Posted on 04/10/2005 8:43:30 AM PDT by Dan from Michigan
Drivers quick with an excuse
Sunday, April 10, 2005
By Larry O'Connor
When confronted by a traffic cop, motorists will say the darnedest things to dismiss their misdeeds.
Last year, police agencies in Jackson County doled out 47,005 tickets. In return, officers writing those dreaded citations heard at least that many excuses.
Few are original and even fewer are legitimate, officers say.
"Only in about 2 percent of the cases will they tell you the truth," said state Trooper Dave Clark, a 16-year road patrol veteran.
At least in one instance, the oft-repeated claim of urgently needing to go to the bathroom was no snow job.
About 21/2 years ago, sheriff's Deputy Dan Deering stopped a driver who was zipping down U.S. 127 well over the posted 55 mph limit.
The driver claimed she had to go to the bathroom.
To flush away doubt, she bolted past the deputy, ran into the adjacent woods and proceeded to relieve herself, Deering said. In the passenger seat, her husband sat dumbfounded.
"I handed him the ticket," said Deering, a seven-year road patrol veteran.
Another speeding driver claimed to be on his way to Foote Hospital to deliver vital organs for transplant surgery.
With no heart or kidney in the front seat, Jackson police Officer Chuck Brant was somewhat dubious and ticketed the driver. Another driver later offered the same excuse but at least produced a bag of blood products.
"I let him go," said Brant, the city's top traffic enforcement cop.
For the ticket writer, part of the fun is poking holes in the concocted claims.
"I put (the excuses) into the top of the funnel and keep pushing them down with questions," Deering said. "Pretty soon the funnel is upside down."
Relative morality in the Land of 1001 Excuses.
Speeding tickets...a means of generating local revenue, IMO.
Traffic tickets = Revenue generation
I don't make excuses. The last time I got a speeding ticket I told the cop I was glad he didn't catch me about a mile back.
It's been several years since I was pulled over (amazingly enough - speed demon that I am) and I just told the cop it was such a gorgeous day I didn't really care. :)
Newman: Okay, you're all set? You got your story?
Kramer: No.
Newman: When the cop stopped me, I told him that I was rushing home because my friend was about to commit suicide.
Kramer: Uhm...
Newman: Now, you're that firend. Now, all we need is a reason why you were going to commit suicide.
[Pause; they're thinking]
Kramer: I never had an air conditioner.
Newman: No! That's no reason to kill yourself!
Kramer: Why? It gets hot at night, you can't sleep. You ever tried to sleep in a really hot room?
Newman: Every night I sleep in a really hot room, I don't want to kill myself.
Kramer: Well, I slept in really hot rooms and I wanted to kill myself.
Newman: No, no, no. That's not gonna work. Something else.
Kramer: I was never able to become a banker.
[Newman has a revelation.]
Newman: Banker! So you're killing yourself because your dreams of becoming a banker have gone unfulfilled. You-you-you-you can't live without being a banker.
Kramer: Yeah, yeah. If I can't be banker, I don't wanna live.
Newman: You must be banker.
Kramer: MUST be banker.
Newman (satisfied): Okay, we'll go with the banker story.
"Mind if I have a look inside your car and check to see if your child seat is tight?" = Request for consent to search entire vehicle for drugs, weapons, etc.
Cops lie to citizens all the time. It's only fair citizens return the favor.
If the speed limits are being set illegally (ie, not per the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, or MUTCD, which has been adopted as LAW by every state, whose governments ignore it so that they can set the speed limits artificially low to engage in revenue generation) then is it really breaking the law to violate them?
The MUTCD sets forth a standard whereby the speed limit is to be set at the speed at which the 85th percentile driver drives. If everyone is "speeding" it's an indication that the speed limit is too low, not that everyone is a scofflaw.
If the government won't abide by the law, then why should the citizens, particularly when the "offense" is merely malum prohibitum and not malum per se.
I was asked every time if I knew how fast I was going. In all three cases I didn't know. And I told the LEOs that. I told them I wasn't paying attention and added the line: "I guess if your gonna play you have to pay". All resorted in warnings!
My tail lights blew out in front of the cop.
He pulls me over, and asks if I knew why he did so.
I said, "Not a clue."
He tells me my tail lights are out.
I'd just checked them before driving, so I didn't believe him.
So I asked if he minded me checking them.
Surprised, he said "okay."
I get out and look.
Sure enough, not just one light, but all of them are out.
So I pop the hatchbakc, which slams down on my head as usual while I am inside, and start wiggling connections.
By now, the poor cop is chuckling outrigt as to his point of view, my car is devouring me.
I got three lights working agin, things in the trunk had knocked on the back of the light assembly and took out the lights, and the poor cop then tells me that he'd seen them blow out.
"I figured you didn't know about it." was his statement.
"Cops lie to citizens all the time. It's only fair citizens return the favor."
Good point. I remember that one of the reasons why they threw the book at Martha Stewart was because she lied to the Feds. But remember that it's okay for the Feds to lie to you in the course of their investigation.
The double standard is really nauseating, isn't it.
I have been to traffic court several times, and have been a witness in court as well. I have yet to see a police officer tell the truth in a court of law.
That was basically my reason for speeding. I bought a new car during the winter and it was the first nice spring morning when the roads were clear. 5 AM on deserted roads seemed like a good time to wind er up to about 110 mph. The ticket was for 74 in a 55 mph zone.
These days 5 over is about the extent of my speeding.
For a list of several hundred excuses that actually work I recommend, "The Speeders Guide to Avoiding Tickets." It was written by a former NY State Trooper and has worked for me many times. My favorite is to call up the barracks where you usually drive and get the name of the commanding officer. Then when you get stopped you tell him that commander __________ is a personal friend and would he please just call him and get things straightened out. Now the trooper is in a real bind. He can't very well call his CO and ask if he knows you because if he doesn't he'll look like a jerk. On the other hand if he gives you the ticket and you really do know the CO he could be in real trouble. Most times he will err on the side of caution and let you go.
Another one that works for me. I once met a trooper in a bar. We hit it off and he gave me his card. Now when I get stopped, I tell the trooper/officer that I am an attorney represent many cops on disability and comp claims. This makes me one of the good guys now and this technique has worked numerous times.
I am a habitual speeder and these techniques work 90 percent of the time.
I was listening to Garrison Keillor's Prarie Home Companion while driving through a school zone.
It was their annual joke show and Paula Poundstone told a knock-knock joke that reduced me to tears.
I stopped laughing pretty quick when I saw the blue lights in the rear view mirror.
A good friend of mine is a prosecutor. He said the single biggest problem prosecutors have is lying cops.
"Cops lie to citizens all the time. It's only fair citizens return the favor."
The last time I was pulled over the cop said it was because I had a taillight out. Two years later I still haven't changed that tail light and it still works just fine.
I got pulled over in my corvette once (don't have it anymore) in Eastern Washington. I wasn't speeding or anything. I asked the cop why he pulled me over. He told me to open the hood. What? So I did. He looked a bit puzzled, and then said that he thought an L-88 was a 427. I told him yes, it was, but this is an L-82, not an L-88, and it's a 350.
Then he told me that I didn't signal when I pulled over, and wrote me a ticket for that. I asked him why he pulled me over in the first place, and he said that he wanted to see the 427.
And people wonder why I don't have much respect for cops?
*wincing*
Well, did see in Port Jervis a few years back that it took four officers to pull over one woman.
Seems they were impressed with her bust size and that was why they'd stopped her.
Thankfully, those four no longer are on that PD.
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