over. I was on the Mass Pike doing about 70 in a beat up 1991 Dodge Shadow when I saw the trooper behind me with lights, so I pulled over to the shoulder, and weirdly, the trooper in his car pulled up alongside me instead of behind, motioned for me to roll down the window, and angrily yelled, “NOT YOU!!!”
In pretty much all places in north america that’s straight up incorrect. Yellow is a recommendation for poor weather. If only those who enforce the law were required to know it.
If I wasn’t a recently licensed teen I might have known to appeal the ticket. I remember my father saying something to the effect of, “You’re a teen out in the middle of the night in a small town…”
yup.
it IS binding for trucks tho