"Where's your license plate?"

Um, it's a new car? In the mail I guess?

He claimed that I could not remove the "dealer plate" from the rear of the vehicle, you know the large ugly advertisement? BTW, a dealer plate is a "real" legal plate with numbers.

And some other crap including wanting to see my receipt? WTF? It's at home stored safely away, not in my car where a thief could have my car AND a receipt, duh.



I said no you can't force me to advertise for xxxx Honda for free, and if there's a problem you can use the legal registration attached to the windshield to check the car, thank-you-very-much.

He thought *I* had stolen the car, and said have a nice evening and left...



I shall spare you the story of the speeding cop that almost hit me, and the other cop that busted into my bedroom and accused me of attacking him (wrong apartment...) yeah I get annoyed because I'm the biggest goody two-shoes on the the planet. My friend's a cop (from Modesto no less where the hwy patrol got his head blown off) and I hear about "real crap" but I still don't like unnecessary encounters from the hot-headed ones.

 

So you are driving a vehicle with no visible proof of registration, no temp tag, and not copies of anything that says you own the car? Even if a thief broke in and stole the receipt, the car would still be registered to you and possession of a receipt would not let him sell your car. A car is not like a telivision or stereo!

You DESERVE a ticket!! You are driving the car in violation of the law and then get upset when a plice officer stops you and GIVES YOU A BREAK BY NOT CITING YOU?????

You say you have a freind who is a cop, yet you then start going on about things that you obviously know very little about! Ask your cop friend about going to silent alarms or domestic situations without lights or sirens in order not to advertise the police response, yet you do need to increase the urgency of the response slightly above the average Sunday drive. to to hear about it later from the complaint from the same people they are trying to protect complaining they were speeding! Don't always assume that they are late for lunch or the donut shop!

A cop's job is hard enough without having to put up with people that have inflated opinions of themselves that give them a hard time for only trying to do a hard job.

"yeah I get annoying because I'm the biggest goody two-shoes on the the planet. My friend's a cop (from Modesto no less where the hwy patrol got his head blown off) and I hear about "real crap" but I still don't like unnecessary encounters from the hot-headed ones."

Stop breaking the law and you will stop having "unnecessary" encounters with the police!



You get no sypathy from me!

 

Well....he DID say that he had the temporary registration on the windshield. I can understand where XORBE is coming from...the same thing has happened to me.

 

He never said he had no temp registration or temp tag, just that he did not have the dealer tag in the liscence plate. The dealer tag is a piece of carboard with nothing but an add for the dealer.

 

Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed? He did nothing wrong. He had his temp registration in his window which is there after you buy a new car. There is no point in keeping the dealer advertisement in your license plate area. I have always removed them when I bought all my cars new. Why advertise where you bought it from.

 

In Cali there is no temp tags like Illinois (the paper tag in the rear window) or Missouri (the paper license plate). It's just a little piece of paper taped to the windshield from the DMV for new vehicles.

Not all States are the same. How's Donna Summer listed in the phonebook?

 

xorbe, which city were you pulled over in?

 

Sorry, my mistake as to the removal of the dealer ad plate. Here the dealerships issue a rear dealer temp plate that is mounted on the back of the car. That is what I thought he was refering to. If the officer told him he had to keep the ad plate on, he might have been suggesting it to prevent the car from being pulled over as much. If he actually said it was mandated (I do find that hard to believe, but possible) then he is wrong.

What really got to me was the other asides pasted throughout the post, from the almost getting hit by the speeding cop car, to the "I still don't like unnecessary encounters from the hot-headed ones."

How is this considered an unnecessary stop? The cop pulls over a car that has no plates (try reading a piece of paper mounted in the windshield as it drives by) then asks to see the receipt. What is the problem with that? It is the proof that says that John Doe owns this car. Does the temp tag in the window list the owners details? I hope not! If it is anything like what they USED to give you here in IL., it is almost impossible for a street cop to get any info off of it without calling the dealership. What he asked for is no different than asking to see license and registration card. Proof of ownership. Look at it this way. What if the car had just been stolen and you later found out that the cops pulled it over, then just let them drive away? You would be screaming bloody murder about it!

The guy was just doing his job, and is only a human being. You refer to him as a hothead. I am sure your attitude during the stop was nothing but pleasant, right? He turned into a hothead with no provacation on your part whatsoever? As always, there are at least 2 sides to every story. We are only hearing one side of this one.

 

On Evelyn between Mary (in Mt View) and Bernardo (in Sunnyvale). Given that I was coming from SV to MV, it would have probably been a Sunnyvale cop.

All CA has is the reg inside the windshield. I've NEVER had a dealer to tell me to carry the receipt in 4 car purchases? And plenty people remove the dealer advertisement off the rear of the car.

I appreciate the job that they do, I just wish some of them would not sport such an "I'm right you're wrong" attitude.

Oh yeah, forgot about the previous encounter.

My Jetta oil pan hit the extra-tall steel filling cap at a gas station at 11PM in Milpitas and cracks. Of course I barely get down 237/Calaveras at all and pull over with the car's dash wailing at me. Cop shows up, and harrasses me about drugs for 15 minutes because my eyes were red (I wear contacts and have allergies!) Thinks I've done a hit and run. (wtf? There's OIL all over the ground! Call another unit and have the check the oil that was all over the gas station, because it was!) It's raining, he makes me get out of the vehicle and stand in the rain. He says he's in a hurry, and makes me cancel the FREE tow truck from my insurance, and calls "his buddy". He talks to his buddy for another 15 minutes (some hurry). I'm still in the drizzle. Finally hooks my car up. Charges me in excess of $200 for 2 blocks.

My cars are bone stock save for the nosemask (to save the paint) due to all my freeway driving to visit my family every weekend. I'm a hard-working engineer who isn't involved in anything remotely illegal. So yeah, I get a little bent out of shape when I get treated poorly at the hands of power-tripping cops.

I don't like to work my butt off and save up money, pay cash for a car, and then have a cop tell me that "You need to prove to me that you didn't steal this car."

He is supposed to READ the reg on the windshield. He is supposed to READ my driver's license. He calls them in, and it will be VERIFIED. There was no need for him to threaten me like that, and that's why I told him the reg is on the windshield if there's a problem. As he had no grounds, he promptly left. HE DIDN'T EVEN CHECK after all that fuss!

I am extremely nice and accomodating for a cop, because I don't need any more trouble than I've already got at the moment! I'm mature and well-behaved. No way I'd give a cop a hint of crap, as I'm sure that they do have to deal with real crap from real problem people. That's why I'm blowing my steam off here, thanks for reading...

I should tell you guys the story about the Mountain View cops that hand-cuffed my co-worker for MegaCalorie protein power...

 

Funny how you run into all of these bad cops that are just out to ruin your day!

Good thing they have you around to tell them what they are "supposed" to do!


Later!

 

There will always be good cops and bad cops. Just like there are good employees who do there job and bad ones. I remember the time when I was pulled over by a motorcycle cop. When I pulled over, I unbuckled my seatbelt before he got to my window so I could get the registration. That was a mistake. When he approached my window, he said he saw that I was not wearing my seatbelt. I told him I was but he said that I was lying. I couldn't believe it. He gave me a warning and let me go. It made me mad that he would blatantly lie to me and call me a liar.

 

I never said the cops were bad. I will say they are a bit rude and hot though -- but I can also see how they need to be "commanding" when confronting true bad-4$$ people. Just wish it weren't that way.

Validating my license and registration is what he was supposed to do if he thought it was stolen.

I'm probably just having an unlucky streak, oh well...

Missed my chance to give him a tour of the new Fit!

If you can't tell (hint: @brdss), I'm trying to vent my frustration of our imperfect society. Laugh it off with me and make the world a better place.

 

when it comes to having encounters with the cops i take the cake for that one. I know that it is a hassle when a cop pulls you over when your doing nothing wrong...then if you did something just cooperate. Asking for the receipt of the car is stupid in my opinion...after seeing the registration on the window that should have been enough. I am from Miami and these cops here got worse things to worry about than a car with no plate...here we get a temp tag and i just my plate yesterday less than 30 days of getting the car.
I dont hate cops, but there are ones that get a big head out there job and mess around with the innocent...while the bad guy is getting away...better have your papers now cause you might be considered an illegal immigrant

 

sounds like a stupid cop man

 

BTW, our cops here are angels compared to the police in the Philippines... (I went on vacation there, my host had a few stories!)

When I got to work today, my co-worker had left me a "Rice Citation" on my keyboard... hehheh, that's the laugh I needed!

 

Some policemen can be jerks. The small town I live in seems to be able to find people in two catagories. Those that have a hardon to carry a badge and a gun and those that can't get a better job. I have been pulled over in the middle of the night for having tribal plates on my truck by a cop that was looking for a bust to "catch up" with his coworkers. I guess he figured any Indian out at that time was drunk or high, it couldn't have been that they had a job and got off late. I found out before he was fired that he was having sex with a underage girl, 14 yrs old, in the patrol car. How can I help but have a bad opinion of my local police. I have lived here all my life and seen many examples of lousy cops. Some are good but even those get cynical.

 

I understand what you are trying to do, I just thought I would offer a little bit of the view from the other side! As far as validating your registration, it does not work like it is shown on TV. Without an actual registered plate, it can be very hard to verify. License applied for stickers give some basic info, but not verifiable from the computer ar through the police station. IL just recently (within the last few years) started using the temp plates, and that makes it so much easier to get the needed information, as the dealership has to transfer the info by computer to the secretary of states office.


In my experience, the attitude shown while being detained for a traffic stop is usually returned by the officer. If you treat them with respect, they will treat you with respect right back. It is the "I know (or think you know) my rights and you don't have the right to ask me that or tell me to do that!" attitude that get more people tickets than just about any other thing I can think of!

Things are done sometimes that you do not see the need for, but are done for a reason anyway. The speeding cop car, the cop car that approaches an intersection, flips on the overheads, goes through, then turns them off again, the officer that asks to see a bill of sale on a car with no plates. There are plenty of reasonable explanations for these.

I will give you one more, based on your last example of the hole in your oil pan. Here we are told that our standard operating procedure, upon pulling up to a disabled car, is to have it removed from the roadway as soon as possible, thus decreasing the risk of another accident. We do not wait for AAA to send out a tow truck, we call one of the tow services with the contract for the city. Why? As part of the contract, the tow companies agree to make police tow's priority #1. That means they are usually there within 5-10 minutes. Tow companies that contract for AAA and other companies of the like, put those tow's at the end of the list, as they do not pay very well. Waiting for an hour or two on the roadway for a tow truck not only puts you in danger, as well as the officer, it also ties up the manpower that might be needed on another call. It is not like he can just leave you sitting there in the roadway and drive off! That puts a little different spin on the story you told, now doesn't it? You might not know why it is being done, as you do not do the job. Assuming why he did such and such (called his "buddy" to tow me instead of using my free tow) when you may not know all of the information is not a good thing, but I bet that this is not the first time you have told that story! Did he ticket you for depositing debris on the roadway? See how lucky you were??

Just remember this, while being pulled over by a marked squad, YOU know who you are dealing with, the police. The policeman performing a traffic stop has no idea if you are going to or from church, or if you just brutally stabbed 4 family members to death with a butter knife! Mother Teresa or Hanibal Lector. There is no such thing as a low risk traffic stop. The best they can hope for is an unknown risk! More officers are killed each year by traffic incidents than by bieng shot!

Of course, maybe he just wanted a chance to check out a car he had never seen before!

 

After re-reading brdss's very first post in this thread, who seems to be a police officer himself, I really think I don't have much more to say about this topic...

But I do thank you for the dangerous job that you do, regardless.

 

I've always been polite and courteous when I've interacted with police/chp/whatever, and somehow its never been reciprocated. They always seem to be on a power trip or better than you.

It seems to me that the people that want to be cops do it for one of four reasons.

1) Low self esteem (aka Small Man Syndrome). "I'm short and/or I got picked on when I was little, so this is my chance to show 'em who's boss."
2) Hard-ass syndrome (aka Power Tripper). "I get hard intimidating people and causing unnecessary trouble and stress."
3) Not smart enough for a real job. "Say car RAMROD!!"
4) They want to make their community better. Admirable, but quite possibly mythical. Most people that actually matter have brains (see #3).

Seems like all the ones I've met are a combination of the first three in varying proportions, with some being covered in a thin veil of #4.

edit:

 

And yet the first one you will call when you are in trouble, right? Funny how that works, huh? Yeah, I know "I would never call the cops! I would handle it myself!" Right! Sure!

You say that you you have always acted repectful towards them. there is a difference between acting respectful and being respectful! I don't think you are that good an actor! It is plain that you hate cops and think you are better than them, just from what you have written! Ever take a police officer exam? Of course not, or you would not say what you did. At least where I am, you have to have more than a high school diploma to even test, not to mention surpass the 100's of other people testing for the same single position to be filled. Fshwcrs, that is like me saying you are a disgruntled office worker/computer cowboy that hates his boss, goes home every night to either eat alone or, if he sonehow got lucky enough, get bossed around by his wife! That would be an assumption. Based solely on your attitude in posting. Stereotypes based on assumptions and the acts of a few to paint a whole group like he does is just plain wrong.

I had alread stated I was mistaken in the meaning of your rear dealer plate issue. Here they are called dealer temp plates or dealer temp tags. That does change my opinion about xorbe getting a ticket. I am sorry about that. Just a matter of how things are done in different states/countries. It does not change my opinion of the fact that the officer did not make an unnecessary stop, or that he was wrong for asking to see proof of ownership. Nobody did answer my question of how they would react if the car HAD been stolen and the officer had let the car go. Be honest, you would be yelling for his head, especially if it was your brand new Fit!


xorbe, in my opinion, is slightly predisposed to jump to conclusions about some of the actions of police officers, not truly out of being a bad person, but just due to not knowing all of the details that the job entails. I would suggest that he inquire if any of his local departments offer a ride along program. Everyone I have ever talked to that did this always say the same thing, "How do you put up with this stuff every day!" Seeing it with your own eyes might change your opinion.

fshwcrs, on the other hand, will go to his grave being a cop hater and no amount of discussion will change his closed mind. I feel sorry for him.

I have said what I wanted to say, so this too is my last post in this thread.