Community Forums

ParTheCourse · 03-05-2005, 05:23 AM

It has been many years since I was issued a copy of the N.Y.S. Vehicle and Traffic Law, but the last one was about the size of a paperback and about 2.5 inches thick. Now that they have added seat belt, child restraint, cell phone (in N.Y. you can not use a cell phone while operating a motor vehicle) and a multitude of others laws I'll bet it is 3 inches thick.

The sad thing is that with the exception of law enforcement officers, lawyers and judges, few know that it exists let alone laid eyes on it. As a result I have won about a million dollars in dime bets that there is not a vehicle that I can't follow for two blocks in the city and two miles in the country without finding reason to make a, pretend these days, stop.
For a quarter bet, I'll ride and with my eyes closed and demonstrate the same.
Every now and then someone gets near the end of the distance without a moving or equipment violation, or I didn't see one because my eyes were closed, that's where the kicker comes in.

In N.Y. and I'm sure most other states you must have a driver's license, vehicle registration certificate and proof if insurance to operate a motor vehicle on the public highways and further more, failure to produce any one upon request of an officer is presumptive evidence that you do not have one/it. The mere fact that you are operating a vehicle, allows the stop to insure compliance.

BTW, how far before making a lane change or turning a corner must you turn on your directional signals? If you know great, if not find out and then count the number of stops you could made on the way to work or the grocery store, nah that's to many, just get the ones that jeopardized your safety.

Never mind the whole thing, I can see the editorials now, where are they when you need them, if they would just do their jobs maybe some of these jerks would loose their licenses.

I also was wondering, at the near end of the second 900-mile day (900m/70mph=12.87hrs. slow down for fuel makes it at least 15 hrs. 2 days in a row) was the white line on your right or left and were you signaling the lane change?

As others have said above be polite, the vast majority of officers are just doing their jobs and trying to keep us safe. Above all do your job, BE CAREFUL out there.

Tom and Patty · 03-05-2005, 03:05 PM

Ah, the white line was on the right, I was in the right lane not changing lanes, and the rumble strips were just right of the white line and I never heard them.

A blue Honda Accord was in front of me, behind me was a yellow freightliner and behind him was a class "C" Holiday Rambler Atlantis 29PBD double slide and the song playing on my XM was "I Can't Drive 55"......just kidding. I wasn't tired but I do keep telling my wife that we are only supposed to drive 200 miles a day, so we have been told. Maybe when we retire.

Seriously, I didn't think this tread would get this much attention. We thought it was just a good story. We don't feel like our rights were violated. Maybe if we had something to hide we might have a lawyer now. We were treated courteously and with respect.

FatDog · 03-05-2005, 05:52 PM

Tom and Patty

My questioning of your incident never was based within the area of 'rights being violated', it was more me sitting around the campfire musing about if it is 'alright'. My gut feeling tells me prolly everyone here on this site is the sort that is treated 'courteously and with respect' based upon the sort of people who sit around our camfire.

ParTheCourse's words were interesting campfire words as well. (And is a lucky fellow to boot, having won a million dollars in dime bets !!

)

And before i am deemed personally responsible for extending this conversation out into your NEXT summer's vacation, I proclaim my curiosity is satisfied.

And Tom And Patty, if i could take this moment to relay to you my experience in your city Fresno when I drove thru it a couple weeks ago on my way to Yosemite. I got a flat tire on 41 about 15 miles north of your city on the side of that deserted freeway and found to my horror that when i had cleaned out my truck prior to leaving, i had taken out the special thin-walled socket that takes off my truck's large wheels. I had my truck jacked up on the side of the road, the spare out, and i found myself missing that thin-walled 13/16" and was stranded for a couple hours on the very lonely roadside while I pondered my situation. Some farmer pulled over, explained his horse trailers used the same socket, he 'never left home without it' and stayed there by the side of the road insisting upon helping me until i was safely on down the road. You think I'm a talker??!! Not only was this guy a temporary guardian-angel, a guy who insisted upon getting his hands greasy to help me, but did everything but recite Dickens to me for the while that he was there helping us. That guy was one of the highlites of my trip! And he refused to take a lousy $20 from me as payment to be used for a steak dinner or something, he feigned an amused insult, and told me that that was just the way folk should be.
A true classsic. I hope his sholder is still sore from the bearhugs me and the missus gave him.

Mike

Tom and Patty · 03-05-2005, 07:17 PM

Fatdog,

That's why we like Fresno. We've been here for 23 years from the mid-west. Still has the country charm, even though we are growing fast. I'm sorry to hear you had to wait a couple hours. He is right, that's the way we all should try to be.

Did you stay in the Valley or Wawonna? We are going to sneak our 36'er into Wawonna by the river this spring.

ParTheCourse must have been a man in blue for many, many years to win one million dollars of bets in dimes!!

FatDog · 03-06-2005, 04:39 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">...Did you stay in the Valley or Wawonna? We are going to sneak our 36'er into Wawonna by the river this spring.
...... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

We stayed in the Valley. A couple weeks ago it was my parent's 50th Wedding Aniversary ! I grew up in northern Cal, and our family camped in Yosemite a couple times every summer and once in Winter as we were kids. (Funny thing about Pa - a 22 year old Navy boy with three kids and moms didn't work in those days, - we either tent camped for vacations or tent camped for vacations, us kids got to pick.

) Now since I'm in SanDiego area and my brother is in CO and sis is also away, well the folks wanted a Yosemite get tegether after a 25 year absense. We even took a day drive over to Badger Pass. That place is incredibly beautiful. Probably like every other vacation our family had together in Yosemite, this one was probably the best.

We stayed in lodging in the Valley itself for the occaision, so I didn't bring my trailer. I was going to stop at a couple trailer parks on the way up to get my bearings straight for future trailering plans, but the flat tire (and then driving back into town to buy a new tire) threw my timing off and I wasn't able to stop at any. If you run into good parks, post them here.!

Beautiful territory !!

Nell · 03-18-2005, 01:20 PM

That is scary if you think about it. Personally, I'd wait to pull over somewhere safe where I could tell it was a officer for sure-too many newspaper articles here lately about someone posing as one-used unmarked cars. If you feel uncomfortable about it, call 911 and ask if a officer is following you if it's unmarked. I'd rather error on the side of caution anymore and being that I drive a lot alone with kids too it can't hurt to check.

I had a old 65 Buick Skylark when I was 20 that was a magnet for being pulled over because there was some guy stealing cigarettes in a car the same color-but not type. His was a 80's something-gee they couldn't tell the age difference by looking.

I remember one of the officers giving me a major once over because he didn't believe the car was mine. After 15 min of this I asked what did I do? His reply that I was making gestures at him. Umm, no just walking across the street and talking to my hubby with my usual hands going at the same time to get back in the car. Let's just say he wasn't very nice to me at all. I got pulled over 6 times that summer because of that guy and it was always the same police department.

They do have to check what they believe may be bringing the illegal drugs in. I'm all for it, and if I get stopped so be it.

Nell

"Is" · 03-22-2005, 04:09 PM

A lot of these traffic stops do not go so good. The state of LA has a long history of stopping people, confiscating their money, cars etc on the pretense it's "drug related" and then you must go to court to prove its not.

In Campbell county TN, who has a reputation of making some really good drug busts along I-75, recently had their drug team (caught on tape) shaking down a drug dealer. I just wonder how many people they shook down along I-75 to get their reputation. News

We can't assume that we are still safe in our own homes.

More

NYMoose "Lenny" · 03-23-2005, 01:30 AM

IS,
Dont let a few bad guys (cops) stop the war on drugs. Our profession, along with many others have the crooks, overall everyone just wants to do the job (nobody else wants to do)people are upset when you get a ticket for speeding or stopped for something they did not do, BUT... at three in the morning when you hear someone breaking into you house, or someone is having a heart attack, we are the first responders and we are there for you no questions asked.

I am by no means defending those cops, but .... dont paint us all with the same brush and think that evertime you get stopped it might be a shakedown, the majority are just trying to fight a tough battle.

Bye the way, I have to say I only get called to people house at the worse times, when was the last time you had a cop over for a cup of coffee, or stopped him and offered him lunch on his routine patrol??

It has happend once to me in 18 years on this job.. think about it.

"Is" · 03-23-2005, 02:04 AM

I didn't say all law enforcement were bad. I only pointed out that all stops didn't go as well as described.

As far as having cops over for coffee, I do it all the time. My stepson is a Lt. In the sheriffs dept, and is the county jail administrator (cities and towns don't have their own jails in this county). I think that puts him third in command of the dept. BTW: He is also a graduate of the FBI academy, as well as having a degree in law enforcement.

So, I fully understand. I just don't think we ,as citizens, should let our guard down for anyone.

SEMO Mike · 03-25-2005, 02:52 AM

My wife's aunt and uncle (in their seventies at the time) happily lived on their sailboat off the coast of Florida for several years until the constant searches by the drug agents got to be too much. They said time and again they would be searched while the cops watched the big motorized boats cruise right on by. Draw your own conclusion.

The U.S. Supreme Court has just held that if you are stopped for doing 72 in a 65 zone - no other violation - no hint of criminal activity - no nervousness - no "drug-runner" profile - completely cooperative - it is okay for the cops to detain you a short time to bring a drug sniffing dog to check out your car. I am as anti-drug as anyone in this country, I'm even anti-smoking, but rest assured your rights are being eroded right before your eyes. What will stop the cops from next stopping every RV as it enters each state and "check it out"? What if it takes them an hour to get the drug dog there and then another hour to go through the RV? Are you still okay with that? I have absolutley nothing to hide - never used illegal drugs, no criminal record, never owned a weapon, work with cops everyday - but I will not give my consent for the cops to search my vehicle. I will politely tell them to get a warrant. If an independent magistrate finds that they have cause to search my vehicle, they can have at it.

Once our rights are gone we can never get them back short of another revolution.

baddwalk · 03-26-2005, 02:54 PM

Semo Mike,
You talk about your rights being slowly erroded away but that statement couldnt be any farther from the truth. Fact is, you have more rights and protections in place for you than you did 20 or 30 years ago. It is law enforcement that is having a tough time of it. Everyone wants to get the dope dealers off of the streets, but for every dealer that gets popped, there are 20 more ready to step in and take their place.

In stead of dealing with the small pushers, law enforcement tried interdicting the loads of dope being run across the borders. That was very successful but what did we get for our efforts? The ACLU steps in and files law suits against the law enforcement agencies for racial profiling and the big drug cartels are the ones funding the ACLU. You play the what if game, but the drug cartels are smart and change their tactics. No longer is it the solo mexican national in the rental car, but retirees who go down to mexico in the RV's who get approached and paid to transport a "package" across the border because they know that the retirees wont get stopped and searched. Guess what, we also learned about that. So now RV's get looked at a little closer. Whos fault is that? I'm sure the retirees that were stopped and caught for transporting were also nice and polite. So what are we supposed to do? You complain because we are trying to do our jobs, the ACLU funded by the drug cartels are doing their best to stop us because we were effective and cutting into the profits of the drug cartels.

Whos rights are being erroded when the pushers move into your neighborhood and there isnt much we can do about it? You talk about being polite and non-cooperative. That in itself raises suspicion. So we get to set on the side of the road for a dog to get there while other RV's go driving by. Sounds alot like your first example regarding the sailboat. If you have nothing to worry about because you are a good, upstanding citizen, then a little cooperation with law enforcement makes it easier for the both of us.

"Is" · 03-26-2005, 04:42 PM

ACLU funded by the drug cartel? Now that's a new one. I don't think so.

baddwalk · 03-26-2005, 05:05 PM

Its true. Whether the ACLU knew it or not, money was funneled up to get the ball rolling. The certainly didnt take on some of the largest law enforcement agencies for free, and some of the settlements dont equal their expenses. Something to think about.

vaughn · 03-27-2005, 03:53 PM

It seems to me that any officer who can't find enough legitimate violations to keep busy is either blind or retarded. As I drive around I see more violations than I think an officer could deal with; sure can't see how they would need to look for phoney stops.
Back in the'70s, state troupers on I-5 in southern Oregon were rakeing in huge amounts of money and drugs from those running drugs/money between southern California and Oregon and Washington----untill the ACLU and the state legislature were able to force them to stop using profiling. Now the drug runners are able to use I-5 with little interference; anti-profiling was a real boon to drug traffickers, and looks like it may now turn out to be a boon to terrorist.

Vaughn

Vaughn