Got pulled over for speeding last night.
drobs
Member Posts: 22,620 ✭✭✭✭
1st time in 20+ years.
Rockaway Beach Missouri has a really good pizza place called La Pizza Cellar. It's a bar / restaurant that is in the basement of building. The pizza special (basically a supreme pizza) reminds me of thin crust Chicago Pizza and has all the correct spices / flavors.
The main downtown area is 20mph. The road into Rockaway Beach starts at 45 mph from Forsyth. I guess I missed where it turns into 35mph.
Soon as the police car's lights went on, I pulled over, turned off my Jeep and had my hands on the steering wheel when the police officers walked up - 1 on each side. The officer at my window was wearing a BP vest, white T-shirt, blue jeans, a huge beard, and full sleeve tattoos. He asked me "Do you know why I pulled you over?"
I responded: "Speeding would be my guess but I couldn't be doing more than 28mph just now."
He responded: "You were doing 47 in a 35 back at where the sign for Rockaway Beach is located."
I responded: "Oh my bad, I wasn't paying attention to my speed, back there. My mistake"
He asked me for my license & proof of insurance and went back to his car - a Dodge Journey to run it.
I was fully expecting a ticket. Karma and all, but I prefer to do my speeding on desolate 2 lane 55mph highways and divided highways. I keep it between 4 and 9mph over the limit and never had any problems. In towns / suburbia I do the speed limit.
He came back up to my window and handed me back my DL and insurance card and said. "Slow down and have a nice night."
No ticket.
He could've also gotten me for no front license plate. It didn't come up and I wasn't going to mention it.
Comments
This can't be true......the media tells us Police are dangerous and mean.............I am surprised no one shot at you.
Where is that green font we used to have !
Right!
I have 1 gun sticker on my Jeep - a Magpul symbol on my back windshield. There's no duty to notify in Missouri and guns didn't come up either.
I’ve been pulled over a few times in 40+ years and acted respectful almost all the times I avoided a ticket even though I deserved it.
Y'all gonna find this hard to believe but I have never received a warning. For some reason it is straight to a ticket. Don
Based on his appearance, they were using radar as an excuse to stop vehicles & look for other things. Ken K is right about your attitude when stopped. Funny, years ago the only people that put their hands up on the wheel were off duty cops.
I guess I'm just lucky. Been driving for 61 years with zero speeding tickets. Not that I've never been stopped for speeding. When I was 18 I got a reckless driving ticket for laying a couple of feet of rubber with my Barracuda (right in front of a deputy sheriff's car). That cost me $58.25 bond forfeiture, and never got on my record. The deputy told me I really got on the pedal, I laughed and told him he wouldn't have caught me in two blocks if I hadn't let up on the accelerator!
The last close call I had about being pulled over was when I had a lot on my mind coming into a small town with a 25 mph limit that started a mile before you actually got into town. I was about 1\2 mile along that road when I noticed a police car riding my back bumper. Looked down at my speedometer and I was doing 35. Took my foot off the gas and inched her down to 25 without braking. The cop stayed with me right up to the stop sign where I was turning left and he went straight through. He did wave at me friendly like as we both departed separately!
I choked it all up to having a USAF license plate on my truck!
Maybe things have changed but there are government codes (which apply to all police agencies conducting traffic stops in the USA) which REQUIRE the vehicle conducting the stop to have the front door to be either all white or black with the agency name and insignia. Also the officer must have on his/her uniform the agency name and the officer name and a badge number (or personal number).
Has this changed, or police agency gone rouge?
Margaret Thatcher
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
Mark Twain
Been extremely lucky
The Dodge Journey was blue had all the markings on it in white. I just was completely oblivious to it. The cop's BP vest had police on it.
I think Toolman286 is correct, he was probably looking for drunks or hoping to smell weed based on his appearance. If I had to guess, I think this town sub's it's police duties out to the local Sheriff's Department. It's a tiny little town.
We've been watching Live Patrol on the Reelz cable channel on Friday and Saturday night lately. I can't believe how many people talk themselves into an arrest or ticket. Seems like there is no longer any respect for police officers anymore.
Glad you did not get wrote up.
I haven't been pulled over in a very long time. Gotten older, leave plenty early, have slowed down alot.
Rockaway Beach... the meth capital of Taneycomo.
Last time I got pulled over,58 in a 45, I am 90% sure the young state trooper let me off with a warning is because I had a SeaBees sticker on the back window,veteran on my license and he was a USMC veteran.
I drove for a living for thirty eight years. Got some tickets and some warnings. If i stretched them out over miles driven, I am pretty lucky to be alive.
Last time I was stopped was 1968, No ticket even then.
Margaret Thatcher
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
Mark Twain
As far as unmarked cars go, Arkansas has a bunch of plain Dodges with the only signage on the passenger side door, and it is in "ghost" mode. They are different colors, and they move them around the state periodically. I've seen black, gray, red, and blue. Pretty sneaky if you ask me!😉
Drobs, is that what the mean by "white privilege "?
Well ,,,, you are a Jayhawker ,,,,,, 🤣
When I was working we went through 3 color changes on patrol cars. Light brown (with white doors) for the first Sheriff (O'Conner), light green (John Duffy) with white doors, then black with white doors for all the others.
One nice thing was all same model year were keyed alike. Even the "cool cars" (unmarked).
So after work, you see a department cool car parked down the street from a bar, you take your key for that model year, move the car to the other side of the street.
Well worth the chuckle.
Margaret Thatcher
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
Mark Twain
From your description of the cop(?), his uniform (?), and his patrol car (?), I doubt you were pulled over for speeding.
Those cops(?) were looking for someone else who was driving a similar vehicle.
Good point, and goes with htredneck's comment
So far ,age 67 ,no speeding tickets . Had multiple hot rods in my youth. Corvettes, firebird, chevelles and more hopped up big block fords tha a man needed . Back them I knew two speeds wide open and parked. Never got stopped . Real lucky !
The small town I live near just got a new sheriff about 2 years ago. His main vehicle used is a Ford F250 pickup.
A place that is about as close to "Mayberry" as you can get here in the North country!
I find, while I'm not in a hurry, I don't want to take all day to get there either. Most of the 2 lane roads around here are hilly and curvy 55mph roads. Passing zones are few and far between. I'm constantly behind drivers that want to go 35 mph on these roads.
RE: White Privilege. I guess I'm guilty - I treat others with dignity and respect while taking personal responsibility for my own actions.
Not saying I haven't deserved speeding tickets but just not caught. In my younger yrs I was caught doing 135 in a 55 by a State Trooper. He did not give me a ticket BUT told me if he ever caught me speeding again.. he would cut up my license.
Just kidding about the white privilege, a made up phrase invented by the liberals.
Well @jimdeere you may have been kidding, however this white guy thought the same thing with a chuckle when reading all the stories of "warnings" instead of tickets... I have had a few speeding tickets when younger and a couple of warnings...
Well I did get one I didn't deserve. Pulling a bass boat home from Columbia in front of Shaw Air Force Base. A highway patrol pulled me over. I was not speeding..he clocked the wrong car that passed me . I paid that ticket . That officer lost his life speeding and lost control hit a tree.
If you get pulled over, just do exactly as the OP described. Look the cop in the eye if possible, answer politely and humbly.
That alone will be such a shocking difference to the cop that he may forget why he pulled you over!
Your lucky you didn't have your dog with you it would have been shot.
I would never get accustomed to walking up behind a dark vehicle not knowing what or who was inside.
about 30 some odd yrs ago after just moving to our current place
I came home from work my wife was in tears . so I ask whats wrong thinking something terrible had happened .
she said I just got a speeding ticket (first ticket she ever had ) just down the road is a small village use to be a town.
any way the speed limit goes from 55 to 35 at the top of the hill as your entering the city limits .
a deputy sheriff pulled her over for going 41 mph in a 35 mph zone. ( wow a whole 6 miles over )
she said I was trying to explain I was coming up the hill but was slowing down as I was getting close to the city limit . she was in tears said the LEO did not want to hear it or let her explain , he just said "slowing down don't get it lady "the speed limit is 35 here's your ticket
it hurt her feelings big time the LEO would not listen to her reason or give her a break over it .
My one and only speeding ticket (when I was 16) was the opposite. I was leaving a tiny little town at exactly the posted limit of 35 and started speeding up when I saw the Limit 45 sign at the town border. That's when the lights started flashing on the town cop car parked just before that sign.
Got a ticket because - as that smirking cop said, "The limit doesn't change until after the sign."
I think the best answer to: "do you know why I pulled you over" is "no officer, I thought I was driving safely." No admission of guilt. Emphasis on being safe. Polite. And it's honest. I mean I guess unless you thought you were driving recklessly. Ticks all the marks.
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain