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
Picture this 2 am in Massachusetts and I am chauffeuring my lovely girlfriend to New Hampshire. The speed limit in the section of highway went from 55 to 65 to 55 down to 50 in a span of about 5 miles. The culmination of being tired, trying to beat a NH snow storm, and last seeing a speed limit of 55 I was doing about 60 (top speed for a 91 Cavalier with a 4 cylinder and going up a steep incline). Radar detector was bottom or the line for the time and apparently Mass decide to set up late night speed traps to catch unsuspecting hooligans driving top speed through the state.
Me: *flashing lights behind me* What? I am doing 5 over the speed limit.
**pull over cop comes up**
Cop: “Didn’t see the speed trap back there?”
Me: “I was doing the speed limit, but no didn’t see it.”
Cop: “Son, you were well over the speed limit.”
Me: “My cruise was set to 60 and I was going uphill so maybe 4-5 over.”
Cop: “Speed limit was dropped to 50 where we were.”
Me: “Oh…shit…”
Cop: “Nice radar detector…”
I got stopped once in Park slope, the part of Brooklyn where houses go for $6 million but probable more now, this was 15 years ago.
I do my finest Jedi mind trick “good morning Officer what can I do for you?”,
The response was ”oh our captain says we aren’t stopping enough white people”
Then quickly as though he had made a joke, “ this is the third time you’ve driven around the block” which of course I was looking for a parking space.
Going on the sidewalk?
I was riding my bicycle and I came to a set of traffic lights at a “T” junction. Since I was going across the top of the “T”, I just rode onto the pavement [this was in Liverpool, UK — where the Beatles came from — so it was a pavement, not a sidewalk, but to be clear: the part of the road reserved for pedestrians]. I was quickly pulled up by the local rozzers who had observed me doing this from their panda car.
I got a warning, no ticket.
i got pulled over by a utah state trooper for an out of state tint ticket and he threatened to impound my car and leave me stranded in the high desert out in east utah on i70. he was mad cause there was no traffic on the road and i was doing 2 under the speed limit in the right lane when i passed him.
Empty highway, middle of the night, in the left lane going the speed limit. Cop pulls me over saying I should’ve stayed out of the left lane. Off with a warning.
I got ticketed by a county mountie because I pulled over.
Driving down a country 2 lane highway. I see an old Ford truck barrel up on me and almost literally attach itself to my bumper. He follows me that way for almost a mile. Then I see a police car with lights flashing poking around the side of the truck’s arse. This goes on for another half mile. I decide that I don’t want to be involved in the truck’s flight from the law and start pulling over onto the shoulder. All of a sudden the cop hammers it around the truck and brake checks him and almost PITs me. The truck leaves about a 100′ of skidmark and the cop manages to not hit me.
The sheriff’s deputy asks for my license and insurance. I ask why he pulled me over. His response was, “I was going after the truck behind you, but since I didn’t want to chase him through the town (we almost made it to the city limits) and you pulled over, I’m going to give you a ticket.” “What am I getting a ticket for?” “I’m thinking speeding this time.” I don’t know what he meant by “this time” since I had never been in that county before in my life.
Well I call the county traffic prosecutor and tell him what the cop said and that I had witnesses. I explained that as a broke college student I didn’t have money, but I had time to go to court to contest the ticket. The fine went from $120 at the courthouse to $40 cash mailed to a PO Box located in the neighboring county. In return the ticket never appeared on my record. That’s rural Oklahoma county law enforcement for you.
This is a good one. Way back in the late ’70’s in Toronto. I was driving home from having dinner at my Sister’s place at about 11:00 pm. I took the ramp from Jarvis St. on to the Elevated Gardiner Expressway Eastbound. When I got to the top of the ramp and merged onto the strangely vacant road, a car approached at high speed and glued itself to my rear bumper. Very close. I was driving my ’77 VW Scirocco which was very low for the time. His headlights were not visible below my back window. That close. I wasn’t sure who this was. It could be a drunk driver, or… So I gently tapped my brake pedal just enough to flash the lights. Then I noticed a red flashing light cast across my dash. His roof lights were above my rear window and not visible to me. Did I mention he was close? So I pulled over. There being no traffic at all (as far as I could see both forward and behind) except for the two cars and one of the few places on the Gardiner with a breakdown lane, this was safe. A large black police officer appeared at my door and asked how fast I was going. Toronto before 1980 was extremely white bread in racial composition, unlike today. He must have been one of a single digit number of his description on the force. As I was actually just getting up to speed I said I was doing exactly the speed limit (90k). He shifted to asking me for my license and insurance. For some reason I didn’t have my license in my wallet that day but had the insurance cert. and ownership slip. I gave him my license number as I have it memorized. He went back to his car for a very long time. When he came back I asked if I could ask a question: Did he have his roof lights on as he approached my car? His expression and attitude immediately changed as he knew the answer was NO. Then he told me to present my license at a police station the next day and released me. Whatever citation he was writing up was dropped as he knew I would likely show up in court and embarrass him.
PS The fact that there was no traffic was somewhat normal at that time of night. The Good People were in bed watching Johnny Carson and everyone else was still partying.
I got pulled over once for drinking a Barqs root beer. Cop thought I had a beer in my hand.
I was once pulled over because I only signaled 99 foot before I turned instead of the required 100 foot. The cop then proceeded to question me for 15 minutes before letting me go.
How about pulling over by mistake!?
I was doing 70mph+ in a Dodge Shadow America (yeah it was possible) on a highway about 30 years ago as a young driver, when a cop car came up behind me, tailgating, lights on. So, I pulled over.
The cop car pulled up alongside rather than stopping behind me. He rolled down his window and motioned me to roll down my window.
Then he screamed, “NOT YOU!!!” and drove off.
I was confused.
I have had a few but never had a ticket stick and only ever had one even issued. I will try to do a quick summary while getting the important details.
I got pulled over near the Puerto Rican Day parade in NY, circa 2008. The (white) cop asked (white) me what the hell I was doing on two wheels anywhere near the PR parade, where they had orders to pull every single motorcyclist over. I had no mc license (125cc scooter) but I was plated and insured; he asked me if I preferred getting a ticket for no proof of insurance or no license and told me he wouldn’t respond when called in court.
Still feel vaguely guilty for having accepted the wages of whiteness in this case, but I really couldn’t afford the ticket, either.
Doing 97mph on the 55mph Peña Boulevard in Denver.
Oh, you meant stupid of the cop! Every time they would follow me for ten-fifteen minutes in Beverly Hills and then pull me over for something absurd only because I drove an ’83 Tercel AWD Wagon (2004; they weren’t cool yet). Don’t look poor in certain places.
My buddy got pulled over near a notorious speed trap where it went from 55 mph to 40. The cop however was new and pulled him over before he got to the 40 zone. My friend pointed out that the sign was 100 feet ahead of where he had been stopped. The cop was a little embarrassed and had to let him go.
Because he was bored, and in a brand new interceptor. He decided my Chevelle and I was the most likely to run……when I stopped right away he was disappointed. We ended up talking cars for about 30 minutes. Then he gave me a ticket because the county sticker on my license plate was faded and he couldn’t make a stop without giving out a ticket. Putz.
My youngest daughter was a bit of a joker, trouble maker and asshole to her older sister rolled into one. When she was about five, one of her favorite pastimes while riding in the back seat was to mess with other drivers. She regularly pumped her arm at truckers to blow their horn and liked to wave at folks in other cars then stick out her tongue. So, one fine day I was going somewhere with her and it was just us in the car. Cruising down the highway, a state police car came along side and slowed down. He then hit the lights, cut in front of me and forced me to stop. He approached the car unsnapping his side arm, stood about six feet away and ordered me out of the car. I was instructed to place my hands on the hood and spread my feet. There was a very tense interrogation about who I was and who was the child in the back. Of course I was able to identify myself but my daughter, being five, had no identification. Seems she had fogged the window with her breath and written “Help Me!” backwards and would re-fog the glass when a car passed. Being the smartass she was, I wasn’t sure what she would do next. Fortunately, she was so scared she admitted everything and started bawling. The officer was not amused and neither was I. He gave her a very stern lecture on how dangerous and stupid that was. Her behavior in the car was much better, for a while.
I got pulled over by a sheriff about a week after I picked up the permanent plate for my new car. I’d noticed he was following me and assumed I was gonna get stopped as soon as I got on the highway. Sure enough…
He thought I had a bogus plate. Turns out the DMV never properly entered my plates into the system, and yet somehow I still received a correct registration and sticker. He was just as baffled as I was when he saw my paperwork and sticker, apologized, did the DMV’s job for them and entered my plate in correctly, and sent me on my way. Neither of us had ever heard of that happening before.
I can’t recall the details, but I’ve heard the same sort of DMV snafu story from a few acquaintances over the years.
I was driving an utter pile with a blown head gasket that overheated in any kind of traffic, so I only drove at night when traffic was low and the cooler air could keep it from overheating. It was behaving extra poorly that night and I couldn’t get up to 60mph. I was staying in the right lane, but cops pulled me over anyway and said I couldn’t be on the freeway if I couldn’t drive the speed limit. They told me to get off at the next offramp and take surface streets.
The next exit took me into the hood. This was pre cell phones, and I wasn’t interested in being trapped in a piece of shit car that likely would have left me stranded there at night. Shit was real in the hood in LA back then, and I really didn’t want to stay in a gangsta’s paradise if i had the option. So I waited a while and got back on the freeway. The car somehow made it home. My SO helped me buy a better car soon after and I couldn’t get rid of that piece of shit fast enough.
That car and the one before it, which gave me the exact same problems, were 1980s domestics. I’ve only driven Japanese and German cars since and will never again own anything by the Detroit OEMs.
Flashed my brights at a cop when making a left turn because for some stupid reason I thought I had the right of way and he was making me wait for him. He turned around and lit me up right away. Got off with a warning at least.
Back in the ’80s when we had dedicated traffic police in NZ, this one time I was about to turn into a side road after the traffic cop went by in his brand new Mitsubishi V3000.
As I made the turn, I kept looking at the car and next thing I know, the cop has done a U-turn and is pulling me over. He asks me if there was a reason why I didn’t take the corner properly, so I told him I was looking at the car and light bar, coz I thought both were cool (lots of Police cars still had a couple of beacons and a center siren at the time, so a light bar was futuristic-looking)
Traffic cops were not known to have a sense of humor, but this guy smiled a little and let me off with a warning to pay more attention to the road.
I would have been all over that V3000, taking photos of it.
Most dumbest was for brushing my hair behind my ear out of my face.
Second dumbest, legit reason (front number plate had fallen off, although they pulled me the day before I was about to buy a new one) was dumb because I stopped to let someone out in heavy traffic (road was clear my side but other side was rammed.) I then carried on my journey but noticed that the police car I’d just let out was in the process of doing the absolute worst three point turn of ever seen. I carried on for a bit but kept it slow because I suspected he was after me. I eventually pulled into my street, but sat and waited and watched as they gave up, then noticed me and put their lights back on. First cop took my keys. Second cop asked me to put the windows down. Pointed out they just took myy keys, there’s no power to the window. £100 fine after many stupid questions. Drive off with my keys by mistake had to come back to return them. They didn’t fill out the fine correctly so I couldn’t pay it, had to wait a month for it to be reissued. Got taken to court even though they said they’d moved the date back for me to pay, paid the court fees and fine. They refunded court fees fine and told I’d paid the fine to the court when it should’ve gone to the police because it never should’ve gone to court. Took 4 months in total to pay the fine.
I got pulled over once for no front plate. Most likely because I was driving a shitbox in a ghetto ‘hood. Funny thing, 99% of the Teslas I see don’t have a front plate, but I don’t see them getting pulled over. Just sayin’
Many many years ago, in my previous life as an automotive writer/reviewer, I had with me a Ford Fiesta ST press car for a couple of days. Lovely times.
One late night, I took the car and headed towards some winding roads nearby for a bit of fun. Leading into the twisty bits that went through the forest was a short stretch of straight road that was a mini dam/bridge of sorts over a body of water. All the way through (including the mini bridge) it was a single lane in each direction, so fairly narrow.
As I was coming up through the bridge, I noticed a silver Mercedes E-Class ahead of me. Not thinking much of it, I pulled over to the next lane to overtake. For some reason, he wasn’t really happy with my maneuver, and flashed his headlights once I passed him.
Shortly after, towards the end of the bridge section and entering the forest, I saw another dark-coloured vehicle ahead, and again, not quite thinking clearly, I pulled out again to overtake. It was only when I closed in did I actually saw what this dark vehicle was, which was a police car. By this time it was too late and I was already passing it, at a fairly high rate of speed (definitely over the limit).
Pretty much the moment I overtook the vehicle, I saw flashing lights in my rear view mirror. Oh boy, I’m fucked, I thought to myself. At that moment, a lot of things went through my head, and I even contemplated trying to outrun the cop. But logic and sense got to me and eventually I pulled over at the side of the road and awaited my inevitable punishment.
The policeman was not pleased but after I apologised and explained what I did for a living, he was actually prepared to let me go. But just as this was about to happen, said Mercedes from earlier pulled up. The driver wound down his window, went on a rant to the cop about how I was “driving recklessly and dangerously earlier”, and then drove off. Bloody hell.
The cop returned to me and said, “You know I was going to let you off, but now that someone has complained, I need to do something.” At this point I was really panicking, and I was actually preparing myself to spend the night in the slammer. Instead, the cop asked me to call my boss. Given this was nearly 1am at night I didn’t really see the point of it but I attempted anyway. Thankfully at that time he was overseas and the call didn’t go through.
I suspected that the cop took some sympathy on my relative youth and nature of my job, but eventually he gave me a warning. He instructed me to turn the car around and drive out of the forest area (within the speed limit) and not to do it again. The amount of relief that swept through me was simply unbelievable.
It’s one of those things that happen when you were young and stupid, but I felt extremely lucky to not have it escalate into something worse.
In summer 2011, I had the brilliant idea to drive from California to TDIFest, that year being held in Lexington, KY. I posted on TDIClub that I would be doing a cross-country trip and that if anyone along my route would like some work done on their TDIs, I would be travelling with tools and we could set something up.
Plenty of stories from that one trip alone, but specifically being pulled over on that trip: this happened on I-70 in Kansas. At one point I pass a temporary sign about entering some special enforcement zone. I forget the exact wording.
I had cruise control set at 77 MPH or so, the section of I-70 I was on had a speed limit of 75. As I was coming down a hill, I see two police cars racing going the opposite way on the freeway with their lights on, stand on their brakes and head for the median to turn around and head my direction. I don’t see them again. I decide to slow down. Set cruise at GPS-verified (old Garmin that I had at the time) 72 MPH.
A couple hills later, as I crest the top and go down the hill, I see two more officers in the median, clearly looking like they’re talking to eachother while watching traffic go by.
I go by them at the speed I had been going for the last couple miles (according to the Garmin, exactly 72 MPH), one of the officers takes off heading Eastbound (same direction I’m going). I’m in the right lane, approaching a truck in the right lane, I can see the officer racing behind me, in the left lane. He disappears into my blind spot and my senses were expecting him to blast by me at the rate he was approaching, but he doesn’t. He’s no longer in my mirrors, he hasn’t gone by me, I look over my shoulder and sure enough, he’s just camping in my blind spot.
I’m now getting close to the truck in front and have to make a decision. Either I cut the officer’s nose off so I can overtake the truck, or I stand on the brakes and let the officer by.
I hit my turn signal to let him know my intentions, take one more look over my shoulder, nah, still too close, so I stand on the brakes.
Officer brakes as well, gets behind me and lights me up.
I pull over, immediately dump all my windows and wait for the officer to approach. He eventually comes up to my passenger front window and says he pulled me over because “I caught you going a little fast down that hill” (which is utter bullshit–remember–Garmin verified I was doing 3 under the entire time) “and you were following that truck a little closely–but I probably didn’t give you a whole lot of room, either.”
“No, you kind of didn’t.”
He asks my story, and asks me to repeat it again one more time. I explain how I was going to Lexington, KY for my car group gathering, then planned on heading to Southern Tennessee to visit relatives. Go to NoVA to visit some friends, and then to my old home state of Michigan to visit friends and family there before heading back to California. All true.
I give him my information as requested. License, reg, insurance. He goes back to his car. Probably back there for 10 minutes doing their normal checks. He finally comes back to the car with my paperwork and a written warning for following to closely. Explains that this is *NOT* a ticket, there won’t be any further action required on my part, “But, we’ve been having problems with people running drugs through here. I’d like your permission to search your car.”
“Welll… Here’s the thing, officer. I have a lot of heavy tools very tightly arranged in the trunk of my car, and it will be a giant waste of both of our times to remove all of that, for you to not find what you’re looking for, and then I have to tetris all that crap back in my car.
So, tell you what. I will meet you half way. I can pop the trunk, you can look inside to verify my story, but you cannot remove anything from the car.”
“Ok, pop the trunk.”
I pop it, he looks around and maybe shifts a couple things around for a total of about 10 seconds, closes the trunk and walks back to my window and tells me I’m free to go.
I start the car, say thank you, and proceed to drive off. I get only 2 minutes or so further down the road, and there’s an elderly couple in a fairly new BMW 3 series having every piece of their luggage gone through on the side of the freeway by an officer.
Not sure what’s worse, the fact that police find reasons to conduct such searches regularly without real probable cause, or the fact that so many people who feel they have nothing to hide go ahead and give permission for them to waste their time and go through every piece of luggage they have.
I could see why they’d target me at the time. California tags, old beater VW obviously weighed down in the rear with something heavy. Sure, let’s pull this guy over and attempt to conduct a search. Easy target!
But no, you just got a weird TDI nerd mechanic hauling a bunch of heavy tools.
Always refuse unjustified searches, even if you have nothing to hide. I do understand it is hard to do in the moment especially depending on who and where you are though.
You got a bit lucky there. You can grant or deny permission to search, but you can’t dictate terms of a search once permission is granted. He could have tossed that trunk on the side of the road and you couldn’t have done a thing about it.
Was on the way home one day and I see a state trooper coming up behind me fast, so I hit my blinker and move to the right to get out of their way. Next thing I know she’s got her lights on and pulls me over. Why? I was too close to the car in front of me when I switched lanes.
Was ridiculous and obviously some kind of quota shit, so I fought it and won, but that asshole lost me the time it took for me to get it thrown out.