Legal Questions and the LawPost your questions about the law, or speeding tickets or anything legal. Disclaimer: 7thGenCivic.com and it's moderators are not lawyers or police officers (unless otherwise noted) and can in no way be held responsible for any advice or action
for future reference, pleading ignorance is not an excuse!
rolling down the windows seriously does help especially if you have dark tinted windows. turning on all the lights inside the cabin also works as well!!
one of the best excuses out there when it comes to a cop asking you why you are speeding is: "because i am trying to get home to go to the bathroom, i have been holding it for quite sometime." the officer may reply, "you can stop anywhere and do that." you would then reply, "i have an OCD about that and cleanliness too." trust me, this works, works fantastic as a matter of fact!
you guys realize that most cops pull you over on a hunch for something else. Like they'll find a small excuse something along the lines of license plate light out or another small violation to search the car in hopes of finding something else. This gives you a big head start if you don't have anything bad in the car. If the cop comes over and is able to look around to be satisfied, he'll just write you a warning and send you on your way. Cops don't go around looking for cars with a headlight out and little speeding UNLESS they think you have drugs/stolen car/etc.
i don't know about that, usually when i have been pulled over it was because i was speeding at that was it. never has my car been searched or have they peered inside my car for controban. i am pretty sure that if you are speeding and you are doing it blatantly, that is their main reason...not for drugs or guns or whatever else is seen in the movies. as for cops pulling you over for just a headlight, they most likely do not have an alterior motive except for giving you a hard time and making your day misserable. which, if you ask me, is most likely the number one reason why people hate cops. but that is my little opinion!
i don't know about that, usually when i have been pulled over it was because i was speeding at that was it. never has my car been searched or have they peered inside my car for controban. i am pretty sure that if you are speeding and you are doing it blatantly, that is their main reason...not for drugs or guns or whatever else is seen in the movies. as for cops pulling you over for just a headlight, they most likely do not have an alterior motive except for giving you a hard time and making your day misserable. which, if you ask me, is most likely the number one reason why people hate cops. but that is my little opinion!
Cops have this little technique called profiling. I was driving through Oklahoma once. Doing the speed limit on the freeway during the daytime. Driving behind a semi. A highway patrol in the center divide pulls out and chases down the semi and gets infront of it. I said "oh he is after the semi". Semi slows down and I have to slow down. Then the patrol car drops back and pulls me over First thing she said was " do you know why I pulled you over" , my response" nope". (in my head I was saying "because I have CA plates"). She said I was tailgaiting the semi. I was because she made the semi slow down and I had to slow down, I told her this and she blew me off. She then went through all my luggage in the trunk(on vacation) and give my 5 and 6 yr olds the third degree making sure we all had the same story Two other patrol cars showed up during all this. I cooperated the whole time, with no attitude(even though, I knew exactly what she was doing). I think if I gave her attitude, she would of gave me a ticket for something.
I agree with gearbox, they do use little, minor violations to pull u over if they have a hunch that u may be doing something else illegal, not all the time does this happen but I know it does. As far as searching your car they can look in it for anything out in the open, if they find some contraband then your car gets impounded and they get a warrant to search it. They cannot search through your whole car just because they found something in the open. Pretty much cops can do whatever they want as long as they can justify what they did and why in court. One more point, when a cop is done issuing your citation and then says you are free to leave, but then ask "oh do you mind if I search your car", you DO NOT have to let them.
Also to add to that. Say an officer tells you to get out of your car and searches you and finds something illegal. Once again, not a reason to search through your car, if you have anything in it you are fuc**d cause its getting impounded and searched after a warrant is obtained, but it cant be searched before a warrant was signed by a judge. I am not condoning anything illegal but a lot of cases are won/lost by little technicalities. I would say a lot of officers probably do perform illegal searches and get away with it cause the person doesnt know any better.
you guys really should watch cops more often. i've learned alot about what not to do. but usually those people are idiots anyway that have beer in the cupholder open and clutter everywhere. and most of the time they get pulled for driving wrong or having some kind of light out on their car. people, its not hard to spend 1 minute and do a walk around your car to make sure all the lights are working. They even pulled over someone for having A (one) license plate light out.
(even though my car is slow lol)
First thing she said was " do you know why I pulled you over" , my response" nope". (in my head I was saying "because I have CA plates"). She said I was tailgaiting the semi. I was because she made the semi slow down and I had to slow down, I told her this and she blew me off. She then went through all my luggage in the trunk(on vacation) and give my 5 and 6 yr olds the third degree making sure we all had the same story
Two other patrol cars showed up during all this. I cooperated the whole time, with no attitude(even though, I knew exactly what she was doing). I think if I gave her attitude, she would of gave me a ticket for something.
