PO'd at police

[BobRip]

So if someone chooses to not wear a seat belt, and gets all mangled up, and chooses not to buy insurance, we should just let them lay in the ditch, right? We should let their mangled kids lay there, too, right?

Sheesh. Americans do not let people lay in the ditch, no matter how stupid their poor choices are. We pick them up and take care of them, even though they are stupid and make poor choices. So we do make laws that try to protect the majority of us from stupid peoples' poor choices, even if it "infringes" on their god given right to be stupid and make poor choices.

Moss, I really just want to point out that you cannot have it both ways. You can have total freedom, or you can have the state protect you. If you try to be in the middle, then the responsible pay for the irresponsible. You will also tend to turn the responsible into the irresponsible. This is what bothers me. I think we need to encourage people to be responsible for their own behavior. This means be prepared (as much as possible) to take care of yourself. The direction we are heading is everybody is working for the government or is on welfare. It will probably take a long time to get there, but it is a direction. I want to go the other way. What social changes can we make to encourage this.

 

[two_bit_score]

No, it is not fact. There are laws on the book that REQUIRE an officer to make an arrest. The chain of command can also tell officers what they can and cannot do. Finally the officer can decide, which is discretion, to always write a citation. Why would an officer do this? If the officer ALWAYS writes a citation for every stop it minimizes accusations of favoritism or worse "profiling".

Later,
Dan

At first I thought we disagreed but then I read ("Finally the officer can decide, which is discretion, to always write a citation.") So I guess we do agree.

There are probably some 'officers' who would ALWAYS write a ticket but only those very inexperienced or very 'chicken shid' would not realize that a warning ticket is within their discretion and counts for the same 'violator contact' as a citation to court.

 

[two_bit_score]

I have never been in a wreck where I was at fault and the other party was injured but I have always worried that someday I might not pay attention for one second and this could occur.

What would be a real tragedy would be if it was a minor accident but the other driver was not wearing a seat belt and got ejected from the car and killed when he would not have even been injured with the seat belt on.

Besides the tragedy of him being killed, I could spend a long time in prison for negligent homicide and lose everything I own and have worked for my whole life.

This would be MY fault for causing the wreck but two tragedies could have been averted by the driver wearing a seat belt. It isn't just the one not wearing the seat belt who suffers.

Then everyone should be required to wear a bullet proof vest because someone might accidentally discharge a round from a legal gun and shoot them and kill them and possibly be sued outta everything they own for negligence.

You are saying that others should be required to take action to protect themselves from your negligence in order to protect you.

People should be protecting themselves, or not, because they decide to do so, or not.

Your argument is specious. It sounds good but makes no real sense. Anything can be carried to the extreme degree which is what you do in that argument.

 

[sld]

Does anyone remember when if something bad happened to you, you just sucked it up and said "bad break" but I will get thru it.

Now days, everyone wants compensated for everything. Your neighbors dog pees in your yard and you want money for it.

I know there are gray areas, but people can't always be compensated just because something bad happens to them. This is the root of a lot a silly laws.

Sometimes you just have to take the good with the bad and protect yourself as well as you can.

 

[Pops15]

I know someone that was given a warning ticket in Illinois for not having proof of insurance so I'd say in IL the officer has discretion to ticket or not.

I've done work for several cops from much larger departments that where the OP lives. I think most would have followed a driver a short distance to give the driver a chance to produce his insurance card.

I'm familiar with the OP's town as I live fairly close. It's a small town and small town police departments in this area are notorious for writing tickets as a way to generate revenue. It has nothing to do with trying to keep anyone safe. It has nothing to do with trying to reduce the cost to society. It has everything to do with generating revenue. Such is life in small town Illinois...and some of the bigger ones too.
BTW...there are exemptions to the IL seat belt law!

 

[firefighter jim]

You are blaming the policeman for something that you're guilty of. A: you weren't wearing a seatbelt and B: you didn't have proof of insurance with you. Put the blame on yourself and quit wining. That's the problem these days, no one takes responsibility for themselves. It's always someone else's fault.

 

[RickB]

You are blaming the policeman for something that you're guilty of. A: you weren't wearing a seatbelt and B: you didn't have proof of insurance with you. Put the blame on yourself and quit wining. That's the problem these days, no one takes responsibility for themselves. It's always someone else's fault.

Thanks. That's pretty much where we started, before the posts about choosing what laws to obey, why we have laws at all, and why it is necessary (or not) to create laws to help protect folks from their own stupidity and more importantly the stupidity of others.

 

[RickB]

Does anyone remember when if something bad happened to you, you just sucked it up and said "bad break" but I will get thru it.

Now days, everyone wants compensated for everything. Your neighbors dog pees in your yard and you want money for it.

I know there are gray areas, but people can't always be compensated just because something bad happens to them. This is the root of a lot a silly laws.

Sometimes you just have to take the good with the bad and protect yourself as well as you can.

Which includes putting on the big boy pants and paying whatever fines are incurred when one is caught breaking the law without whimpering to all us TBN members.
I'd be a lot more sympathetic if Hooked on HP had posted about the absurdity of seatbelt laws and proof of insurance requirements the day BEFORE he got busted. But of course, it didn't cross his mind.

 

[dave1949]

Then everyone should be required to wear a bullet proof vest because someone might accidentally discharge a round from a legal gun and shoot them and kill them and possibly be sued outta everything they own for negligence.

You are saying that others should be required to take action to protect themselves from your negligence in order to protect you.

People should be protecting themselves, or not, because they decide to do so, or not.

Your argument is specious. It sounds good but makes no real sense. Anything can be carried to the extreme degree which is what you do in that argument.

Here is a very interesting database query form allowing lookup of cause of death or injury by age group and cause. The drill downs are good too.

WISQARS Leading Causes of Death Reports


If you do queries for 'unintentional injury' and compare auto fatalities to gun fatalities, you will find a very significant difference (orders of magnitude) in how likely you are to need that bullet proof vest versus a seatbelt.

I understand the concept you wish to illustrate, but a bullet proof vest doesn't work for your argument in the real world.
Dave.

 

[tulenutn2o]

Man, brutal responses.

While I agree that you were in the wrong, he could've let the insurance thing slide. I have shown cops my insurance card before that was expired and they let it go. It seems like everytime I turn around I have a new insurance card in the mail. I know I don't always have the current one.

In this day and age I don't see why your proof of insurance is not verified online by the cop in the car.

I'm for the insurance on the license myself. Insure the driver not the vehicle. You can add comprehensive to vehicles. Seems the only people to use the mag strip on my license, is wal-mart when I get my hunting and fishing "license".

 

[MossRoad]

Moss, I really just want to point out that you cannot have it both ways. You can have total freedom, or you can have the state protect you. If you try to be in the middle, then the responsible pay for the irresponsible. You will also tend to turn the responsible into the irresponsible. This is what bothers me. I think we need to encourage people to be responsible for their own behavior. This means be prepared (as much as possible) to take care of yourself. The direction we are heading is everybody is working for the government or is on welfare. It will probably take a long time to get there, but it is a direction. I want to go the other way. What social changes can we make to encourage this.

I agree with you Bob. I do not have a clue as to how to make people responsible for their own choices. I do know that when they make bad choices it ends up costing all of us BECAUSE we as a society won't let people suffer. Maybe after they heal we can put them in jail! :laughing:

 

[buckeyefarmer]

so the moral of the story is to print yourself a little piece of paper that says you have insurance, since the officer isn't going to check to verify it. Cause if the officer is going to check and verify it, you wouldn't need to have the little piece of paper in the first place. :laughing:

 

[dave1949]

so the moral of the story is to print yourself a little piece of paper that says you have insurance, since the officer isn't going to check to verify it. Cause if the officer is going to check and verify it, you wouldn't need to have the little piece of paper in the first place. :laughing:

Won't work. You are tryng to apply logic where none is recognized Gov't processes are extremely an*l. They will check, and then cite you for something else too. :laughing:
Dave.

 

[Alan L.]

I'm with HP on this. To have to show up for court when it can so easily be proven that insurance was in effect is ridiculous. How much trouble this is depends on where you are. Lets take the City of Dallas. Its not like the small town JP where you wait maybe an hour while others have their days in court. I had a ticket in Dallas last year and had to show up in downtown Dallas muncipal court building at 8:30 in the morning. First of all, you don't just drive to downtown dallas at 8:30 because of the ridiculous traffic. To be certain of getting there on time you have to get there early, like 7:30 or 7:45. Then it is next to impossible to find a parking space. I then walk from my car to the municipal building, a couple of blocks, and stand in line on the steps outside the door, to get through security. When I finally get there I am sent packing to to a small pocket knife that I always have on me. Take it back to the car and start over. Finally figure out what court room to go to and wait for an hour while NOTHING happens. A couple of lawyers showed up to see if any of the 40 or so people were his clients. Then the judge calls a recess for another hour so this is turning out to be an ALL DAY DEAL! I left and went back to my office, called my lawyer (who was meeting me there anyway) and told him to get what he could. Fortunately I got a letter in a couple of days that my case had been dismissed. But imagine if I was just waiting to show an insurance card!!!


The seat belt law will only make sense whenever motorcycles are outlawed. Who do you think is safer, someone on a motorcycle, or someone in a 2-ton pickup without a seatbelt? Ironically the only seat belt violation I ever got was from a motorcycle cop. Go figure.

But its not really the cop's fault, its just procedure that he has to follow.

 

[Hawghauler]

Incrementally rules have been imposed on us slowly, under our radar so as to not wake up the sheeple and have us turn into a torch bearing mob with pitchforks. Most of the rules we did not ask for, but they are well intentioned to modify our behavior for our own good. If we let it slide, the next rule will come, and you may not be okay with that one, or the next, and the next. Louisianna there was a sheriff that was confiscating guns (for your own good), took years of court action to stop it. Too much rain and FEMA can suspend your rights and drive you from your land (for your own good). A few years back Vermont imposed a law which prohibited land owners from timbering more than 40 acres of their own land (for the good of the state). The property owners closed their land to hikers, snowmobilers, etc and objected heavily. Seriously threatened tourism. I think the law dissappeared when the masses challenged it. If you don't like the law, fight it in court as is your right. I am not a smoker, but I don't like the bans in many places. I don't like insurance or seatbelt laws, but I wear them and buy it out of personal responsibility. I don't use drugs, but I despise the drug testing laws imposed on truckers by the DoT. The only gun law I agree with is that which bars felons from possesion. Free men have the right to be annoyed by government imposed restrictions. But if you don't challenge the charges every time, then you should be PO'd at yourself.

 

[Hawghauler]

I hear there is a political ban. I'll tone down my favorite subject.

 

[The Haymaker]

I robbed a bank yesterday with a fake gun. Nobody was hurt. Now I write this from Shawshank.

Those 45 cops and the SWAT team could've just let me go because no one was hurt. I really think they went overboard and now they need to waste all this money on my food and housing.

Where it was my first heist, they should have just let me go.

 

[dmccarty]

At first I thought we disagreed but then I read ("Finally the officer can decide, which is discretion, to always write a citation.") So I guess we do agree.

There are probably some 'officers' who would ALWAYS write a ticket but only those very inexperienced or very 'chicken shid' would not realize that a warning ticket is within their discretion and counts for the same 'violator contact' as a citation to court.

No we disagree. Officer do not always have discretion. I listed why this might be the case. Also I mentioned why the officer might have chosen to have written a citation instead of a warning. The latter is within his discretion but there are danged good reasons for the officer to just right the citation.

Calling the officer in question "****** ***" is just low class.

Later,
Dan

 

[MF1652]

Came in for lunch from raking hay today to find this thread. ***! I see the cop haters are out in force on this one. A vast majority of the responses to this thread were from people who have no idea what they are talking about. Their responses were steered by innacurate beliefs of how they think LEO's operate. Every department in this country has to follow the laws of their state. Each departmnet then has to follow their own policies which are more stringent than that of state law and constitutional constriants that the Police have to operate by. What little discretion LEO's have these days is often stripped away by a supervisor being given orders to produce stats. (yeah I know that isn't right, but lets not get into a discussion over that). The fact remains, the LEO conducted a lawful stop, and wrote two citations. Petty or not, the LEO was doing the job the community pays him to do with your tax dollors. Last time I checked this was TBN. Save this trash for another web forum. I browse this site to trade information about tractors. Is it so hard to keep personal problems separate?

 

[dave1949]

Came in for lunch from raking hay today to find this thread. ***! I see the cop haters are out in force on this one. A vast majority of the responses to this thread were from people who have no idea what they are talking about. Their responses were steered by innacurate beliefs of how they think LEO's operate. Every department in this country has to follow the laws of their state. Each departmnet then has to follow their own policies which are more stringent than that of state law and constitutional constriants that the Police have to operate by. What little discretion LEO's have these days is often stripped away by a supervisor being given orders to produce stats. (yeah I know that isn't right, but lets not get into a discussion over that). The fact remains, the LEO conducted a lawful stop, and wrote two citations. Petty or not, the LEO was doing the job the community pays him to do with your tax dollors. Last time I checked this was TBN. Save this trash for another web forum. I browse this site to trade information about tractors. Is it so hard to keep personal problems separate?

Well, I guess that makes you the self-appointed censor? You did read the thread name I hope before you dived into the trash yourself?
Dave.