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Post by autiger85 on Apr 25, 2011 18:05:38 GMT -8
So let me know what you folks think about this, it happened to someone I know. She is a young 17 years old and so has not been driving long - at least compared to the rest of us old folks. She was sitting at a light in the right lane and the fellow in front of her moved ahead to turn right. She moved up and he stopped in front of her. Their vehicles bumped and they got out to discuss it and check for any damages. Her car is a small cheap import with a plastic bumper and the other one was a pickup. There was no sign of damage on either vehicle and they both agreed to just let it pass. Well there was a police officier near by, that saw what happened and he came over and gave her a ticket for following too closely. Then he asked her what color she was. Can you believe that? What color are you! What difference does that make. I could live with the ticket, it is important for young drivers to learn not to follow too closely but it does seem a little harsh as it was her first ticket and the cost was over $100. I hate to think what this makes her think of our justice system, to have been treated that way. One thing I do think this points to is that we had all better be on our toes while on the road these days. Many of the towns out there are looking for way to increase their revenue including higher ticket counts and charges. Also the guys in blue are wanting to secure their jobs by any way they can.  |
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Post by beetlehorn on Apr 25, 2011 19:26:17 GMT -8
In response to your story, I can't help but wonder what color the cop was. I am not racist, just curious. This is in my opinion an outrage! This thread reminds me of an incident last fall where I was pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt. Yes I know it's the law, but I can't help but wonder if the real reason for enforcing these laws are to increase revenue as you mentioned. Am I really supposed to believe that the cop cares so much for my personal safety that he has to write me a ticket for not wearing my seatbelt!? I see automobiles with faulty brakes, worn tires, cracked windshields, worn steering systems, and much more to list at my job every week. I have never seen any one of these pulled over for safety violations, which in my opinion are far more of a threat to public safety,....but Oh Boy! you better wear that seatbelt!!! Tom
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Post by arrowhead on Apr 26, 2011 8:41:21 GMT -8
It is a sad fact that all over the country police are not only profiling drivers, including the young, but has anyone noticed the rise of police brutality lately? I have heard they are using steroids to beef themselves up, in addition to excessive use of their beloved tazers even on the very young, elderly, and even wheelchair-bound "perps". But try to get them to investigate a violent crime! On last Friday someone fired a shot into my house. I called the local sherriff's office and two officers showed up. They stood as far away from the bullet as possible, as if it were a copperhead or wild bear, and pronounced it a .44 or .45 calibre. They went down the road and harassed a couple of my friends who were target shooting, well within their rights as far as being outside the city limits and they were not firing in the direction of any homes. They had constructed earthen birms to stop the shells and the sheriff's automatically assumed a round ricoched off a rock and hit my home, a good two miles away. I wish I could provide a picture of where the bullet hit but for it to have ricoched off a stone, traveled through a woods, crossed an adjacent cul-de-sac neighborhood, missed a two story house across the street from me, dodged (literally) my vehicle, and landed about waist high in my house is a miracle akin to the "magic bullet" in the Kennedy assasination. Sorry for the long winded post but I felt this was a good example of police work nowadays. By the way, I carefully extracted the bullet and it was a 9mm round, not a .44 or .45--arrowhead p.s. there was not a shred of mushrooming or any damage to this bullet.
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Post by saturniidave on Apr 26, 2011 9:50:08 GMT -8
It is not just your side of the pond guys, the police here target motorists too rather than arrest criminals (far too much paperwork and no money in it!) Back in the day if your tax disc had fallen off the windscreen or you forgot to put your seatbelt on you would have been pulled over, given a rollocking and told you would get a ticket if they caught you again. Now they will pull you over and nick you for any trivial thing, all for fines and penalty points on your license. And don't even get me started on speed cameras! A few mph over the limit (literally two or three) and you are clobbered with a £60 fine and penalty points. Dave |
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Post by dertodesking on Apr 26, 2011 12:55:55 GMT -8
I know that here in the UK if the Police stop you for any reason they have to fill in reams of paperwork including an "ethnicity report"...based on what the group the individual reports that they belong to...even if the answer is obvious! It could be the same thing over in the US but it does make you wonder what the Police would do if a white guy stated that they were "Black Caribbean" or "Chinese" when asked what ethnic group they belonged to!!! I have no doubt at all that whoever dreamt up the form in the first place did so with the best of intentions (probably to monitor arrest or stop and search rates amongst different racial groups)...but really!!! Dave - don't get me started on the fact that motorists in the UK are seen as a cash cow for the Government!!! And we are expected to be grateful for the 1p reduction in fuel tax Simon |
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Post by saturniidave on Apr 26, 2011 15:04:53 GMT -8
When I see these forms with 'Ethnic Origin' or similar I am so tempted to write 'Klingon' or something!
Simon, don't forget about all the garages that put the price UP by a penny just before the 1p reduction totally cancelling it out. How petty is that?
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Post by prillbug2 on Apr 26, 2011 15:24:05 GMT -8
Hey, the cops love to have a new kink added to their piggy tail. It doesn't matter where they are.
Jeff Prill
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Post by Khalid Fadil on Apr 26, 2011 19:03:58 GMT -8
Allow me to share my story. Have you guys ever seen MALAYSIAN cops? They're a bunch of young punks cocked up with their firearms. There was a kid in my school. Aminun was his name. We weren't good friends. We just knew each other. Oh, but the boy could study. He was doing really good and before he could sit for his Form 3 examination (PMR), something happened.
One night, he joined his friend at a restaurant to watch the football games. While they were doing so, a house was being robbed in the neighborhood. As they were leaving for home, a patrol car spotted them and sounded the sirens. Not having a license, Aminun decided to just keep driving. That's when the damn cops started shooting at them. Scared, Aminun decides to make a run for it home. The cops chased on and kept on shooting. When Aminun and his friend had already reached the lane of their houses, the cops managed to blow out a tire and they lost control and crashed into a tree.
Instead of coming out the car and apprehending them, the cops stood around the car and fired two shots to Aminun's head. As for his friend, the cops pulled him out of the passenger seat and beat him up. Then, one of them takes a shotgun out of the car and aims it at his head ready to fire. Luckily, a car passing by distracts them and Aminun's friend makes a run for it.
To cover up the mess, the cops placed a machete in the car to make it look like they were assaulting the cops. Them kids were just 15 years old. It was very clear those cops were murderers. Not law-abiding officers. It was all over the news, but the cops got away with it.
How is that fair?
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Post by papilio28570 on Apr 26, 2011 20:44:36 GMT -8
In reply to autiger85, as unforgiving as the officer may have seemed, he was doing his duty. Your friend was either following too close or wasn't paying attention properly in order to tap the bumper of the vehicle in front of her. I'm sure she was ticked off that the officer didn't let it go with a warning, but police I know, here in North Carolina, are likely to slap a new driver with a ticket to make them a more attentive driver rather than let them slide and end up more careless. Two weeks ago, a local young driver was drunk and pot-headed at about 2 in the morning and rammed the rear of a pickup truck on a high rise bridge in town with enough force that the truck flipped over the side of the bridge and fell about 60 feet into the bay killing the 60 something year old father to two teens. Couple years ago, a high school teen girl ran over another in the school parking lot after classes let out. My daughter, at 17...about 20 years ago, was distracted while driving... playing with a new puppy that she was taking to a friend's house to show. She crossed into the oncoming lane of traffic and ran head on into an elderly gent who had stopped and was waiting to make a turn into his driveway once she had passed by. Instead they both ended up in the hospital needing plates and screws to repair all their ankles, plus she broke her nose and left hand. I also got sued for a very large chunk of change beyond what my insurance paid because I was the owner of record. Estimated impact speed was 30 MPH. The "what color are you?" stems from fairly new reporting forms that require racial identification in order to monitor possible police profiling. I have a friend with mixed race children and his son denotes that he is black, while his sister claims she is white...and don't you dare categorize her as black or she'll kick your butt. Life is not fair nor unfair; it is what it is. We need to suck up the bad days and try to make better tomorrows within our limited ability to control things. I think police in general are fair and genuinely try to be good officers of the law. Lately, they do have a lot of pressure on them to produce revenue and you quickly stand out if the revenue stream you produce is significantly below that of your contemporaries. And their job is dangerous. My daughter eventually married a nice fellow whose father was a Highway Patrolman in West Virginia. His father made a simple night time traffic stop for a burned out tail light and the driver stated he forgot and left his wallet at home. The officer said he would follow him home and he just needed to bring his license out to the patrol car. Instead, the fellow brought out a gun and shot dead my son-in-laws father and the other officer who was with him in the car on night patrol. My son-in-law was 5 and his sister was 2 at the time. If police seem harsh, it is because they want to watch their children grow up instead of risk dying while doing a stranger a favor. www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2010/1228/Why-police-officer-deaths-rose-37-percent-in-2010 |
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Post by Khalid Fadil on Apr 27, 2011 18:00:48 GMT -8
In reply to autiger85, as unforgiving as the officer may have seemed, he was doing his duty. Your friend was either following too close or wasn't paying attention properly in order to tap the bumper of the vehicle in front of her. I'm sure she was ticked off that the officer didn't let it go with a warning, but police I know, here in North Carolina, are likely to slap a new driver with a ticket to make them a more attentive driver rather than let them slide and end up more careless. Two weeks ago, a local young driver was drunk and pot-headed at about 2 in the morning and rammed the rear of a pickup truck on a high rise bridge in town with enough force that the truck flipped over the side of the bridge and fell about 60 feet into the bay killing the 60 something year old father to two teens. Couple years ago, a high school teen girl ran over another in the school parking lot after classes let out. My daughter, at 17...about 20 years ago, was distracted while driving... playing with a new puppy that she was taking to a friend's house to show. She crossed into the oncoming lane of traffic and ran head on into an elderly gent who had stopped and was waiting to make a turn into his driveway once she had passed by. Instead they both ended up in the hospital needing plates and screws to repair all their ankles, plus she broke her nose and left hand. I also got sued for a very large chunk of change beyond what my insurance paid because I was the owner of record. Estimated impact speed was 30 MPH. The "what color are you?" stems from fairly new reporting forms that require racial identification in order to monitor possible police profiling. I have a friend with mixed race children and his son denotes that he is black, while his sister claims she is white...and don't you dare categorize her as black or she'll kick your butt. Life is not fair nor unfair; it is what it is. We need to suck up the bad days and try to make better tomorrows within our limited ability to control things. I think police in general are fair and genuinely try to be good officers of the law. Lately, they do have a lot of pressure on them to produce revenue and you quickly stand out if the revenue stream you produce is significantly below that of your contemporaries. And their job is dangerous. My daughter eventually married a nice fellow whose father was a Highway Patrolman in West Virginia. His father made a simple night time traffic stop for a burned out tail light and the driver stated he forgot and left his wallet at home. The officer said he would follow him home and he just needed to bring his license out to the patrol car. Instead, the fellow brought out a gun and shot dead my son-in-laws father and the other officer who was with him in the car on night patrol. My son-in-law was 5 and his sister was 2 at the time. If police seem harsh, it is because they want to watch their children grow up instead of risk dying while doing a stranger a favor. www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2010/1228/Why-police-officer-deaths-rose-37-percent-in-2010 Well, cops are the good guys. But, not in Malaysia. They abuse their authority all the time. People hate them. |
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Post by papilio28570 on Apr 27, 2011 19:56:15 GMT -8
Yes, I have been overseas and experienced "bad cops". It is unfortunate. There are bad cops in the USA also. I think police candidates should undergo a psychological profile before they are allowed into training.
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Post by modestomoths on Apr 27, 2011 22:09:07 GMT -8
I think it requires a certain psychological profile to want to be a cop. Their job is to enforce the laws, and society must grant them a certain amount of power to do it. So, it seems the nature of the job will always attract people who desire power over others. How would you select that trait out and still have any candidates? And what kind of test would you use?
By the way, I have several friends whom I consider excellent cops. I've also encountered some real jerks.
Travis
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Post by anthony on Apr 28, 2011 7:01:01 GMT -8
Many years ago I stopped for a school bus discharging children who crossed in front of me. As they passed one girl yelled ( You are going to get a ticket ! ) sure enough when they had all passed I started slowly up and there was the cop. He said I had waited for all the kids to pass but the bus light on top was still turning which meant I could not go as more kids might leave so he had to give me a ticket. The bus was EMPTY...
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