It was 1 am and I was taking my friend to his girlfriend's house when I got double teamed by two police officers (seperate cars). One of them was tailing my ass for 2 miles. I knew I didn't do anything wrong so I was not too concerned (well, I was hoping they wouldn't see unpaided parking tickets from two years ago, I think I owe $100 in multiple tickets). The male officer took my license and insurance card and was gone for about 10 minutes... then gave it back and told me I went over the center line a few times and thought I was drinking (which I did not, I was just very tired). A female officer was dealing with my friend, who is 16. He did not have ID on him but she claimed to smell alcohol on his breath (he did not drink though). They never gave us tests or anything. My questions are this: Why wasn't I given a test? He thought I was drinking but never tested me. And why did the female officer claim to smell alcohol on my friend? My theory was that she was trying to make him feel guilty (if he did) and admit it. And why was I double teamed? I was thinking maybe they pulled something from my tag and needed backup before finally pulling me over. Or perhaps they were watching out for eachother.. since it was 1 am or so and I was on a back road far from city lights and people. The final outcome: they let me go about my way and I recieved no ticket.. the only comment I got, which was 10 minutes after he took my information, was to not cross the center line and to be careful. And do these kind of stops get recorded in your driving records and would my insurance change at all? I mean, I didn't do anything illegal except for cross the center line a few times.
No, like I said I was tired... I did not want to drive anywhere but he paid me to be his bitch for 20 minutes... so I gave in. I've never been in an accident or ever close. I've been driving for 6 or so years.
Well. Maybe the officers thought you were a shitty driver and wanted to get you in trouble, but since you weren't doing anythiing wrong, they couldn't do anything. Who knows why they didn't breathalize. Maybe they have to fill out paperwork or something. You should have asked the female officer for her number. They love that shit.
She was pretty hot actually... but she was dealing with my friend, not me. The guy dealing with me looked to be in his late fifties. At least when I am NOT tired I drive straighter than most drivers... I use the left corner of my front hood for guidance to keep in the center of my lane. Using that, I can keep that corner right on the center line for miles without deviating... versus most drivers I see that seem to go all over their lane around here Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Anyway I have seen studies that say driving while sleepy is about as bad as driving drunk... which I have done ONE time in my life downtown... I had to drive ONE mile and it was an interesting experience dodging parked cars and moving cars. It's something I will not do again, but it feels the same when I need sleep and need to drive 40 miles home Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
if what you say here is true you should be thanking whoever or whatever your god is cause they could have taken your butt to jail. stop your complaining and thank god you didn't go to jail that night.
Well I do not know what the laws are about parking tickets here in Georgia. All my unpaid tickets are related to parking meters. I lost all the tickets wrote out to me about them. One other parking ticket I got was parking in a "no parking zone." I got a letter in the mail about two months later stating that if I do not pay this ticket, they will impound my truck. Needless to say, I paid that ticket... but two years, not one letter for the other ones. And where am I complaining about anything? It was actually an interesting experience being pulled over... and I am not complaining about the tickets.. I can pay $100 without crying.
Ya, but if you didn't pay the ticket when you were supposed to, they fine you..so you end up paying a lot more. At least that's what happened to my mom. But anyway, it seems like they forgot about yours since you didn't get a letter. Lucky.
in indiana if you fail to pay your fines they will put a warrent out for your arrest. they won't serve it but wait to see if they can catch you while driving. the same applies to ohio. i know cause it happened to me
Forgot about 6 or so tickets? Doubtful... they give you 7 days to pay them then they double the fine (as a max., too). The tickets seem to be handled differently depending on who tickets you. At GATech, they place a hold on your account (you cannot register for classes) until you pay the tickets. It seems here at GSU (which is where I got them all) they seem to be fairly lax about it. This reminds me of a time I tried to put money in a meter once and someone had jammed it. I didn't go find a better meter so I left for an hour. I came back and it seems someone unjammed it and put money in it for me (I had 40 minutes remaining). What a nice guy Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
A cop has been tailing you for two miles and you know you didn't do anything wrong. Sure. You must have at least done something suspicious, like going through a turn too hard or not keeping your car positioned within your lane very steadily. At that time of night they are always looking for people who have been drinking. They don't care if they find somebody who is not impaired but technically is over the legal limit. They're not out to make the roads safer, they're out to make revenue and a DUI is big bucks for the county. So anyone who looks like they might have had more than one drink per hour is worth tailing for a while to see if they do anything that could justify a stop. And in Georgia the cops are on top of the system so they don't need much justification to stop you, especially if they just go ahead and lie about it. At this point you should have started driving like a saint. Maybe even pull off the road if there's some place where it won't look suspicious. You must be kidding. Have you heard of these things called "computers"? Governments were among the first and most enthusiastic users. Occasionally municipalities get really huffy about people who don't respect their parking enforcement, and have people like you arrested. It's no joke. Sure the odds are low, but who wants to take that particular risk? My advice is to pay the frelling tickets if it's only $100. Cheap peace of mind. The day they choose to bust you will be the day you're on your way to a really important job interview or a new girlfriend you're really trying to impress or something like that. I never understand people who let parking tickets pile up. Yes, we all hate them, but it's one of those little games that life plays on us. You're supposed to be clever enough to figure it out. And did you go over the line? Shame on you if you did, that's just plain bad driving under any circumstances. Even if there's no traffic you need to keep yourself in good habits so this stuff becomes unconscious. If you really went over the line, especially more than once, it's no surprise that he finally decided to check you out for alcohol., Gee, cops lie. What a revelation. That makes them the only government employees who don't always tell the truth. Cops use their judgment and they also make decisions on how they feel at the moment. Apparently he was pretty sure that you hadn't been drinking. Cops have very good "people skills," they can usually tell when someone is lying. And apparently you behaved respectfully so he didn't need to pull out his macho stick and give you a hard time. Good for you. Cops lie. Or did I already say that? Maybe he was not acting as respectfully as you were so she decided to harrass him a little. Yeah, you're going to say that you both behaved like model citizens but it's easy to piss off a cop. Good question. It could just have been a slow night so they both wanted a piece of the action. That happens a lot. Or, if something bad went down, it would be to their advantage to have two cops on the witness stand that you have to discredit instead of just one. I'd say you got off really easy and should be thanking the goddess for your good fortune. If you went over the line they could have nailed you for reckless driving. That's a fine that you can't avoid paying, and in many jurisdictions it's a mandatory court appearance, not something you can just mail in. If they'd administered a field sobriety test it would have taken a lot longer than ten minutes. This happens to all of us occasionally. It's just part of life. Deal with it. It's on a police record somewhere but it did not go to the DMV and it's not on your driving record. You have to be convicted of an offense before it becomes part of your official record. You weren't even arrested, much less charged, much less tried, much less convicted. But the cops can use this against you. Next time they see you driving wobbly they probably won't let you get away with it. But your insurance company doesn't know about it and neither does the DMV. Duh? Hey dude, that is illegal! And you did it more than once, it wasn't just swerving to avoid squashing a frog or a one-time lapse of judgment while scratching your butt or changing the radio station. Read the law. Your vehicle must remain entirely to the right of the center line at all times except when passing, making a left turn, etc. You broke the law. Come to terms with that, it's really important. You can't drive like that and expect to get away with it. Next time it could very likely be a reckless driving bust, especially if the same cop catches you--and they have long memories. Tighten up your driving habits! Otherwise when you're my age you'll be one of these old farts that drives over mailboxes. If you haven't already had your license revoked.
Absane, NO, these kinds of stops do not go on your record and your insurance company will probably never know of it. In 1969, I was driving around all night with a friend. I was home from boot camp and we were just being kids. In a certain municipality, I was pulled over on what I thought were rather flimsy grounds. The local cops ran us through the 'wants and warrant' check and asked us who we were, what we were doing, who we were going to do it to and so forth. The next morning, I read headlines of a big drug raid in that area. The cops who stopped us were checking to see if we were part of the drug ring - either suppliers or customers. Chances are, the cops were looking for someone; either someone specific like the guy or guys who knocked over a 'Stop-n-Rob' or one of a group of people frequenting a drug supply house. They identified you two as not being of interest in the matter at hand and sent you on your way. And everyone else is right. Pay off those parking tickets as soon as you can. You'll save yourself a lot of grief in the future.
Fraggle.. I know going over the line is illegal.. that is why I said "I didn't do anything illegal EXCEPT going over the line," meaning that was all I did. I think I was up for 15 hours or so. I was pretty damn tired too.. I didn't even want to go out on the road to begin with but like I said, I was paid to do so. I'm actually a good driver when I am not tired. However, I long have suspected I got a sleep problemm perhaps I need to find out. And yea I am going to pay those tickets some day in the near future because being pulled over did make me think about those Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I do not see why people keep saying I am a bad driver though... I keep saying what my circumstances were. I passed driver's ed with flying colors and same for the tests to get my Class C license Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! As long as I do not drive when I am normally asleep, I am good to go. And what was odd about that night is that there were an unusual number of police cars parked along roads and dark alleys. I passed 10 parked police cars in the 10 or so miles I drove... and in the county I live it, that's vary odd... is there something about drunk drivers on monday nights? :bugeye: Anyway from what I remember, I was really just riding on the center line and maybe an inch over or so. He may have pulled me over for that,. but the fact he was tailing my ass for a while I think he was noticing me correcting myself to get back over.
Absane, I study martial arts and was I was younger I had a few officer friends I trained with. Later on I worked for the probation dept just under three years and met more officers there. What I learned from them as it applies to you post is this: When an officer is pulling you over for suspicion of DWI they are attempting to build a case they can win in court from the onset. If at any time (in your case as it turned out you were drinking) they feel they cannot win in court they dis-engage. Not unlike a telephone salesperson who realizes he has no chance of garnering a sale on a call he is making. The reason for two officers and for the long tail is that they likely wanted an extra witness if it went to court. From my probation days I can tell you alot of cases went to court and most of the pled out..meaning they pled no contest in exchange for a probation term. The largest factor on when the defended plead out or contested the charge was how good of a case the officer made during the initial stop. Understand your tickets are money for the county and or city depending on who pulled your over, a county deputy or a city police officer. DWI's have a nice pay-out for law enforcement. Not that this is their only motivation....human safety is also a motivation and likley a larger one but, understand they do look at the financial aspects, as a unit when decided what to pursue legally and why. So if the officer tailed you for 2 miles likey he was likely calling dispatch to get a back-up officer in route to assist him in making a case. Hence the reason he didn't pull you over right away. The split team tactic is used by officers alot because stategically they realize that they can get more confessions if you are not in front of your buddy than if you are. They played their textbook officer games in an attempt to get a conviction which likely also included postioning their patrol car to get good video of you for court and asking you "do you know why I pulled you over" until such time they realized you were not drinking. It was a planned manuever law enforcement uses in many cities and towns based on data they have learned and used for decades on dwi cases.
I probably read this wrong but I was not drinking at all. Actually, I didn't drink until later that night when I knew I would done being "the bitch" for the night. Well the whole stop went like this (for me, anyway): Pulled over into a gas station. Wait 2 minutes, the male officer comes to my window and asks how I am doing. I say "I am doing fine." He then askes for my driver's license and insurance card. It took me about a minute to find my insurance card because it was not where I usually leave it (ashtray). He takes it, says thank you and stands near the bed of my truck for 8 minutes radioing things in... every so often looking around in the bed of my truck... all that is back there is Mountain Dew cans, some misc. trash, jugs of water for my radiator, used oil, and a broken lawn mower I have strapped down. He comes back and tells me what I did and to be careful as he thought I had a drink or two. I am on my way. Notice at no time I was asked "do you know why I pulled you over" or "have you been drinking tonight?" Simply, let me see your identification and later I will tell you what happened. I wonder if they were trying to play a psychological game with me... making my friend scared (who is underage anyway) and make me feel guilty enough to confess something (had I actually done anything, anyway). The female just spends the whole time on the other side of my truck talking to my friend, getting his information (his name, age, birthday, I think address). Claims to smell alcohol on his breath then leaves him alone after the officer dealing with me is done. I can respect the "double teaming" of officers, especially at night. It just scared me for a while until halfway through waiting to get my cards back I realized it was because I may have gone over the center line. But around here where I live, police are always tailing vehicles so I really wasn't thinking too much about it when he was doing it.. other than being a bit nervous. It's sort of funny to me, but on my way back home that night (with my friend's girlfriend) I was tailed by another officer on the interstate... but probably because I was going 55 in a 65 zone and he wanted to get off at the next exit (was going that slow so I would be 100% sure I was breaking NO laws... lol). Fun times :bugeye: Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Just a note for any further stops you might have, and a note on what assholes cops are, at least in terms of lying to you. If you are given a sobreity test and a cop asks you to say the alphabet backwards, they aren't thinking 'if he can't say it, he must be drunk.' The point of this test is to get you to say 'I couldn't do that even if I was sober,' an admission of guilt. Oftentimes if the police pull you over or come to you house and are looking for drugs, they will seperate any one that you are with and question you seperately. They will tell you that they had already talked to the other person, and that he had told where the drugs were, or that you had drugs. never believe them. Just keep in mind that when a cop is talking to you, they are usually trying to set you up to admit guilt to something, as that will serve as the best case in court. The best way to deal with cops is to know what exactly the laws are concerning the activity you're doing, and never believe a word the cop says.
If you'd like to put that in perspective, go to Germany and try to get a driver's license there. In most western European countries they expect drivers to be able to correct and recover from a high-speed skid, not throw their hands up and pray that the air bags work. They expect drivers to know intuitively their stopping distance at every speed, and the maximum tightness of a turn they can take without losing traction or lifting the inside wheels. They expect drivers to know how the car works so those little lights on the dashboard mean something. They expect drivers to understand the importance of replacing tires before the tread is gone, of keeping the steering gear and alignment in condition. If you come around a wet curve and find somebody on a crashed motorcycle lying in your lane, they expect you to execute the proper maneuver, not say oh crap this has never happened before what do I do oops I ran over him. (A lot of Europeans rode motorcycles when they were younger so they have a lot more respect for them than our people do.) I don't know if this is still true but for decades Germany had a dumbed-down version of its licensing test for American military people--and most of them flunked it. The driver training classes in American schools are frightening. Not enough hours behind the wheel, not enough conditions covered. I'm glad you passed, but please don't think that makes you special. My mother got a driver's license--after taking the test four times--and we were shocked. Nobody wanted to ride with her, but more importantly we felt sorry for the other drivers and wished there was some way to get her off the road. Well yeah. But being willing to drive when you're that impaired, whether it's by sleepiness or booze, is evidence of really bad judgment. I think the other people are right. There was something going down that night like a drug dragnet, and they needed to decide whether you were part of it, which is a delicate operation. And then as long as they got you they did their job and made sure you weren't drunk. Correcting yourself when you're already over the line doesn't exactly excuse you. You're not supposed to be there in the first place. Like I said, if somebody does it once, okay maybe there was a bee in the car. But more than once is suspicious--and bad driving.
