Topic: Policemen shouldn't give a ticket until they find your stuff
Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Was watching Top Gear the other day and Jeremy Clarkson came up with an excellent idea, notice how the police always have the manpower to bust you for trivial motoring offenses but can never find your stolen stuff? Well his idea is that it should be illegal to give a ticket to someone for a minor offense until the police find your stolen property.
posted
Um....It implies that if you claim somebody stole something of yours that you never owned in the first place, you could never again be ticketed for a minor offense.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Dont police ask for proof of purchase? Mine did.
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posted
I'm gonna start buying cheap things and leaving them all over the place, then driving 200mph through school zones. Best idea EVER!
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: I'm gonna start buying cheap things and leaving them all over the place, then driving 200mph through school zones. Best idea EVER!
I'd do that too, but I'll have to find a place to steal a Veyron first!
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Teshi: Ooooh, I finally get this.
That is a very silly idea. You know a good way to avoid getting speeding tickets? Don't speed.
*Teshi wins the thread*
You can't declare yourself the victor, that distinction must be awarded by anybody besides the winner. I have additional ideas!
1: Don't drive.
2: Eat ticket as it's issued.
3: Eat the cop if the ticket doesn't sound appetizing.
4: Drive however you please, and once you're issued a ticket, just flee the country. Never come back.
5: Hide somewhere inside your car. If the cop can't find you, he can't issue you a ticket.
6: As the cop approaches your vehicle, step out, toss him the keys, walk to his car, and calmly complete the vehicle swap.
7: Live in a place without police patrols, I'm sure parts of Alaska, New Mexico, Nevada, and Detroit are like that.
8: Drive faster than the cops can, this will only work in the short term, you also need to learn to avoid spike strips, helicopters, traffic, and the PIT maneuver.
9: Become diplomat...to Palau, honestly do you see a doughnut shop anywhere on those pristine plots of paradise? The absence of streets also comes in handy for the ticket dodger.
10: Follow Teshi's advice. Besides being the most practical, it's also 100% effective.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Probably a good idea, Blayne.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
I dont quite see the correlation there Kwea. Afterall I am merely repeating something I felt was interesting from Top Gear, I hardly see how that makes me accident prone or a drag on the insurance premiums of male drivers between the ages of 21 and 30 so please apologize.
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posted
If this works, that the police can not give you a legal summons for breaking the law until after they have recovered all your property, wouldn't it work up the scale as well? I mean, they can't put me in the gas chamber for multiple murder because they never found the VCR some crook stole from me in 1996?
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Obviously, I figured it went unsaid went I did say that they couldn't ticket you for trivial offenses. Probably work better that the first said ticket if it equaled or exceed by a reasonable amount the price of the goods stolen throw out the ticket then your fair game after that.
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posted
I fail to understand why we're holding the police responsible for recovering stolen property. That's not their core job function.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I *think* the point was that if the policeman tries to use a trivial offense as an excuse to search your car for drugs or whatever, they shouldn't be able to give you a ticket unless they actually find said drugs or contraband. (Whereas if they pull you over for the actual purpose of giving you a speeding ticket and make no effort to search your car, it works out just like normal.) The point is to discourage police from unreasonable searches unless they have a good reason to (in which case I guess the search would, by definition, be reasonable).
While I'm not sure I'm behind this as an genuinely good idea, if I'm understanding it correctly it makes some degree of sense. I don't know that it would really have an impact on unreasonable searches themselves (apart from not helping them meet their quota it's not like the police are actually punished for said search).
Regardless, Blayne, I think you need to work on clarity in your idea presentation.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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posted
I understand your frustration, Blayne. When I lived in Seattle, our car was ticketed for parking on the street in front of our house- while the cops seemingly did nothing about the car thieves in our area who did a couple hundred dollars in damage to our car and whose license plate I reported to them.
The underlying point is it would be really nice if the police spent more time fighting crimes that actually hurt people and less on minor offenses that do far less harm but are much easier to enforce and bring in more revenue.
But- as has been said repeatedly already- the actual practice you're suggesting is only a good idea in a fantasy world.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Just to reiterate, I can neither drive nor do i own or have ever driven a car, van, lorry, truck, station wagon or anything else for that matter that has more then 2 wheels and has a motor. Neither have I ever been ticketed, I am merely repeating something I heard Jeremy Clarkson endorse that I felt was funny and made sense at the time.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: 10: Follow Teshi's advice. Besides being the most practical, it's also 100% effective.
Er, not quite. If the officer's car's spedometer is mis-calibrated (and they're matching speed) or there's a glitch in their radar gun, you could still be ticketed while driving within the limit; you'd just be in the right.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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People who whine about police focusing on pegging them for "small" crimes instead on bigger crimes need to stop committing "small" crimes and their chances of being hit with a speeding ticket will go down drastically right into the very very rare cases of "my speedometer was mis-calibrated."
I have never heard of that happening, though. Most of the people I know who have been hit with speeding tickets have been, well, speeding.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I *think* the point was that if the policeman tries to use a trivial offense as an excuse to search your car for drugs or whatever, they shouldn't be able to give you a ticket unless they actually find said drugs or contraband. (Whereas if they pull you over for the actual purpose of giving you a speeding ticket and make no effort to search your car, it works out just like normal.) The point is to discourage police from unreasonable searches unless they have a good reason to (in which case I guess the search would, by definition, be reasonable).
While I'm not sure I'm behind this as an genuinely good idea, if I'm understanding it correctly it makes some degree of sense. I don't know that it would really have an impact on unreasonable searches themselves (apart from not helping them meet their quota it's not like the police are actually punished for said search).
Regardless, Blayne, I think you need to work on clarity in your idea presentation.
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I *think* the point was that if the policeman tries to use a trivial offense as an excuse to search your car for drugs or whatever, they shouldn't be able to give you a ticket unless they actually find said drugs or contraband. (Whereas if they pull you over for the actual purpose of giving you a speeding ticket and make no effort to search your car, it works out just like normal.) The point is to discourage police from unreasonable searches unless they have a good reason to (in which case I guess the search would, by definition, be reasonable).
Am I wrong, or isn't it already the case that police cannot search your car after pulling you over unless they have a "good reason"?
Posts: 101 | Registered: May 2009
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posted
Blayne, can you clarify whether you meant my interpretation or the one everyone originally assumed?
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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posted
IANAL, but if the police ask you to search your car, do not give them permission. If they then search your car, and find contraband (which you obviously should not have anyway) your lawyer can argue that the search was illegal.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: ...the police always have the manpower to bust you for trivial motoring offenses but can never find your stolen stuff...
I don't see how this could be any clearer.
Posts: 1794 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Strange as your just about as inscrutable as always.
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Um, it could either refer to stuff you stole or stuff that was stolen from you. It's a big difference.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: I dont quite see the correlation there Kwea. Afterall I am merely repeating something I felt was interesting from Top Gear, I hardly see how that makes me accident prone or a drag on the insurance premiums of male drivers between the ages of 21 and 30 so please apologize.
Blayne, it was a joke. Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Um, it could either refer to stuff you stole or stuff that was stolen from you. It's a big difference.
I originally thought it was "stuff you stole", but that doesn't really work in the way Blayne described it.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
"Stuff you stole" : the fur neckpiece that gives you the finger.
**
I hope most people here realise that Jeremy Clarkson was being humorous. Top Gear is a motoring show crossed with aspects of stand up. They're taking the mickey.
Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Teshi: How often does that actually happen then.
It only has to happen once to make inaccurate the phrase "it's also 100% effective."
That depends how many significant figures we're using, neh?
Eh. I'm certainly not saying it happens very often. But there's a reason your antibacterial soap kills 99% of germs or 99.9% of germs. 100% is a tough row to hoe.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Am I wrong, or isn't it already the case that police cannot search your car after pulling you over unless they have a "good reason"?
This is often associated with profiling. Police will see a late model car traveling on a known drug trafficking route, such as I-95, going just about the speed limit, and driven by "people that look like they might be transporting drugs." They look for a reason to pull the car over, such as going 3 mph over the speed limit, and then when they've pulled the car over, they ask if they can search the car. Often, drug traffickers will say yes, because they think it will be better for them if they cooperate.
So, yes, it seems to me that if a police officer pulls you over, explains that you were going 3 mph over the speed limit, and asks to search your car, but can't find anything, they should drop the speeding ticket. My guess is that that's probably what they do anyway.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Teshi: How often does that actually happen then.
It only has to happen once to make inaccurate the phrase "it's also 100% effective."
Not necessarily. If a person has never been giving a ticket under the "broken equipment" circumstance, then as far as they are concerned, the strategy is 100% effective.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Except that under that argument, if I've never hurt myself walking on the roof of my house, walking on the roof of my house is 100% safe.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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