Wife just left work at dusk this evening, works in a well lit area with Costco, Safeway, and major intersections. Lots of overhead light. New car's a Toyota Camry Hybrid, replaces the old Mazda Tribute. Never had to think about turning on the headlights in the Tribute, or even the one before that, a 1999 Oldsmobile Alero, as they came on automatic. Not so with the Camry. Gotta do it manually. Who builds a 2013 car w/o automatic headlights anyway?
She got pulled over by our finest leaving work w/o her lights on.

If you ask me, the cop got a valid explanation of why the lights weren't on, honest mistake with the new and different car and lots of overhead lights in the area. Ddin't matter, the chickensh!t gave her a $260 ticket.

With everything they could be doing to better society being left undone, like property crime investigation for one, they feel the best use of their time is citing real hardened criminals like my wife for not catching that her headlights weren't on yet at dusk.

Do you want to know what I think about the cop, the car, or the cash?

How do you get a $260.00 ticket for failing to turn on your headlights???

Was there something else going on that you didn't mention?

Toyota builds one, a Camry I believe.

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Bet she won't forget to turn them on again. Pretty steep fine for that infraction, though. Here it would have been $110.00 if it was paid out of court.

Here it would be $35.00

Camry we sold last year headlights came on automatically, Accord we now have doesn't, neither does my Tacoma, much better.

$25 or Defensive Driving here.

A simple warning should have been sufficient, 260 dollar ticket is absurd. Cop doesn't have anything better to do?

It's simple really. Either move away from Oregon, or buy a different car

260? UFB!

If I stop someone for that and they aren't drunk and I cant find any sings if other impairment. They go on their way with a warning and have a nice night

Really.

I's a lot easier not to stop them and hope somebody doesn't turn in front of them... but then you gotta work the wreck. Crap.

What if they accept no responsibility for the violation?

Yeah, the wife got plastered on the way out the building after work. Threw the empty 6 pack in the back seat.

You and I agree on one thing, $260 is F'in out of control, as is the prick that thought that was an infraction worth ticketing at all.

Don't buy a jap piece of schit next time. . . .lol

Oregon ticket charges

http://www.ojd.state.or.us/web/ojdpublications.nsf/Files/12eMM001sh.pdf/$File/12eMM001sh.pdf

No idea why link is not working

Pretty easy to get out of. There's a time on the ticket. Sunset there was 4:28pm.

It's a govt website? First clue.

The kind of cop that thinks the ticket is justified probably wouldn't mind fudging the time on the ticket either.

Just my completely unfounded cynical side coming out.

They don't get the have a nice night. I'm pretty lax with issues like that Pat, even equipment violations get a fix it ticket, unless its a known individual with a repeat issue

Around here it'd have been a pull over (maybe....), snoop, ask her why they weren't on, tell her to turn them on & a have a nice day. I have to say that for the most part, the cops in our area are pretty laid back & don't cause stirs like this. Can't say that I've ever heard of anything stupid like that happening here. I do know of a trooper pulling a guy over just to get a closer look at how you get a quarter horse to ride standing up in a short bed 2WD Toyota pickup with stake sides on it.

sent the bill to TOYOTA tell them to build the right ,

There has been many a person talk themselves into a ticket.

Thats some funny schit about the horse. . . .lmao

I know a man that got a ticket a long time ago for letting his horse ride in the back of a Ford F150 with no sideboards. The man did it all the time moving from one pasture to another until a new trooper moved in. He would just put the reins over the horses head and tell him to load up and he would jump in just like a dog. Kinda had to stand hunched up because the bed was short. miles

Only in police work can someone do their job and get called names for it.

Some how it's the cops fault because someone could not reach up and flip a switch and turn their own headlights on...

I guess next people will blaming the cops cause they don't know which side of the knife is sharp.

Dink

I wish you lived around here, 'cause somebody in my town would break you from your cokksucker ways.

Lol.....

Dink

Guys, wife just got home. Two things-

1) Time on ticket 5:11 pm. 40 minutes after sunset.

2) This cops works a one mile stretch of road apparently, or it's a coincidence. This is going to sound like BS, but here's the truth.
This same cop gave my wife her only other ticket about a year ago 1/2 mile away. She was stopped at a stop light waiting to make a left hand turn on her way to work. Same route every single day. The light changed, she made the turn and IMMEDIATELY got pulled over, right out of the intersection. Driving a 4 cylinder Mazda SUV. He claims she was doing 45 and was speeding. When she explained that she had just turned off the freeway and had stopped and waited at the stoplight, he said, "No, you did not. You were coming straight through the intersection and were doing 45".
Well, she goes thru the intersection every morning, same way, every day. Went to court, cop lied about it, saying she did not turn and was traveling straight, which was the only way she could be going 45 and he knows it. Court wouldn't hear the logical argument that she did the same thing every day on the way to work, which is turn left at the intersection.

You conclude whatever you'd like, but I know my wife and have zero problem with her credibility. This coming form a guy with some trust issues with women, if you know what I mean...

I think I have cop issues...

Hey Dink, you paying attention? $260 for not flipping the lights on sound right to you? If it does, why don't you pony up and make my Christmas?

Fireball,

The cop was only enforcing a law that was put into place by the people that are elected to make them. It's not his fault your wife did not know about the headlight switch. It's not his fault congress made a law requiring people to use thier headlights at certain times.

My guess is he is a traffic cop and his job is to enforce those laws.

If you don't like that law contact your congressmen.

If you want to call that officer names and talk chit about him go down to his station and do it to his face.

Dink

You and I both know what you're doing right now.

Collect & Serve

Fixed it.

I got the same ticket here in Denver 6 yrs ago. It was 2pts and 75.00 i think. New Tacoma PU, just left the Parade of Lights at the capital building. And My 4yr old at the time was crying, because he did not want to leave. Guess I got lucky, Denver cops like to beat and shoot people.

I can honestly say that I have never written that ticket. The thought has never crossed my mind. I have stopped a lot of folks for it, and it typically resulted in a scenario similar to your example. Occasionally it was a drunk, or a car burglar, or something else. Even in those case, I never thought to write that cite.

Yes, chickenshit. But, regardless of where a man works, there are [bleep] who work with him.

I can only imagine what the guys Dink works with think of him.

I was making a right hand turn at a stoplight, 4th car back from the light. I made my way up to the light, stopped and turned right. I didn't get far and was pulled over by the 2nd car which was a cop. He asked me if I knew why I was being pulled over. I told him "No".

He told me that was a fog lane, not a turn lane and the fine was $135.00. I apologized and told him I didn't know that. He let me go with a warning.

I was turning left off of College street in Bozeman, after a complete stop and didn't get 1 block down Wilson before I got pulled over. The cop told me it was right turn only. I said I had grown up in Bozeman and had turned left there for years. He told me the law changed about 1 year ago.

I apologized, it was the same cop. He reminded me that he had let me go with a warning a couple months before, I apologized again. He said he would let me go again with a warning, but that he couldn't keep giving me warnings and for me to pay more attention and drive careful.

They aren't all bad out there, I appreciate the good ones and hope to never see the bad ones...

The College Station Police Department wouldn't hire me because I had so many speeding tickets and wrecks on my record. When you're filling out an application for a police department you have to list every ticket you've EVER received.....I had to use the last line to write "Please see Attachment A" and add a sheet to the back of the application.

Outside of an elementary school zone I haven't written a speeding ticket in nearly two years.

The college station moto cops hide in the hedges with camo...

HAH! And then when I came out here, the very last thing I had to do was get fingerprinted....And I got pulled over my a motor cop for running the red light RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE POLICE STATION. I had worked all night and was running on 1 1/2 hours of sleep, so by three in the afternoon I never even saw the light. It didn't go well.

Man!

I would venture to say if there are 100 LEs here on the Fire, maybe 1or 2 would write that ticket. The man who cannot see the need to apply logic and latitude has no place in my world.

And the $260 is unfortunately a reflection of the revenue-hungry state you live in; beautiful, but on the road to democrap ruin.....

Bob

University town cop in a cabbed three wheel Cushman. Met him going around a corner in a 64 Pontiac, clutched it, and lit em up. Smoke rolling off the spinning tires from the now sideways back end. He whips a U-turn as we disappear.
We were on our way home form work, I dropped my buddy off about a mile away, he drove back in his car to see several state and county cops apparently looking for us.
We went home a different route for several weeks.

Good memory, from long ago and far away.

Most of our cop hating threads here on the Fire are really about that small minority of officer who just "don't get it".

As we can see from this thread, it's just a small minority of the Fire Officers who "don't get it".

I got pulled over once by the College Station Cops on the main drag for not having my lights on, I was driving my girlfriend's truck. He said he was checking to see if I was drunk, and let me go with a friendly warning.

They used to catch a lot of drunks, including a friend who was just about to get his PhD in Geology and go to a lucrative job in the oil industry. Since he lost his\license for a year (the standard outcome of that offense at that time in College Station), my friend opted to go on the A&M research boat for that year instead. Point of fact, strange as it may sound, I believe I recall two guys who went on that boat for that very reason, this second guy insisting all the while he hadn't actually been legally intoxicated

There but for the Grace of God go I on the College Station DWI thing.

A buddy from Sweden studying at A&M was pulled over by a College Station cop at a light at 3am on his Kawasaki after being clocked some ways back doing 144 in a 45. He weren't drunk, and he said the Cop told him that at that time of morning the only person he would kill was himself and just wrote him a ticket instead of hauling him in. It came out to close to $500 which back in the 80's was considered an sizeable sum at the time.

Other than that, I don't recall he even got his license suspended, Texas being a different place 30 years back in that respect than it is today. More to the point, they had no point system for violations and apparently inconsistent reporting by local LE departments to Austin (else in those years I would have had my own license suspended fer sure).

So I got no beef with the College Station PD. Most unusual I ever saw happen was one night on the strip at Northgate some guy walked up to a Cop directing traffic (must have been some event or other, I don't recall) and starts yelling at him for sleeping with his wife. Cop just looked embarrassed an kept on directing traffic as best he could. IIRC another Cop walked over, a lady Cop, and the guy left.

Birdwatcher

There is always that itchy little problem.

I really hate this phrase. Really.

Yes, he probably does. Unfortunately, he has to deal with petty stuff, which is keeping him from doing something better. While I don't necessarily agree with this cite, I do agree with the stop. Like most traffic stuff, its minor, and seemingly inconsequential, but if not taken care of, they seem to get pretty big pretty fast.

I don't know how long that particular officer has been on the job, but it can't be long.

Making a stop on a driver who has failed to illuminate their headlights is a good stop. It would be easy for another driver to pull out in front of them simply because they failed to see them coming.

Whether to ticket or not should have been based on the reason the driver had not turned on the headlights. Obviously she wasn't intoxicated or impaired. There was no mechanical issue that kept the lights from coming on, so we are basically down to an honest mistake.

Here's where junior screwed the pooch. He had an opportunity to make a favorable impression with a citizen. He failed to realize that he may need, at some point in his career, to have spread a favorable impression of himself as a peace officer.

All he had to do was tell the lady that he was glad to see her wearing a seatbelt, please illuminate your headlights, have a merry Christmas and drive safely.

But he chose to write a ticket. Was he within his authority to do so? Certainly. It was certainly not the wisest use of said authority, however.

Of course, all that goes out the window, if she rendered the campfire greeting of the day from Havre.

"Ma'am, I've stopped you because you don't have your headlights on."

"Ah, GFY."

Yeah, you'll get a ticket then.

(I'm sure she didn't do that. But there are people who will.)

Remember my partner and I use to agree on warnings for minor infractions unless circumstances warranted otherwise.

Jeep runs a flashing red at 3am - with no one else on the road for miles, and if wasn't for the fact that the two girls didn't pull over right of way, in deference to getting to their driveway, they would have got a warning.

After ruling out drunk, drugs, or other circumstances, figured they were just nervous, I began writing the citation, and the girls were talking, and one finally said to me, "Well? Would you?"

"Would I what?"

"Would you want a BJ from both of us?"

"Well, yes, but I don't get done till 7am. And your still getting the ticket."

"Nevermind."

My partner says, "Bro, you're hardcore. A dumbass, but hardcore."

Since stupid crap like that is the most likely contact a Citizen will have with a cop, no wonder folks hold cops in such low esteem.

You're absolutely correct Sam and even more so when the stories get spun by third parties.

Would it be fair to speculate that Mrs.Fireball was not looking forward to telling Mr.Fireball that she just created an unexpected expense a couple of days before Christmas?

My wife just tells me a couple things this morning about this.

This is the only cop that's ever pulled her over, and after the first incident, she had it in her heart to pray for him. But, she says that after awhile she did stop praying for him. She considers that maybe this is God reminding her to continue praying for him. She actually wished him a Merry Christmas after he wrote her the citation.

I guess you can see why I married her. What an amazing woman.

Of course she was sorry for the citation, but not in the light you imagine. She knows I'm on her side, and has nothing to fear from me. Doesn't keep her imagination from getting the best of her sometimes, but she knows.

frankly Pat, I trust Fireball's account. Through the years, I have experienced the same sort of treatment by the local cops here. And in Miami. And in Jax.........
It is all to common, and for otherwise law abiding Citizens, all too unnecessary.

That's very kind of her. Her prayers may stop him from getting run over the next time he stops somebody that is driving after dark without thier lights on.

You got a ticket for driving at night without your lights on? That's the complaint. Cops don't set fines...courts do.

Cops also don't levy or prosecute fines. They can issue a citation, but that is a different thing altogether. A cop can see a violation, stop you and cite you. It isn't over on the street. You can defend yourself in Justice Court, the judge will determine guilt or innocence...

no Pat. Don't be so literal. It's the general [bleep] of cops, and the totally arbitrary and capricious nature of enforcement that I am referring to. Cops are not the author of my discontent, but they ARE the point of contact.

One of the neatest things that law enforcement teaches a person is reflection.

And, there is the flip side.

About 6 weeks ago I stopped a kid for speeding.. Turns out he was on a junior license and out after hours, and not wearing a seatbelt those three violations would have really screwed with his future licensing until he turned 21. So, i cut him a break and wrote him a citation for failure to obey a traffic control device. No points, and a low fine.

He plead not guilty, which is certainly within his rights.
And I have no issue with him doing that. Had the case in court today. He shows up with mommy a lawyer and a smug look on his face. The look went away when I advised the judge that I was rescinding the stop sign ticket and issuing tickets for the original violations. MOm got real upset and Mr. lawyer asked me what I was doing. i told him to ask his client what I had told him wha I had originally stopped him for and if i In fact did offer to write him the stop sign ticket cut him a break on his DMV record. Lawyer asked, kid told the judge yes I did. Mom asked me if He plead guilty to the original citation would I not issue the new ones. i said yep, judge accepted. Case closed

Lawyer came up to me and said the kid never told him or his mom what I had stopped him for, that if he had he would have advised them to just plead guilty

CT, Scientific studies agree with your statement. A recent economic study found that the publics perception of how officers treated them during common traffic stops significantly effected the amount of cooperation a PD would receive in cases were they needed the publics help.

This whole post is about someone not wanting to take responsibility for something they did. It's not the car manufacturer fault. It's not the cops fault.

If the cop would have not stopped a car that did not have its headlights on the cop would have been lazy. He was simply doing what he is supposed to be doing.

Sometimes you just have to take responsibility for things you do.

Dink

Yea, this is true as well. 10 years ago, red light enforcement was so lax in the metro area that it was unsafe to stop for a yellow light, you would get rear ended. After a chain a bad, fatal accidents municipalities started to act. Now in Westminster a Red Light violation is $300.00 and a mandatory court appearance.

Yes, LE needs to deal with the little stuff while it's still little, and send a clear message to repeat offenders. It's just best when they do it in a understanding, reasonable manner that fosters the support of the community.

It was a long time ago and in another life, but at one time i was the long arm of the law. I typically would not write minor infractions unless the person was a complete ahole. But i am familar with the mentality of popo. The overwelming majority are good people that bear collective name calling because of the actions of a very few.
I remember one the way to work a few years ago in my dodge truck, i get lite up. Pull over, and this guy exits an unmarked car, in a "stance" as i call it hand on his gun. This is on a main street in town, people all over. I am going "what", it kind of fascinated me. Turns out the vehicle registration had expired a few days before, i hadn't gotten notice in the mail, and didnt realize i had an expired sticker. The guy was very demanding and i thought for a while it was going to be a full cavity search. at the conclusion, warning and that was it. I don't really know what was in mind, but i don't fit the profile of a hard core criminal. I have known popo in the past that would write on any excuse. Typically they didn't seem to last very long in the job.
cops are not saints, they are people. And there are some first class azzholes that gravitate to a position of seeming power over others.

I call BS. A law enforcement officer can in such cases use enforcement discretion. I was a state inspector for 30 years enforcing environmental regulations. I could cite violations and extract 5 figure fines or I could use discretion for honest mistakes that resulted in no environmental harm. Which I often did. You can still do your job and not be a dick. I've worked with and have known many LEOs over the years. Some just love being dicks. Most were decent folk. I've also been around enough to know that traffic enforcement is 95% about revenue and 5% about safety. If ALL of us would drive the speed limit for just a month, Cops and the politicians would panic. Well, some cops would just find some other reason to hassle normally decent folks, just going about there business.

Exactly.

Same after I left public service.

I was heading to the landfill, and stopped on the road to pick up some debris some litterbug threw out their window. My dad does roadside "adopt a highway" work through there, so I was trying to help him out,as long as I was heading to the dump.

Got back in the truck, put it in gear and did the slow roll up to the stop sign while buckling my belt.

State trooper saw me and figured I was driving without my restraints, so he gave me the Christmas lights.

While explaining my side, he explained his as he wrote the ticket. Followed it up with, "Go to court, seek "prayer for judgement", I won't be there, judge will grant, and it won't show up on your record, unless you get another. Deal?"

"Yep."

I had to work, so I let an attorney I go to church with handle it.

Hasn't happened again.

Dink, I never said he shouldn't have stopped her. The stop was reasonable, but once he established it was just a minor oversight while she was getting used to her new vehicle, he should of cut her some slack. The stop alone would of been sufficient to reminder her to check her lights in the future. All the ticket accomplished was an unnecessary alienation of the public, and a reduction in the public support that PD will receive in the future.

Taking responsibility goes both way. When the actions of police unnecessarily alienate the public creating a rift between the PD and the community and creating an atmosphere where the public will not cooperate with the public, it's those officers who created that rift who need to take responsibility and own the consequences of their actions.

See, a decent LEO. This is how it's done by a decent man. Thank you for being a human being first liliysdad.

I always get a chuckle when I see the lawdogs with radar on Sunday mornings. Trying to fang white, church folk on the way to services.

because decent folk...they have money to pay fines and tickets-milk them for new funds to buy Sparky the gay k-9 a new bullet proof vest and headlight camera thingy


2am Tyrone drunk & disorderly.....ain't no money in that one, it's just a strain on the system. And who wants puke and piss in their patrol car?

Anything more than a simple "excuse me 'mam, I stopped you because your headlights aren't on." Is just fugging beyond reasonable.

To actually write someone a $200+ dollar ticket for it?

Besides, sounds like this guy is a known liar.

You sound like a very reasonable guy. Go to the station with your wife and file a complaint. Talk to his boss and talk to the cop. Probably wont go anywhere, but you never know. Could be your not the first to complain about this prick.

A $260 fine could be devastating to a family living paycheck to paycheck. I remember those days.

If you want my opinion, that's it. Money money money.

I had a burglary from my shop, called the cops. Trail in the tall dead grass led directly to my neighbors property, where he had set up two chairs in the trees where he could case my place from. From there, trail led straight to his house. I showed the cops, told him the guy was an unemployed wildland firefighter and that he could probably imagine a use for my two chainsaws.

"What do you want ME to do?"
Not, "What do you want me to do?", but "What do you want ME to do?"

I should have known we wouldn't be getting far with that. Most of my cop experiences go about like that.
There's the time I got stopped for no lights on a trailer, in a well known company truck. CC permit holder so it got me a call for backup officers and plenty of extra scrutiny by the posse. Yeah, you really have to worry about the guy with the permit that has something to lose, better go over him with a fine tooth comb and get plenty of backup.
They can pretend, and some posters like Dink can pretend, but thinking people know what the hells going on.

Based on my personal experience, if getting a ticket is a life altering event for you....just go get some more. When you've got em overflowing your glove box, getting another one isn't such a big deal.

Problem Solved.

That's exactly what I told my wife. I'd love to. But to be honest, my wife doesn't have a heart for that. She focuses her energy on positive, productive endeavors for the most part. She's fairly savvy about what to avoid that is a waste of her resources. She truly is a saint. Me on the other hand, not so much.
I'm pretty sure that by now this cop has got some complaints against him. The first time he pulled her over was a blatant lie, this time it's an understandable stop, in everyone's best interest, but the $260 ticket is out of line.

And complain about what?

"Excuse me Mr. Police Chief, your officer is doing too much of his job."
"He's enforcing the law."
"He's working too hard."

Which of those would be a valid complaint?

I don't know you, but I'm hoping that's sarcasm??? It's not life altering. I've already spent too much time on it. Just cabin fever huh?

That fine is set by your city. If the amount of the fine is what's unacceptable, get your city council to reduce it. It's that simple.

Wow.

Check your Camry. Our 2009 Rav4 LE has a setting for auto headlamps. So does our 2011 F150 FX4 Luxury package.

Course everytime we take the vehicle in for service, the morons turn off the auto setting. It sometimes takes me a bit to figure that out. Once you get used to auto headlamps, you really like them!

I suspect a Camry hybrid has an autolamp setting.

It's completely serious sarcasm. I received A LOT of tickets back when I was single and could afford them. The first one freaked me out. The 12th, not so much.

After I moved, my dad got pulled over by a state trooper who remembered my name THREE YEARS LATER. He thought my dad was me and started griping at him, which my dad thought was hilarious.

Maybe an honest mistake, but I've had several near hits in urban traffic with folks driving dark when everyone else has their lights on.

Sorry for the ticket (the price does seem a little heavy handed), but it was deserved and it will likely have her attention in the future.

The advice to go see the judge is likely cost effective. Explain the new rig/automatic thing, be contrite, and it will likely be reduced by about 80%. A young lady that worked with me was late leaving work on her prom night and unknowingly near outran one of our OSP's as she headed from a rural setting into town. The only way he caught her was that she stopped at the first light as she entered surburbia. We suggested she go see the judge, never move her eyes higher than bench high, and sincerely aplogize. $480 got knocked do $80. Turned into a great story because I got it from her and week later from the LEO who is a friend.

I for one am a control freak and don't want automatic anything on my rigs. I decide when things are going to be turned on or off.

Yeah, wow is right. Your complaint is the amount of the fine. So complaining to the people who have nothing to do with the fine is pretty silly.

Complain to the people who can change the fine to $25.

And more seriously, take it to court. Ain't no way no how I'd take a traffic ticket before a judge. Request a jury trial. Jury trial, jury trial jury trial.

Get a half dozen other regular folks to listen to you explain that a simple mistake cost you $260 and you've learned your lesson. They'll either reduce your fine or dismiss it. I've seen it happen.

I bet if you request a jury trial the city's prosecutor wouldn't even take the case and would dismiss or fix the ticket himself. I've seen it happen.

That's not the whole picture though is it? Therefore not an accurate depiction of the truth. Hard to reason with someone that isn't interested in what's been presented here as the whole picture. My complaint is more than the cost of the ticket. To say that I am unhappy with the manner in which this particular cop handled this, (and now to find out BOTH of the tickets my wife has recieved) is the more accurate way to assess this. I think something's going on with THIS cop, and even beyond that, maybe a few cops I've run into.
Has this turned into another campfire cop bashing thread? Yep, guess so.

Or, $50 to an attorney friend at church, and it all goes away.

I've seen that happen.....

Thank you very much for that, I appreciate it and will seriously consider it. Seriously, thank you.

tell her to plead insanity

For most women that's a lock!

I don't think anybody's bashing, just venting. Everybody likes to complain about tickets.

Just for conversation, here's the other whole picture....
Cop pulls a lady over for speeding. Makes an honest mistake and stops the wrong car. The lady denies that she was speeding and the cop writes a ticket. A year later the cop pulls over the same lady at the same place for driving without her lights. This time the violation is because of her new car.

Now the cop is thinking...A year ago this lady was speeding and refused to take responsibility for it. I wrote her a ticket and now here she is at the same place driving around without headlights. What's her problem? Last time she blamed another driver, this time she's blaming the car. Nothing's EVER this lady's fault. The only thing that's gonna get her attention and make her start driving safer is a ticket. Sooner or later she'll get tired of paying for them and drive safer.

And then your wife gets another ticket.

Oh well, it's done. You can tell I'm a scrapper, but my wife will move on and focus herself on Christmas and kids and gift baskets for needy families and ministry and family and all the other things that good people do. Me, I'll stew on it cuz I'm stuck in the house with a cold going on two weeks.
Didn't intend to start a rucous, but certainly feel better after venting. Still like your idea of a jury trial.

The "presumptive fine" isn't the actual fine, it's what Oregon recommends. The state recommended minimum for your ticket is $130, which is still high IMO.

http://www.courts.oregon.gov/Coos/docs/general_orders/misc/2012_violation_fine_schedule.pdf

IME if you go before a jury and present yourself as a sane, rational, regular person who just messed up and needs a break you'll come out on top 100% of the time.

Being Oregon, I'm surprised they didn't suggest we forfeit our house. Crooks. Pay to play state where everything you do costs $10-250 for a permit.

On the lighter side:

I've not gathered many tickets (n = 2 in 50 years of driving), but for the amount of money we surrender the ticket should be formatted in the form of a diploma or society recognition award. You know, embossed stamps etc with lots of "hear ye hear ye" text and some official looking signatures. Something we could frame and proudly display on the wall as opposed to a slip of paper that looks like a Walmart receipt.

Much like ash trays (anyone remember those). A $5 ash tray is just an ash tray, but the same one purchased for $250 is a conversation piece.

Have a good one, and I'll be sure to look both ways when we're around the Costco complex. Merry Christmas and Happy new year,

I didn't see being a liar or incompetent on your list?
That would be my first complaint to the chief.

My second, depending on the outcome of the first, would be a discussion on discretion.

I can tell you a story where I got that "What do you want me to do." line. There was this old, closed, town landfill down the road from me. I noticed that the town highway dept was putting road kill deer off the side of the road at this old closed landfill. There was this pile of uncovered, rotting stinking deer that I had to run and bike by every day. They didn't want to drive them all the way to the operating County landfill. I worked for the State Conservation Dept in the Hazardous Waste Mgt program and we have our own environmental cops. So I write a formal referral to our law enforcement group for him to investigate and get the town to stop. A Conservation Officer, who is a local guy with friends in Town Gov't, stops by my desk, throws my referral on my desk and asks, "What do you want ME to do?" I looked him square in the eye and said, "How about your FN job, why don't we start there." Just a lazy SOB.

Then there was the time my house was burglarized and one of the items stolen was reserved tickets to an Eddie Murphy concert (circa 1982). So we ask the cops if they are going to check to see if anyone was going to be in our seats. (We suspected stupid neighborhood kids) So they say, no they are not planning on doing that. My roommates and I told them that we'll go there and if there was someone in those seats we would take care of it ourselves. "Oh, in that case we will have someone there to check." We said we would be there to make sure that they did. We kept our word and sure enough they did have a cop there. I guess they figured they had better things to do like issue stupid tickets to decent folk.

Oh, one more. I was driving home with my wife from doing some Christmas shopping. A cop coming from the other direction, pulls a U turn and lights em up and pulls me over. Gives me the "Do you know why I pulled you over" line (Always say No to that question.) I honestly say "No". He tells me I have a headlight out. I say "Oh yeah, which one? I just had my car inspected a couple days ago (which I did - NY requires annual vehicle inspections $$$). He gets a bit of an attitude,pulls out his little ticket book and taps my headlight with his flashlight and says, "This one! Oh, it just came back on. Better get that checked." My wife and I laughed all the way home. How silly anyway. This joker was going to give me a ticket for a mechanical malfunction. Like we can anticipate such things and get them fixed before they go bad.

"Descretion" doesn't mean nobody gets tickets.

Yes you do. I wholeheartedly agree with that statement.

One of the things you do here Dink is erode the respect for good LEOs that most people have for them.


really appreciate the chiming in by present and past LEO on here that could see their way to allowing someone a break for an infraction like the one being discussed.

To my way of thinking, it's a pretty steep fine.

fully understand the sentiments expressed by more than a few LEO's that you CAN talk your way into a ticket.

but my best guesstimate is that both Fireball and his wife are being truthful about this incident.


there's folks with a bad head and a bad heart, and unfortunately for LEO those folks are far too often their contact with citizens as they're called out to deal with those folks

there's folks with a good head and a bad heart, those are the ones I truly hope our LEO remove from our streets.

there's folks that have a bad head (and often it's just momentary) and a good heart, most times harmless, but they can cause dangerous situations


and then there's folks with both a good head and a good heart, we heard from more than a few on this thread that have or are working as LEO

majority of citizens fall into one of those aforementioned categories


and so do LEO, cause they're citizens too yaknow

Well aren't we a bit hypocritical. In your first post you rant about an Encon officer who "refused to do his job". Then in the above post you belittle a man who was going to do his job. How was he to know that you were having a 'mechanical malfunction'. Do you have any idea how many vehicles we see driving with only one head light. I cat tell you how many times i've seen the same vehicle with a light out for weeks at a time.

I've told new Troopers time and again, not to write "Momma and the Babies" and not to write the folks on the way to church on sunday morning. "Why?" they would ask.

Because these are the people who will be sitting on the grand jury when you end up in a really bad spot and have to shoot someone's ass. They will decide whether you need to sit at the defendant's table and face a murder or manslaughter charge.

You treat them just like you would want me to treat your Mother if I stopped her for speeding or not having her headlights on.

Oh, and I never wrote Doctors or Nurses either. You end up on a gurney in the ER and you will thank me for that little tidbit.

I never got a ticket when I was a paramedic.

And sometimes, Lord knows, I should have....

IIRC CT, you retired recently

if that's accurate, I feel bad for the community that lost your services.


truly thankful for guys like you

Pulling out in front of a car you didn't see in low light without headlights on would also devastate many a family.

Turn your f-ing headlights on.

In this case, that is exactly what discretion means.

I did retire sir, but I thank you for the kind compliment.

There are still good men and women out there, but unfortunately it only takes one knothead like the one in the OP to smear everyone.

There have always been guys like that though. I knew a guy once who wrote his own wife a speeding ticket.

Now how counterproductive was that? You could say that he treated her like everyone else, but hell fire, you know he had to suffer consequences that were just out of proportion to the good he did.

Hopefully the guy will see the light before he wrecks his reputation.

You can be "by the book" and still be smart enough to treat people in a way that doesn't leave them feeling like they have been completely screwed. That said, you'll go farther, be more effective and make a better impression of yourself and the badge if you use a little common sense.

Many of the LEO types here on the fire have already posted in ways that tell me they get the picture.

True words.

It just doesn't seem that difficult, does it.

+++1

I used to have those little "father and son talks" with one officer in particular who used to amuse himself by pulling over beat up cars that had some equipment issues driven by #2 males mostly. I tried explaining to this lad that the sum of his tickets probably added up to more than what some of those cars might be worth. Then I would say something like those fines will add up to more than some of those people made that day or even several days. He thought I was busting his balls, but eventually, after he got married, bought a house and had kids he finally slowed down and became a better cop for it.

yeppers that department is gonna miss the wisdom that went behind that badge number


that's what pizzes me off to no end, guys will use the actions of one azzhole cop or a middle of the road to good one that due to stress over responds to a situation and try and paint men like that with a broad brush.

that myopic view imo is just as counterproductive as those few cops that only see the citizenry divided in two groups, criminals and victims.


when in reality there are lots of good decent, dpendable men in our communities and some of them enforce the law for a living

Discretion means everybody but me and mine gets a ticket, is generally how folks view it.

I've heard all the "rules"....don't write tickets to doctors, nurses, teachers, moms, kids, old people, military folks, poor folks, folks going to church, etc.

Which led me to the conclusion that I should only write tickets to middle class, middle aged white dudes with a job and nice car.

Congratulations 24HRCF, I'm coming after you.

You assume some of these guys have jobs...? lol

I don't think so. In the one case there was a real problem that needed addressing as it negatively impacted the quality of life of the folks living near the rotting deer and posed a potential health issue attracting vermin and was knowingly perpetrated by a Town that thought it was above the law. In the second case was a mechanical malfunction not the fault of the driver who was able to show that the car had recently passed a state inspection. He could have just come up to me casually and said, "Sir, are you aware that you have a headlight out? Please have that repaired." He would have gotten a smile and a "Thank you Officer." See, that would have been doing his job too, only in a nice understanding way. I understand that for most LEOs it's all just a game of "gotcha" and bringing as much $ for the State, County, Town, City etc.

had a lady deputy pull me over one evening after me and my daughter come back from fishing. Hit a bad hole on USFS road and my headlamp popped that evening. She whipped around hellytellerup and lit me up. She was real sweet called me "hun" and stuff. Told me my headlight was out. As a legal obligation I informed of my ccw and my weapon, she asked where it was...I told it was under my thigh pointed at her knee caps, lol. She thanked me for letting her know and we agreed that I should get it fixed.

No biggie, of course just for fun she run my tags and DL and I suppose found out I'm a great citizen with zero priors, no warrants and not even a single speeding ticket since they kept records in shoeboxes.

we talked for a second about all the pillbillies, the pain clinic leaches,methmoufs and boozers that continue to drive DORL and without insurance. names I could actually give her and which beer joint parking lot right then and there that she could go stake out if she wanted to bust my wife's cousin, who has had 4 DUIs and still drives daily. Deaf ears, but she was polite and professional.

What's a courtesy card and how can I get one?

I knew a woman anesthesiologist who habitually tore up her local roads in her BMW and never, ever got a speeding ticket.

The stethoscope draped over the rear-view mirror did the trick every time. But only in her home county.

I edited my post and took that part out as I didn't want to just get into a cop bashing thing. We all should have "Courtesy Cards." I know LEOs have a job to do, it's the how they go about doing it that we care about. I had a friend who was a NYC cop and he had gotten his picture in the NY Daily News, showing him extending a kindness to a homeless man. Unlike many LEOs I've known, he never spoke about people as scumbags, or hippies, or by ethnic slurs. He truly was a public servant and a decent man. We need more LEOs like him. Sadly, he died from cancer just months after retiring.

Never have a problem going to court and fighting tickets, especially if the cop is/was a dick. Most aren't but there are some that are. The DICK's are usually easily made to look bad in front of a judge.
In the OP's case it seems some discretion could have been used espcially since she was leaving from a "well lighted area'.

A stethoscope has saved me from wasting more than one traffic stop.

True through & through. As far as the courtesy card goes, it's kind of like the respect card IMHO, you tend to get what you give.....

For what it's worth, I haven't written a ticket in 20 years, and the only trouble I ever got into (almost ) was for never writing ANY. Though I work in an urban area, I live in a small town where every cop is one stolen away from DPS and all they do is hammer traffic offenders. Take this to the bank. Places where the cops have nothing to do but write up people for minor traffic offenses are nice places to live.

You got a roadside checkup?

Your wife got a ticket to make up for all the illegal mexicons that the cop lets go because he knows that they'll never pay a ticket and that they change addresses/identity like we change underwear.

..and people wonder why we have laws.

sometimes you get a ticket sometimes you don't.

I've probably been stopped about 20 times in the last 30yrs and have only been given 4 tickets that I can remember.

Now see Joel, you and I look at stethescopes around the mirror totally different. I see them as possibly belonging to a cute single nurse. Who may be shmoozed by my charm

How would a deaf and blind nurse be driving?

Now that just isn't fair. She was only LEGALLY blind

The good cops must be too good as they never stop me. It's always the other kind.

Maybe. But if people have issues with me it should only pertain to me not what I do for a living or others that have the same job.

I will always say/post what is the truth or what is my opinion. If people don't like the truth or my opinion that is ok.

It's easy to go through life and only say/post things that most people agree with. Most people don't like confrontation. The problem is when it gets down to the nut cutt'n you never know where they stand or how someone can sway their opinion.

Look at this very post. It oozes with "it was not my fault" syndrome. It's easy for everyone to say bad cop she needed a warning. No one wants to be the guy that says "it was her fault" cause it goes against the flow.

Look at all the non-resident tag prices threads. Most people say just pay the price so they don't ruffle any feathers and no one post anything bad about them. Strange though, Montana used to sell all their non-resident tags in one day. Now they can't sell them out in eight months. I guess I am the only campfire member pizzed about it.

I learned a long time ago most people just don't have it them to speak what's really on their mind or what they really think about something.

One thing is always certain you never have to guess where you stand with me or what side of a issue I am on.

Dink

That, my friend, is where you are mistaken. Conflict is an important part of every persons life and you need to realize that the majority of people will not encounter as much in their life as you do each month.

Dink and guys like him create confrontation all they can. They feed on it, like a maggot on a rotten caucus.

No. He doesn't understand why some people seek confrontation.