1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Pulled over on the way home from work

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by Smallpotatoes, Jan 30, 2007.

  1. SixToe

    SixToe Well-Known Member

    Eleven tickets in 24 years, 12 if you count slow-and-go through the stop sign. That doesn't count parking tickets in college or elsewhere, so I guess the count would be upwards of 17 or 18 total.

    The old "You were weaving" is just a way for them to see if you're drunk, whether you're actually weaving or driving a straight line. It's total BS.

    I've been waiting with my license out the window when the cop walked up and talked politely to him because I knew I was speeding. I've waited to find out what he wanted. I've tried to act like I was lost and not paying attention (didn't work). Argued about one stop, unsuccessfully. At night, I always turn on my interior lights and have my hands visible.

    Last time I got stopped the cop asked why I was pulling 80 mph up a hill in a 55 zone and said he'd been following me for two miles. He wasn't following; he was trying to catch up. He let me go on and just said, "Slow down." Christmas gift from the local union, I guess.

    Worst one was 20-plus years ago when I was leaving a girlfriend's house at 12:30 a.m. Podunk Ned and Sidekick Sam stop me with lights flashing and the giant blinding light on the door illuminating my vehicle. I have stepped out and am standing at the rear of my car. Ned gets out and because the bright light is on, I don't know yet that Sam is in the front seat watching.

    "Why did you stop me?"

    "You were weaving."

    "No, I wasn't. I was doing under the speed limit and not weaving. I've been at my girlfriend's house, have had some Diet Cokes and am going home."

    "You were weaving and a tail light is out."

    So we checked the tail light, which was not out. I argued again that I was not speeding or weaving at all.

    Ned returns to the cruiser, turns off the blinding door light and now I see Sidekick Sam -- who was a year behind me in high school, a big puss and had been trying to date my girlfriend for several months, unsuccessfully.

    If looks could kill, that SOB would have been a burnt hunk of steaming dogshit heading straight to hell. I never took my eyes off of him even when Ned came back, returned my license and said good bye.

    Found out a year later after my girlfriend and I had broken up (for a long time, and I didn't care) she and the sidekick were caught screwing in his cruiser at a local park. He was reprimanded.
     
  2. NoOneLikesUs

    NoOneLikesUs Active Member

    I've been pulled over twice in about 6 years. No ticket. Bogus excuses for pulling me over both times. I think a key to not getting pulled over is being slightly above the speed limit when a cop is in site. In other words acting normal. If you're slamming on your brakes when they approach...look out...you look like you're trying to hide something.
     
  3. SCEditor

    SCEditor Active Member

    Stories about getting pulled over? I could be here all night.

    Here's a few of the best.

    After getting a few tickets in high school for speeding, I graduate. My insurance, which I'm paying, is sky high. The summer after I graduated from high school, my best friend, who I've known since I was five, tells me his grandfather is dying. He's in Michigan. We're in S.C. Let's go. So we go up there, spend five days in Michigan, he gets to spend some time with his grandfather (who, by the way, nearly seven years later is still alive). We leave around 10 in the morning and we see a big amusement park (whichever one is in Sandusky, Ohio, I can never remember the name of it). World's Fastest Roller Coaster. My friend is bummed out, I'm going to cheer him up. So we go there, chill out, eat a bunch of food, ride a bunch of roller coasters, hurl a few times and hit the road. Except, it's 10 p.m. We're driving back to S.C. Neither of us plan on stopping. So I'm driving in Ohio -- I've got no idea where -- and I'm doing about 90. I'm wide awake and I see a guy in the middle of the road. I slow down, roll down my window and this guy -- a police officer -- has a whistle and he's pulling me over on foot. So I pull over, he gets in his car and drives up and the first thing he says to me is, "Do you know how fast you were driving?" What compelled me to say this, I'll never know, but the first thing out of my mouth is, "Do you know you were standing in the middle of the f-ing highway at night?" This guy, who appeared to me to have been one of the first police officers ever hired in Ohio, and I now are going at it. Me, 18 years old. Him, 148 or whatever. So he goes back to his car, runs my plates and comes back with a ticket. Says he's going to read the back to me, "I can read the f-ing ticket man." "Sir, I'm going to read this ticket to you and you're going to shut the f up or you're going to jail." The asshole I have become has now become a very nice, obedient little boy. He reads the ticket, I drive home and I pay the fine.

    A few years later, I'm working at my first daily, where I commute 45 minutes to work since I signed a lease a month before I got the job. So I'm driving to work one day, end of the month, and I'm going the speed limit or pretty close to it. Cop car gets on my bumper (At this time, I'm driving an attractive bright red jeep with a soft top down. Not a chick magnet, a cop magnet.). Follows me 20 miles down the interstate on my bumper. Then pulls me over for speeding. I tell the gentleman, "Sir, I was going 73 in a 70." "No Mr. SCEditor, your speed was increasing and decreasing at an unusual rate." "Mr. Officer, I have cruise control. I saw you behind me 20 miles ago, and hit cruise control on 73 and let you draft my ass up the interstate." I get a ticket, which gets bumped down, but if I ever saw that guy again, I'd probably throw a punch.

    My personal favorite, however, is when attending a press conference about an hour from our office. This will out me a little, but who cares. I'm coming back from a press conference announcing that one of the NASCAR tracks is losing a race. So I'm driving back and I hit a little podunk town known for being a speed trap. I know it's a speed trap, so I'm going the speed limit in my nice, bright red jeep. Cop pulls me over. "Sir, do you know you were speeding." "Sir, I saw the sign and I was going 25." "No sir, you were going 26. What's the hurry?" I. Lost. It. "I was going 26 in a 25? And you're going to write me a (expletive deleted) ticket? Are you out of your mother (expletive deleted) mind?" No wonder nobody lives in this (expletive deleted) town?" "Sir, get out of the car." "With great pleasure (expletive deleted)." The great search begins. Now I'm a little nervous, because I'm in Podunk and what if Officer Bubba decides to put something in my car. First thing he sees is my press pass. "You're with the newspaper?" "Um yeah." "Oh, well, get on out of here and have a nice day."

    Those are my good stories.
    The rest of my tickets I deserved. And there were a lot of those.
     
  4. imjustagirl2

    imjustagirl2 New Member

    The amusement park was Cedar Point. Has some great, record-setting roller coasters.
     
  5. SCEditor

    SCEditor Active Member

    That's exactly the one. You, as always, are much smarter than I. I'm almost embarrassed to reveal my Wonderlic test I took the other day.
     
  6. Angola!

    Angola! Guest

    I've only gotten two tickets in my life. One in high school, doing 63 in a 45 and the other in college on the way home from my soon to be in-laws house, going 83 in a 55.
    State trooper pulls me over and gives me a ticket. I ask her, "Just curious, but do you really expect people to go 55 when we are in the middle of nowhere?" She responds, "Actually, if you would have been going 15 over I would have let you go."
    Of course I am pissed, but I press my luck.
    "So, you are saying I can go 70 the rest of the way?"
    She responds, "Yeah, at least until you get within 20 miles of the next town which has a state trooper office in it."

    For the next 3 years I always went 15 over on that highway and never got nailed again, despite passing state troopers who were hidden. Good times. Of course, the $230 ticket for the information wasn't good times.
     
  7. Kritter47

    Kritter47 Member

    God, I hate state troopers. Especially because every single one I run into seems to be a jackass.

    I've only been pulled over once, and this state trooper must have been having a bad day. I was at the very end of a four hour drive, just getting into my town when a trooper pulls out onto the highway with me. I was a nitwit and passed him - at the time, he was going 65 in a 70, I went 70 and passed on the left - so he tails my ass until a speed trap where it drops to 60.

    This thing is such a speed trap. It drops to 60 because it's a "work zone" with like... four orange barrels that have been there for the entire time I've lived in town. There's fucking grass growing up these barrels. I've never seen a worker out there. Then you pass a "Reduced speed ahead" sign and it goes to 65 once you get into town. On the road out of town? No reduced speed, no work zone.

    He pulls me over for going 72 in a 60 when I had my cruise set at 68. He proceeds to be a jackass about how I need to slow down for the safety of the workers and that I could be a danger if they were out there and I lost control. He also intimidated the fuck out of me - creepy, leering guy in his late 40s who liked to lean into the car window to talk to me. Then asked why I didn't have my insurance information out already for him.

    Luckily, my state let's you clear one ticket a year. So $105 in court costs and $40 for the defensive driving course helped me avoid higher insurance. Technically, since I get a 10 percent discount on my car insurance for the court, the ticket will save me more money than it cost me.

    But that trooper was still a jackass.
     
  8. Angola!

    Angola! Guest

    Did you think about going to court over that "work zone," I sure would have. Of course my state doesn't let me out of tickets, at least my old state didn't.
     
  9. Kritter47

    Kritter47 Member

    Oh, I thought about it, but I wanted to get rid of the ticket first and foremost to keep my insurance down. If I'd gone into court and lost, it'd stay on my record. Since I had the option to get out of the ticket, I figured it was safer that way.

    The rule here is you can clear one ticket in a 12 month period with defensive driving (I think it's 12 months from the time of your last course). You have to go through a 90 day probationary period without being pulled over, or else the original ticket and the new violation go on your record.

    There's also other stipulations, like you can't get rid of speeding tickets if you were going more than 25 mph over the limit. But all in all, it worked out well for me. I just have to get through next Oct. 4 without getting pulled over for speeding.

    The best story I know, though, is one of our guys was covering a game in a somewhat-removed city. My shop has really conspicuous company cars we take on road trips, and the only reason we'd be in this particular town is to cover sports. He got pulled over the day after the game because the cop wanted to know statewide high school football scores from the night before. No ticket, no warning. Just wanted some scores.
     
  10. BYH

    BYH Active Member

    These tales remind me of the adage that you can't complain too much when you get pulled over because of all the times you got away with speeding.

    Like when I was 17 and even stupider than I am now. I was at the community college library researching something but wanted to get back to the high school by the time the last bell rang so I could meet the girl I was madly in love with at her locker. The trip from the college to high school was about 10 minutes...a couple highway exits in bumfuck. But I decided to see if I could make it in FIVE minutes.

    So I got in my parents car, got on the highway and hit a buck 10. I slowed down to 55 at the speed trap, then ramped it right back up to 110. Made it back to school in five minutes and was at her locker a minute later.

    Stupidest fucking thing I've ever done. Can you imagine trying to explain that to your parents? "Yeah Mom I got busted doing 110 in a 55." What's the fine on that? I think my dad would have lopped off my testicles.

    (Edit to correct JDV-like grammar)
     
  11. Angola!

    Angola! Guest

    If your dad did that, though, then you could pretend you were beanpole failing to trap his bat.
     
  12. Smallpotatoes

    Smallpotatoes Well-Known Member

    Is tehre some reason why a police officer cannot admit when he's made a mistake?
    If he's clearly wrong, why can't he say it? Is the only thing worse than making a mistake admitting it?
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page