Torgo - The Torgo Blog: February 2006

Apparently in some states you can now be charged a tax if you got a speeding ticket -- Even if you don't live in that state. A Connecticut motorist now has to pay either $100 a year or a lump sum of $300 because he got a speeding ticket in New York [link].

The motorist, as it seems, was caught in a brazen speed trap. Reading this story reminded me of the distain I have for cops, and why I will never trust them (as they've given me no reason to).

I will tell the story of my run-ins with speeding fines, then a nice story which shows just how blatantly infringing all cops are.

The first ticket I ever got I will say I was responsible for, though I know for a fact I was not traveling the speed I was given the ticket for. At the time I gave the cop the benefit of the doubt anyway, paid the ticket, went to traffic school and that was that...

I never got mad at this ticket until the next time I was pulled over. It was then that I realized that cops flat out lie, and every run-in I had since then re-enforced this.

The second time I was pulled over I first was travling down a road with no posted speed limit (the actual limit was either 50 or 55 mph at the time) and I was at most travling down this road at 55, I know for a fact I never went higher than this (though I'm pretty sure I was closer to 50 for most of the distance). I stopped at a stop sign and waited. As I waited a cop came up behind me. I hadn't seen him earlier but it didnt' really matter to me as I was not breaking the speed limit. I made my turn and went down the road, and was a little annoyed as the speed limit was posted 55 on this road, and I was stuck behind cars that were going 45. As soon as the road widened to two lanes I checked my mirror only to see the same cop as before with his lights on. So I pulled over and was surprised that he was in fact pulling me over. He gets to my window and asks "do you know how fast you were going back there?" I told him honestly "oh, around 50 55". He then said "More like 70 75" I was immedatly pissed, because at no time this entire day had I even reached 60, let alone 70. Not to mention the car I had was so old, going 75 was not something I could do very comforably. So I thought: Fine, this cop is blaitantly lieing, I wasn't going to argue with him, if he was going to push this I would go to court and get this cleared up. He asked me how long it had been since my last ticket and he said it was about time I was given another one. Again, I didn't say anything, I would have my day in court. After he radio'd in, and a few minutes passed he said he would go ahead and let me go with a warning. I though "oh really?"... It was nice of him to only give me a warning, considering the fact that at no point in time did I ever exceed the speed limit... In time I found that the dishonesty this cop used to insist I was speeding was in fact the norm, not a rare misteak.

The next time I got a ticket was a few years after this. I was headed to work early one sunday, and was driving down the freeway. It was dark and as I was driving I noticed a car had come up behind me and was litarally tailgating me by less than a foot. I though it was some driver trying to be a pain in the neck (as if it was some guy who wanted to go faster, there were 2 other lanes on the freeway he could have used to go around me). So I figured the guy simply wanted me out of the fast lane, so I proceeded to speed up (trying to get a little more space between me and the guy behind me) and reached for my signal. Half a second before actually pulling the signal lever over I learned it was a cop when he popped his lights on. I proceeded to get a ticket, and was planning on fighting it. I called to find out if the judge decided I was guilty, could I go to traffic school to keep it off my record. The person on the phone told me it was the judge's discression, but it was exterely unlikely. I was kind of stuck, as I didn't think the cop was likely to admit what he had done before he popped me, and if the judge decided to believe the cop I would end up screwed. So I paid the ticket and did traffic school... It's interesting to note (though not relavent) that the cop was seemingly clueless while giving me the ticket, as he didn't believe me when I had told him that he did not give me my registration and proof of insurance back. He finally checked his car and found the two documents sitting on his seat.

The last time I got a ticket was a few years after this (about 2 years ago now). This story is a bit more interesting as I caught the cop being dishonest and he pretty much admitted it. I was driving to Santa Barbara and shortly after passing the state street area a driver had gotten behind me. At the time he was a couple car lengths back, and so I didn't worry aobut it. After a mile or so more traffic started to fill in the other lanes and I began to notice the car that was behind me began to approach my bumper. He got fairly close (but I didn't want to speed up), but a few seconds later he baked off. I barely noticed it but then it happened again, and again, and again. It started to occur to me that being in the middle of Santa Barbara on a Friday night, this in fact could be a drunk driver. From my prevous traffic school I had learned that the safest place to be on the road with a drunk driver was behind him. So I finally thought I needed to get out of this guy's way. I checked over my shoulder and saw there was a car direclty to my right, and at this point the car behind me was again right on my bumper, so I thought slowing down would be a stupid thing to do (if the driver is drunk, he wouldn't be able to compensate for a change in my speed so easily, so it seemed like a dangerous move). The only other option (since the car next to me was drivng the exact same speed as me) was to speed up. So I did just that and turned my signal on, and all of a second after that the car beind me popped on his lights, it wasn't a drunk driver, it was a cop. So I pulled over. The cop came to my window and asked why I was going so fast. I said that I had sped up because he was tailgating me. He then said (and I quote) "I was 30 feet off your bumper the entire time". So I responded "you were repeatedly approcing me and backing off" and without missing a beat he said "I was bumper pacing you." In other words, he was not 30 feet off my bumper the whole time as he had said to me all of 10 seconds earlier.

Basically in both cases I was given a ticket because I made an effort to get out of the way of what I considered to be dangerous and eratic (and possibly drunk) drivers. In both cases I can honestly say I would not have spead up the way I did had the cops not done things which made me feel I was in danger. I was pushed into doing what I did. The only reason I didn't fight either was because the cops made it obvous that in each case that they would have been less than honest in court... And I suspected that a judge would believe the cops regardless of how much they lied...

This brings me to another incident that occured between me in my car and two police cars. I did not get pulled over, but was given a little show. This was a number of years ago, on the same road I got my first ticket on. The speed limit was 50 mph, and it was a two lane road. I was behind two cops and there were no other cars around me. These two cop cars proceeded to put on a little show for me... You see, they got side by side (so they were blocking both lanes of traffic) and then slowed down to around 25 mph... They then began stepping on their brakes in succession, so their brake lights were going back and forth. (right car break lights on then off, left car break lights on and off). They did this for nearly a minute or so... This was an obvous show that cops believe they are above the law. Had to citizens done this to a cop, there is no doubt they would have at the very least gotten tickets, if not been arrested for reckless driving and exebition.

To this day I wish I had a camera at the time to take a picture, but I have no dobut that nobody would have ever seen the photo if I had taken a picture. As I'm 100% certain the cops would have pulled me over and destroyed the evidence had I managed to get any. I have proof that this has been done before, only in this case the pictures were not of the cops doing something illegal. In this story (half way down the page), a cop deleted a picture taken of a police car stuck in the mud. Just imagine what would have happened if the cop was doing something like I had described here. As much as I would have wanted a picture of these cops showing off, I still shutter to think what kind of hell they would rain down on me if I had taken the picture...