Getting pulled over by police is something that almost certainly happens to most drivers at least once in their lives. Sometimes, you have a dead brake light and don’t realize it. Or, perhaps you’re testing a brand new Chevy Camaro in Virginia and go just a bit too fast. Whatever the reason, traffic stops happen. What’s the dumbest reason you’ve gotten pulled over?
I’m somewhat surprised to say that despite my love for reaching the far end of tachometers, my driving record is largely clean. I like to keep my thrill-seeking vehicular shenanigans away from where others could get hurt, and I suppose that also keeps me out of the spotlight of the law.
Still, I’ve goofed up a couple of times. The weirdest time I got stopped happened to be when I was customizing a 1986 Honda Elite 150D for the Gambler 500. Oh yes, I took the pop-up headlight wonder off-road! I got the scooter for a few hundred bucks because it had a bent frame, no title, and rough panels. It was far enough past its prime that I didn’t feel guilty about beating it up.
I quickly discovered a critical issue with the scooter and it was the fact that it didn’t have a working cooling fan. I fixed that with an oversized fan from a bigger scooter. Then, I added off-road light pods to complete the Mad Max theme I was going for. I left the wiring exposed for that rough look seen in that movie series’ universe. One more repair was to the scooter’s ignition, which jammed and broke the key. One quick detour to eBay later and I was back on the road!
When I was finished ruining this poor scooter, I took it on a test ride. As I said before, the scooter didn’t have a title. The ol’ Vermont trick was still a thing back then, so that’s what I did. But I didn’t want to wait for the plate to come in to take it for a test ride. Instead, I slapped the plate from a Suzuki GS on the back and hopped on. I figured I was just going around the block, so it would have been fine.
It wasn’t. Halfway through the short ride, I got pulled over. Now, I initially thought I got pulled over either because of the license plate or the janky modifications. It was neither. The officer said he pulled me over because I didn’t put my foot down at a stop sign. I knew that in Illinois, stopping a motorcycle technically doesn’t count until your foot is down, but I didn’t think anyone would enforce it. Stopped is stopped, right?
Well, this officer did try to enforce it, but he was amused by my little science project. He found nothing overtly illegal, but he did notice the plate belonged to a Suzuki rather than the Honda. Making matters worse, he stopped me in a dead zone, so my insurance app wasn’t working. The officer explained that a wrong plate, no provable insurance, and no ownership documents were more than enough grounds to send my crappy scoot to the impound.
I explained myself and the officer was nice about everything. I got a warning and my instructions were to head home immediately and that the scooter better not show up again with the wrong plate. No problem! I learned a few valuable lessons that night. The officer informed me that at least in this state, it’s better to run no plates than plates from the wrong vehicle. It also helps to keep a local digital copy of your insurance plus a physical copy.
In second place was the time I was stopped for speeding in one of my Smarts. It perhaps should have been more than just a ticket, but the cop couldn’t stop laughing at witnessing a Smart going so fast. The laugh was apparently good enough to let me off with a warning.
So, those are the dumbest stops I’ve ever had. What about you?
Topshot: framestock/stock.adobe.com
Ah, Patrick George.
That was ten years ago, my God. Who else even remembers that.
Anyhow, I don’t think any of mine have been truly bizarre or anything. There was one where I was definitely speeding coming down a hill towards a highway that I’d hop on for all of one exit before getting home. I explained to the officer that I had wrapped up an all-day wedding shoot on the other side of the neighboring state and was just making my way home. He looked at the address on my license and I had enough to back up my story that maybe he took pity on me or something. “Dang, and he almost made it home.” Let off with a warning.
“At least I didn’t get fired. Matt said the last thing you’ll ever get fired for at Jalopnik is speeding. It’s just an occupational hazard for us. And when I emailed Gawker’s editorial director Joel Johnson to apologize, he replied saying, “I don’t give a fuck,” and added that he found the matter “hilarious.” So I had that going for me.”
Can you believe that that’s the same site as it is today? Imagine how different the higher-up response would be. Wild.
Paddy G going to prison was a seminal moment at the old site. To this day I like to remind everyone that PG and Martha Stewart have more street cred than most rappers out there.
Link?
Sure!
https://jalopnik.com/never-speed-in-virginia-lessons-from-my-three-days-in-1613604053
Oof
I passed a Charlotte city cop on an interstate highway. I was going exactly the speed limit, and the pass took about THREE full minutes before I slowly inched ahead of his car. He immediately pulls me over, runs to the window, YELLING, spit flying everywhere, “DONT YOU EVER PASS ME!!” He continued, “DONT YOU EVER PASS ME!!” a few more times waving his arms. I was terrified. He finished by screaming “GET THE F__K OUT OF HERE BEFORE I TAKE YOU TO JAIL”. It was a memorable encounter for a teenager.
I received a ticket for “Exhibition of Speed” as a teenager in my ’88 Mustang LX 5.0 for spinning my tires from a stoplight with a cop nearby. I wasn’t actually speeding, but spinning the tires was apparently its own ticketable offense. I went to court, claimed my transmission was slipping and showed a receipt for the shift kit I installed. Ticket dismissed.
I got pulled over at 2am on the one highway that Whidbey Island has (525). When he walked up to the car his exact words were “Oh I thought your license plate lights weren’t working, but now I see they are, license and registration please!”. He was very clearly doing random DUI stops, and needed to make up a reason to pull me over. He made some light conversation about a fish tank I had in the back (again, to check if i was drunk) and eventually cut me loose.
Allegedly exceeding the speed limit by 3 mph. Granted, this was in a park where the posted speed limit was 15 mph. BUT it had recently been reduced from 20. The first posted speed limit sign was several hundred feet up from where I’d been stopped. Said speed limit signs are dark brown with thin white text and it was late at night. Can’t even say I was pulled over for being in a park late at night because I was one of dozens of cars going to a hockey game in the fieldhouse.
In Canada now the police don’t need a reason to pull you over and demand a breath sample.
I was leaving the liquor store at around noon. Put the beer in the trunk (as required by law here). I was followed, didn’t break a single law and was pulled over so they could demand a breath sample.
Blew a 0 and was sent on my way.
Officer’s given reason: I was doing 70 in a 55.
What I believe the reason to be: Needed one more ticket before end of shift.
This was on a 2 lane road that was straight as an arrow with no intersections or even buildings for 2.5 miles from where I turned on to it. By the time opposing direction traffic reaches you at the road I was turning from it’s been spread out and people have passed slower traffic. This morning though I just see a clump of traffic heading my way. Logical conclusion? There’s a cop behind them so everyone’s being super careful.
With that in mind I pull onto the road, accelerate nice and easy, and stick it to no more than 55. Sure enough, as I pass that clump of cars going the other way there’s a motorcycle cop at the back of the pack. He immediately turns around as I pass and follows me for a couple of miles before pulling me over. He walks up, asks for my license (doesn’t even bother asking for registration or proof of insurance), and walks away. A couple of minutes later he’s back, shoves the ticket book at me and says he caught me on radar doing 70 in a 55. The entire stop lasted about 3 minutes. It should also be noted that the motorcycles our local Sheriffs used at that time only had handheld radar guns so he couldn’t have gotten anyone on radar from where he was, let alone gotten me doing 15 above my actual speed.
I got the ticket dismissed but I’m still salty about it over 15 years later…
How did you beat it?
Went through doing a trial by written declaration. Not sure if every state allows for it but in California you can request a trial that way vs going in person. The benefit is instead of the trial being overtime ($$$) for the officer to show up, it’s just another piece of paperwork and usually a low-priority one for them at that. This means they often don’t respond in time or at all, and that gets you an automatic dismissal.
Pulled over immediately after buying my first car.
In college I bought a 66 Mustang (in 1987). I needed to drive it a half mile back to campus, but I got pulled over by a state trooper who 1) was ending his shift and would have been out of his jurisdiction as soon as I turned off of the state route (in about 100 yards), 2) and who had his own 65 Mustang convertible at home that he had restored, so he was particularly interested in this car. I ended up getting three tickets and going to court… timing is everything.
Sad end to the story is that when I moved back home for the summer, we discovered that the frame rails were rotted in the back and the car needed more work than I could afford, or that I could do in my parents’ driveway. I had it for less than five months.
My dumbest pullover was also on a scooter. The officer claimed I made a wide turn in front of him, so he wanted to make sure I wasn’t drunk. I think what actually happened was the route I took in front of him was so nonsensical as I was bombing around my neighborhood on the first warm day after winter, that was what made him wonder if I was drunk.
I don’t drink at all, and he could tell instantly that I was indeed not drunk, so he just asked to see my proof of insurance so I could be on my way. When I opened my wallet to retrieve the insurance card, several gift cards I had fell out, including a Dunkin Donuts gift card that landed on top to the pile. The officer just looked down at that, looked up at me, and dead-panned, “No bribes.”
I damn near fell off the scooter laughing!
I live about an hour north of the border. Every six weeks or so I cross over to pick up items I receive at a US mailbox. I’m usually stateside for less than an hour.
The US (and Canadian) border officials are always professional but thorough. I’ve even had my car x-rayed several times.
One day about 15 years ago, I was returning to Canada in my Cadillac DTS when a mature US border officer walked into the roadway and flagged me down. This was right at the US border facility, but in the unrestricted lane for those departing the USA and heading towards the Canadian border crossing.
The US border officer was very chatty with me. I remember we talked hockey and maybe a few other things. After a few minutes I asked why he stopped me. He said: “I’m looking for somebody – but you’re not him. Your free to go.”
No idea what that was about. But it’s never happened again.
I have the highest respect for those who work 24/7 to protect our borders.
I had a very strange one with a Canadian border guard. I was in my Sprinter in Niagra and just going up to Canada for a day. It’s an older panel van with no windows or markings, so I half expected to get searched. I wouldn’t have blamed them.
The agent asks me what’s in the van, and I tell him it’s a camper van. He asks about alcohol, and I say “I have two bottles of wine and three 12oz beers.” He almost sounded disappointed when he said “That’s under the limit” – Yeah bud, I looked it up.
He then starts asking what I do for a living. “I’m an attorney.” He asks what kind of attorney. “I do mostly contract negotiation.” He asks what kind of contracts. He asks me about my career for like 5 minutes. Then on to my wife. “I’m a mathematician.” He asks what kind of mathematician and thirty other questions as if he knows the nuances of applied mathematics. Yeesh.
Then he asks if we have any weapons. I say no, other than a kitchen knife or two. He then asks “Do you have any weapons at home?” I asked “You mean my home… 1,500 miles from here?” Yes. He then proceeds to ask me about the contents of my house, if I have any pets, how much cash is in the house… I’m legitimately wondering if he has friends down south and he was looking for a good place to rob.
Overall he kept us for 20+ minutes asking detailed questions about my life, family, net worth, investments… It was bizarre. Finally he let us go, and never searched the van.
The next day I’m reentering the US and the border agent asks “What’s in the van?” I say “Clothes and some food, sir!”
“Great! Welcome home, son.” End of conversation.
Back in the early ’90’s, good lights for bicycles were just becoming a thing. I had a set, a few other friends had good lights as well, so we’d meet up for mountain bike rides whenever we could. One time we had a good group together, maybe 5 or 6 really strong riders and we decided that because it was night and we were unlikely to see any other trail users we’d hit the one trail in the park that was off-limits to mountain bikes. The thrill of the group, plus a bit of testosterone poisoning had the group going just shy of race pace. The trail was an out-and-back, so we turn around at a parking lot and reverse the first half…that was the plan. Instead there was a park police car sitting there waiting for us. He walked halfway towards us, then says “Shit, you guys are on bicycles! I thought I caught a bunch of motorcycles”. He’d been watching our lights from across the lake and said we were hauling ass. We made a couple of nervous jokes because we still thought we were going to be ticketed, but then he says “Have a nice night and be careful”. We debated riding the trail back, but thought he might realize he could ticket us for riding an illegal trail, so we took the road back to our cars and got the hell out of there.
Because I had a carload of teenage girls with me. Asshole Skokie cops lied and said we matched the description of some burglary suspects. Sure! Yeah, a teenage boy with five girls just broke into a house and then decided to casually cruise up Dempster Ave on a Saturday evening in a ’74 Pontiac while loudly cranking tunes with the windows down. I’m pretty sure it was just pervy cops wanting to check out the girls in their summer clothes.
Had an officer race through residential streets to pull me over in my 300SD “Because it looked like your windows were illegally tinted”. They had the factory tint—which I showed him while chuckling. He knew I knew a higher-up had it in for me. He did not like my question about how fast he had had to drive past people’s houses to pull me.
-this was after a certain officer had basically flagged all my cars for pull-overs/harrasment. I was pulled on about a weekly basis for several months before I finally called the department listing times & reasons I was pulled and suggesting that this amounted to harrasment
Well dumbest on my part or the cops part? But I bought a new box truck delivery truck for my company. Pennsylvania jhad just recently decided to save money by not sending renewal notice for registration, you should know it needs it, and during Covid so PENNDOT was like months behind. So pulled over at 330 AM for expired registration with no ability to confirm ownership. Cop didn’t want to do the paperwork because getting off shift but promised me if when he came back on duty he was checking and if it wasn’t registered an $800 fine plus the $300 to register was heading my way. Yes at the door at AAA at opening and registered.
When I was in college I was driving my white 01 SSEi through downtown Bloomington, and there was an officer in the lane next to me, after I set off from the stoplight he lit me up, pulled me over, and explained he pulled me over to write me a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt. I had to politely explain to him I haven’t touched my seatbelt since I put it on when I left the house, and asked him to actually look at my seatbelt, and how it doesn’t reach from the B pillar to the seat, like most cars. It reaches from the top of the seat next to the headrest and goes over the shoulder. He tried to be sincere about his apology for jumping to conclusions, but just letting me go on my way was satisfactory.
Dumbest because of the officer: Taillight was out in 1998.
Here’s the backstory though.
This was in a small suburb of Orlando (Windermere) early in the morning before the sun was up. I was 16 years old and drove an 84 Jeep Cherokee.
The alternator had died earlier in my drive, and my lights were starting to flicker and die. I pulled the car over at a payphone to call home that my car was dying, and that I needed a ride to work.
A few minutes later, a random police officer pulled up behind me, and all I thought was relief… for about half a secon.
The police officer proceeded to tell me he had seen me several miles down with a broken taillight. I explained that my car had just broken down, and I was limping it to a safe area to pull over. Instead of a warning that all common sense would dictate, he took a few minutes to research what to ticket me for, and he ticketed me for a subsection of Florida statute that turned this into a full on ticket, rather than a fix it ticket.
——————
Dumbest because of me: Burnout on public roads in 2009. Oddly enough, I didn’t even get a ticket.
I was in Puerto Rico for grad school at the time, and had a hard day in class. I pulled out and dumped the clutch to try to do a burnout and just blow off some steam. There were no cars behind me, and it was a relatively quiet area. Anyway, the burnout sort of took, and a police officer I had missed saw it and pulled me over.
I stopped the car, lowered my window, had my license/registration out, and waited. Two police officers came out, they put a flashlight on my face and documents, flashlight on my plate, and flashlight on my windshield registration decal. Then they went back to their squad car. I sat there for what felt like an hour (but was probably 5-10 minutes), they chirped the siren, turned on their blue lights, and left very quickly. I assume they got a shots fired call or something, but to this day I wondered how else this could have played out.
Did you have a PR driver’s license? While I lived there, about 4 years, I never got a PR license. I got pulled over in my Volvo C30 and was given a ticket. It really wasn’t much but since I was driving on a Mass license (the car was registered to me in PR) I never paid it. A friend told me that they would always file non-PR licensed drivers away and they never got reported on any system. Even though he had lived in PR most of his life, he always got a Florida license renewed just for this reason.
I believe they are now connected to the rest of the states, as of 5 years ago more or less, so they do get reported now.
I also did grad school there but we were actually there for my wife’s job.
I had both FL and PR licenses, and would only present my FL license when pulled over. It was about 50/50 whether or not I’d get a ticket, and none would ever show up.
Doing 75mph in a 70mph in Michigan… when damn everyone else is going above 80mph. The cop asked me a lot of questions about the car, nothing even mentioned about the speed. 3 impeding traffic tickets later on different situations and roads, I still don’t understand why the Polestar gets so much attention from cops.
Because it looks (and is) fast. That is why it gets police attention.
The dumbest reason I’ve ever been pulled over was for running a red turn arrow that had just changed. While I was guilty, I thought the ticket was a bit unfair because I ran it to avoid being rear-ended by the guy behind me. He got a ticket for running it too.
The funniest time I ever got pulled over was one Friday night when I was around 22 or 23 years old. I was in the process of moving some stuff to storage because I was changing apartments. I had loaded my Geo Metro to the gills and was hauling ass to the storage unit around 1:00 am. I had not been drinking. It was an industrial part of town, little traffic, wide roads and I was going about 60 in a 45. Anyway, red-blues come on and I pull over. The cop asked if I knew why he pulled me over and I said, “Well, I was speeding.” He burst out laughing and said, “At least you’re honest about it.” he ran my info and told me to slow it down and have a good night.
According to the officer? Didn’t use my turn signal
According to me, who admitted nothing? Didn’t use my turn signal while changing lanes to be able to continue speeding through an at-best recently-turned-orange light.
Made eye contact with the officer while he was standing outside his car at the gas station on the opposite corner. Knew I was burnt just didn’t know how bad. Turns out, not so bad results: Verbal warning, a high five with my buddy in the passenger seat, and a story I can post on the internet in 25 years.
For several years I had a stock ’37 Plymouth P4 as my daily driver. The original owner apparently hadn’t wanted to spent too much on it, so it only had, for example, one windshield wiper and one tail/brake light. In both cases a second one would have been available but only at extra cost. I don’t have a good photo of the rear but this shows, in the background, the light on the left side:
https://live.staticflickr.com/5133/5512867456_cfc3733b03_c.jpg
and this more or less shows the absence of a light on the right side:
https://live.staticflickr.com/5249/5206582903_3b59dc0159_c.jpg
Perfectly legal for a car of its age but not commonly encountered these days. At one point I was driving through Florence, OR, at about 2:00 AM to visit my family, having gotten a late start leaving Seattle. I got stopped in the middle of town. The officer walked up slowly and paused to look over the rear of the car at length. He then approached me and said he had stopped me because I didn’t have a right tail light… [long pause] at all. I explained that it had never had one.
He returned to his car, presumably to confirm that the law didn’t require a second light on a car of this vintage. He then sent me on my way after letting me know that he liked the car.
I had to check the pictures twice, because to my recollection the Plymouth P4 didn’t come in bright yellow with three wheels.
Not necessarily a dumb reason to get stopped but stupidity ensued. I was headed from Michigan to pick up some friends in Ohio and go to a lake in Tennessee. I was on an empty road in the middle of absolute nowhere Ohio and I’m excited and also have a long drive ahead of me so I’m exceeding the limit by a bit, nothing obscene. At the time Michigan had newly legalized recreational weed and it was still illegal in Ohio. You can see where this is going. Cop pulls over a younger guy from a state with legal weed heading on vacation. He immediately starts saying things like “you seem nervous, is there something I should know about” just repeating it several times throughout the interaction. Gives me a ticket then asks if I would consent to a search of the car. I comply because I was hoping to get to my destination at a reasonable time, but I really should’ve made him get a warrant. I had nothing on me, so thing was found, but this guy 100% had his mind made up I had something from the minute he saw my out of state plates.
That’s Ohio.
America’s sigmoid colon.
Back in my early college years I got pulled over once on a Baja SAE team trip, the trooper asked for my license and reg, went back to his car and then returned them to me, informed me that my mildly riced out WRX “sounds like a frickin truck” and sent me on my way. No explanation, no citation, nothing. My teammate’s best hypothesis was that they might have had a warrant or amber alert out for someone else in a silver wagon, but that remains unsolved.
Old white lady here, drove a white single cab Ranger pickup that could pass for a fleet vehicle right down to it’s steel wheels and black bumpers, Minneapolis cops never bothered me despite my provocations. Bought a 2 door Golf TDI in black ’cause I like the Euro look in 2003 and until the local cops got to know the car I was stopped for all kinds of taillights and such that suddenly started working when the cop had a look at my white face… Profiling is real!
I have a few, but I think this one is the most egregious. I was giving my friend a ride. I’m white, friend was African-American. Location was rural eastern NC. I had temp tags on the car (an 85 Celica GT) that expired a day beforehand. Dates were written by hand with a felt tip pen at this time.
I was doing about 60 on a 2 lane rural road, passed a sheriff going the opposite direction at about the same speed. Immediately after passing us he flips around, and pulls me over.
He walks up to the window, and say ‘I’m pulling you over because I noticed your temp tags were expired.’ Yeah buddy, you surely noticed the tiny hand-written date in the corner of my plate through your rear view mirror as we pulled away from each other at 120 mph. He tried to find some other reason to harass us, but could find none, so he let me go with a verbal warning. This was my first introduction to DWB.
Making an “illegal” left turn in San Francisco. I went through this intersection every day on my way to work or school so I knew that left turn was not allowed during commute hours which were clearly printed on the sign. This day it was around noon and not close to either prohibited time period. I made a left turn and immediately got pulled over. I tried to get the cop to go back and look at the sign and he threatened to arrest me for arguing with him. Had to accept the ticket and then go to court to challenge it. Was before cell phones so I took a photo of the sign, got it developed, and made an exhibit for court with that and the ticket showing the time it was given being during the allowed left turn period. Spent hours waiting for my case to come up and of course the cop didn’t show so it was dismissed without the judge even looking at my carefully prepared evidence.
Gotta love it when cops don’t want you to prove your right, and then avoid the consequences of their actions!