What's the deal with motor vehicle violations?

That's right. There's two parts to it.Avoiding trouble as in not going to jail.And avoiding trouble as in not getting physically hurt.If you want to avoid going to jail, then you should cooperate and answer questions that don't incriminate you and you should provide the least amount of information possible.If you are being placed under arrest, then you should stop all communication whatsoever to limit the arrest to the minimum amount of charges. Cops are supposed to inform you why you have been pulled over before they ask you anything. If a cop asks you for your license before telling you why you were pulled over, you have the right to ask him why you were pulled over before you comply with his request.If they ask you if you know why you were pulled over, the answer should always be 'No'. There's a difference between the reasons that lead up to the arrest, and the crime that was charged for the arrest. I think we're miscommunicating across those.I don't think he would have arrested her if she had put out her cig. The crime he was saying that he was arresting her for was refusing to get out of the car, which he ordered because she did not put out her cig. Yup, and that's why I say to just follow the orders. The time and place to determine if the order was lawful is in the courtroom after you have been arrested, not after you have been given the order but before you comply with it. Then you're starting to resist, and that's an additional charge and a reason for them to escalate towards force/violence. I don't think so. There was no threat of violence before she refused to cooperate.

Boy, one can't disagree with you without drawing insults. From my point of view you've been invoking yourself as your own fallacy of authority while displaying ignorance of basic principles. I'm sure it was worth every penny. --Percy

This is the very problem I'm trying to highlight. If an honest citizen's primary concern during an interaction with law enforcement should be to avoid getting scammed into jail or getting physically hurt, then something is seriously wrong. It was almost forty years ago. Times were different then. They asked for my license and registration, went back to their car, then returned in about a minute saying I could go. It'll make you happy to know I said almost nothing besides "Okay," "Here," and "Thank you." If I do know then that wouldn't be honest. When I was pulled over for going 90 that time I probably said something like, "I think for going too fast." Once the officer started down the "You seem irritated" path, he was *very* threatening and alarm bells were going off all over the place. It was inappropriate and designed to intimidate and instigate. And reacting to a refusal to put out a cigarette with an order to exit the vehicle was way over the top. He was abusing his authority big time.--Percy

I agree. In a country where ordinary citizens have had to get used to an intense amount of surveillance, I can't see the downside to the police having to bear heightened attention to their behavior too.

If saying that you have no clue and giving you a reason why is an insult, then so is telling me that I only see black and white. I don't consider this to be an insult. I certainly gained more from the experience of representing client than I gave. How did you learn what you know about the law?

Lying does not seem like a good strategy, and if you were going ninety you probably don't want to convey to the policeman that you were not in control of your car.A policeman once stopped me for speeding. His first question was to ask me how fast I was going. I told him, that it appeared that he was about to tell me. He asked me again and I just waited. Then he told me what speed he measured and with what tool (turned out to be VASCAR). He was dead on, but I certainly did not confirm that. My speed was 68 in a 55 mph zone.I agree that you should not lie to the police. But you don't have to give up any information. If you were to remind the police that you understand that whatever you say can be used in a court of law, you probably won't have to explain any silence. Most likely you will just be given orders and an explanation.

Wow, you sure have a thin skin. If you didn't agree with my characterization of your preference for strict interpretation of law while disregarding extenuating circumstances as being black and white, you could have just offered a rebuttal.--Percy

Hell yeah there's something seriously wrong, its the entire paradigm of our police departments. Just because you know that you were speeding doesn't mean that speeding is what they pulled you over for."Oh, well I pulled you over for the tail light that is out. But thank you for admitting to speeding, here's two tickets". (little bit of sarcasm there)And don't forget, they are trained on how to lie to you and it is part of their protocol. And you have the right to refuse to say anything that can incriminate you. I don't think it was bad enough to indicate that he intended to harm her.

My experience with police during the Vietnam era frames my advice: I spat defiance and teeth.Youthful demonstrators confronting the police over liberty or war issues en masse is one thing; I was willing to "throw my body into the machine". Hell, I was immortal like everyone else.An aging middle-class white male at a traffic stop is another thing altogether: he has more powerful options.

Yeah, I believed that too, until we took on the school system. "I fought the school and the school won." Would taking on the "law" be any easier? I've come to believe that if you can create a political movement or force of some kind, then you have a chance of effecting change, but that the power of any individual working alone by writing letters to newspapers or contacting his representatives and so forth is extremely minute.--Percy

Thanks for the info Mr. Pot.If you cannot deal with being called clueless, why not just demonstrate that you have a clue instead of claiming to be insulted.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Yes--I didn't mean working alone, although smart phones and the web empower both the individual and the organized group working against police misconduct.Still, an organized group of upright middle-class citizens has more clout than one angry man of any sort.So if you could get a mob of pale zen surburbanites to levitate a cop station over misconduct issues, that would be awesome.

I had no idea I was insulting you, and such was certainly not my intention. I thought I was just making an observation. To me your views on the law seem very rigid and unnuanced, but if you don't think the views on interpretation of the law that you've expressed in this thread are bit strong on the black and white side of things (very similar to the views you expressed in the deflate-gate thread where you allowed no room for letting the punishment be commensurate with the evidence), then you only need explain how that view is in error.--Percy

Sure. And that's exactly what I was doing when I called things like not understanding that you don't have to answer police questions clueless. If you review the thread, you'll notice that you were the one who claimed to be insulted. What I did was point out that my comments were no more offensive than yours. That's one possible response. However given that you have yet to answer my repeated request to tell me where you get your impressions, while I have at least cited a source for mine might indicate that you have some explaining to do.My experience is that traffic court judges do not put up with excuses when deciding guilt or innocence. Sometimes they will listen to such things when evaluating the fine. I stand by my advice that taking such things up with the arresting officer is pointless. I asked you if things seemed to work out when you use your own approach, but you did not answer that either.

I don't believe we've discussed what punishment ought to result in this case. My personal opinion is that a four game suspension is silly. I've strictly stuck with a determination of deflate vs. not deflate. I don't believe there is a sliding scale for that.Unless you've got something accurate to say about my arguments in that thread, perhaps you ought to stick with the facts.