What To Do When A Cop Pulls You Over?
By Farnam Toussi Regardless of how good your efforts are in trying to avoid a ticket, one of these days the boys in blue are going to get you. Youre going to look in your rearview mirror, youre going to see the flashing lights, and what you do in the next very few minutes may be a tremendous determining factor in whether or not you beat the ticket. Pull off to the side of the road as far as is possible to allow the officer to approach your vehicle after he pulls up behind you. Try not to do anything that might be out of the ordinary, or to make your appearance before the officer, memorable. You dont want him to remember you. That way, if any specific details are asked in court later, hell have no idea and it may blow his credibility in front of the Judge. Once your car is safely pulled off the side of the road shut the engine off, roll your window down, and keep both hands on the wheel. DO NOT remove your seat belt at this time. If youre not wearing your belt, its too late to put it on. Dont bother. If its during the evening or darkness hours, make sure that you have your flashing lights on. Relax, calm yourself, and wait for the officer to approach your vehicle. If you get upset now, youll cause undue attention to yourself, and you certainly do not want to do that. Generally, an officer will ask you one of two questions. Its either, Do you know how fast you were going?, and your response should be, No, Im not really sure. Or, I think I was doing the speed limit. Or, I know I wasnt speeding, I looked at my speedometer right before you stopped me. The other question that you may be asked is, Do you know why you were stopped? Your response is, No Officer, I dont. The most important factor to consider at this point is, DO NOT ADMIT ANYTHING. Your Constitutional rights allow you to remain silent, but the officer doesnt have to let you know that. If you tell the officer you were doing about 62 or 63 and you know that youre in a 50 mile speed limit, youve admitted your guilt. When the officer requests your credentials such as driver license, insurance, and registration, tell him where they are located in the car and ask for permission to retrieve them before going for them. This will relieve the officers suspicion that there may be a concealed weapon in the car. If the officer decides that he wants to search your vehicle do not agree to this search under any circumstances. If he says that hell get a search warrant, tell him to go and get one. He cannot search your vehicle without one. He must have probable cause to search your vehicle. If he can smell smoke from Marijuana or alcohol, he has probable cause. And those are things that are more important right now to you than the speeding ticket youre about to get. This is not the time to try to argue with the officer, or see if you can beat the ticket. Give him as little as possible to remember you by because hes heard of all of the excuses hundreds of times before. Once he starts writing that ticket, youre going to get it, period. Theres no turning back for the officer or for you. He cant void it and say he made a mistake. Hes got to write it. And its yours. While the officer is writing your ticket back at his vehicle, look over your surroundings and make notes of as much data as you possibly can. Small details can be very important. Some of the information that you should be on the lookout for is the type of vehicle, the license plate, and the unit number of the police officers car that stopped you. Know the exact location of where you were stopped, and the distance between where you were stopped and where the violation occurred. Write down the weather conditions. Cloud cover, rain, no rain, sunny, overcast, snow, whatever it may be. Write down a list of anyone whos traveling with you in your vehicle and please ask them to remain quiet during the entire time that you are with the officer, unless they are asked a question by the officer. Write down the color and the type of clothing that you are wearing. Make note of any noticeable characteristics of your vehicle. Different colors of paint, dents, aluminum wheels, hubcaps, anything that are small details which would be difficult for the officer to remember later. Make sure you try to remember everything the officer says during the traffic stop. If he has to talk on his radio, or direct another driver during the stop, make a note of that. Many times the person whos writing the ticket is not the one who is using the radar unit. Hes basically the chase car. Find out if hes the one because its very important to your case that you know if the officer was the one using the radar unit. Observe the traffic in the area during your stop and remember what the traffic was like when you were pulled over. If you can, remember everything humanly possible about the cars in your area during your stop. After the officer writes your citation he will bring it back to you and ask you to sign. By signing you are merely acknowledging receipt of the citation. At that point in time, ask the officer if you can have your court appearance moved to the county seat. If he refuses, please have him indicate on the back of the ticket that he refused to allow you this consideration. If he does not want to indicate that on the back of the ticket, dont worry about it, just make a note of it in your notes. It may be important later on. Tell the officer after you have signed the citation that you would like to see the readout on the radar. Hes not really required to do this for you because it would involve your safety. They would not like to see you run down by another motorist while you are walking back to the patrol car. If he does allow you to see the radar, dont make any comments at all. Just make a note of who manufactured the unit or a model number. At this point in time, dont mention the calibration fork. Well explain that later on in the book, but dont ask to see it. If the officer knows that you are aware of the calibration fork, it would tell him that you know a bit more about the type of equipment that hes using, and hell remember you in court. And thats not going to help you later on down the road. After the officer returns to his patrol car, stay there for another one or two minutes and jot down any other notes that may come into your head at the time. The officer will usually be making notes on the back of the ticket so that he can recall them later on in court. Dont stay too long at the scene because that will be memorable to the officer and you dont want him to remember any aspects of this particular traffic stop. Youve got plenty of time to prepare your case between now and the time your set to appear in court. All of the information is available to you twenty four hours a day. When you leave the scene of the citation, pull away safely. Dont spin your tires, dont send rocks up into the air or a cloud of dust. Go out with the confidence that you probably will never see the officer again. Theres also the extreme possibility that the next time you see the officer, hes going to be in a courtroom, under oath, answering your questions. If you follow the directions previously noted, you are just going to be another face in the crowd out of the hundreds of citations he wrote in the past month. Theres a good chance that he wont remember you, and he certainly wont remember what color shirt you had on, or what the weather condition was like. 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