A story just burped up on CNN (here) that is interesting for several reasons. It describes a “routine” traffic stop by Florida cops in which the tables are very suddenly turned on the cops performing the stop.
A black woman was driving her car … well, you can guess what comes next. For no legitimate reason whatsoever, an unmarked cop car (a cop truck, actually; be aware – the cops in this instance were in a black F-150 pick-up) lights her up and pulls her over.
Here’s where it gets . . . interesting.
The cop approaches the car and the woman behind the wheel hands him her ID. It becomes very quickly apparent to the cop that he has pulled over the wrong black woman. Aramis Ayala. She is the Florida state attorney, the number one law enforcement official in the state. The demeanor of the cops immediately becomes supine and deferential.
Whoopsie.
They backpedal and step n’ fetchit back to their unmarked porkmobile, no doubt sweating profusely and praying uxoriously to the Big Pig in the sky that Ayala will not lower the boom.
It is to be hoped otherwise.
This story – and the video – give further evidence, if any were needed, of the tiered, arbitrary and capricious nature of law enforcement in the United States. This is not an isolated instance nor confined to Florida, as anyone who has been paying attention – and been out of their house recently – is well-aware.
First, the hassling of blacks and women – but not just them. Other preferred targets of law enforcement include poor whites and the poor generally, who are readily identified (presumably) by their less-than-Lexus mode of transport.
I can speak to this voluminously – and pretty uniquely – as a car journalist (who happens to be a white guy) who drives a wide variety of vehicles every week. One day, it might be a $130,000 brand-new BMW – on loan from BMW for me to test drive and write about. The next day, it might be my blotchy old truck that leans a little to one side because the leaf spring perch on that side is “settling,” on account of rust.
It is remarkable, the different treatment – even down to looks – I get, depending on which of the two I happen to be driving. The odds of being pulled over for literally no reason at all – a fishing expedition predicated on the loosest of pretexts, such as a license plate frame being akimbo or as in Ayala’s case, window tint – are probably 100 percent greater in the truck than in the new BMW.
But then – just like Ayala – they discover that I am someone.
Not a state attorney, but a journalist. The same sudden change in attitude occurs. It is based on fear – now reversed – that I might be in a position to defend myself. Not physically, of course. But in a way the state’s enforcers fear most – bad publicity. I might write a story. There could be repercussions.
I am happy to benefit from this, but it also bothers me because I am well aware that most people are not state attorneys or journalists and so powerless before the buzz cut and the BDU-clad.
Imagine Ayala as a non-state attorney. As a mere black lady on her way to wherever. Is there a soul reading this who doubts that – at the very least – she would have been issued a piece of payin’ paper for some trumped-up offense? “Excessive tint” on her windows, say?
She would have been lucky to “get off” with just the piece of payin’ paper.
Absent her credentials – and the clear threat that represented, not to the “safety” of these cops but to something vastly more important to them, i.e., their continued employment – there is a very good chance one of them would have “smelled marijuana” and you know what comes next.
Absent my credentials – and the possibility I might raise a public fuss – there is no doubt in my mind that several random stops I’ve been an unwilling party to would have ended differently as well.
This is what happens when literally everyone is subject to being pulled over and harassed at any moment, on the flimsiest of pretexts and sometimes not even that.
When “illegal” encompasses everything.
While things have never been perfect and never will be perfect, it was different once upon a time. The legal reasons for hassling people were much fewer – and the legal bar of suspicion was much higher.
This fact of not-so-ancient history is perfectly conveyed by a line once commonly spoken by characters in movies and TV: You’ve got nothing on me, copper! Cue frustrated cop reluctantly letting the fish swim away.
One never hears that line spoken in movies today or even recently.
And the fish never swim away, unless they happen to have credentials.
If you like what you’ve found here, please consider supporting EPautos.
We depend on you to keep the wheels turning!
Our donate button is here.
If you prefer not to use PayPal, our mailing address is:
EPautos
721 Hummingbird Lane SE
Copper Hill, VA 24079
PS: EPautos stickers are free to those who send in $20 or more to support the site. 
Wow! Another cop lover as myself. That is the only big Florida problem
The only problem with this entire diatribe is your supposed anecdotal evidence isn’t supported by facts. All the data contradicts the narrative you are trying to shape. People substituting emotional rhetoric and histrionics over facts are a far greater threat to our nation than any amount of abuse by our law enforcement.
Hi Doug,
“Our law enforcement”? (Italics added.) Speak for yourself!
As far as the rest: I’m a libertarian, which means I don’t support punishing people who’ve caused no harm to anyone else (as for example by not wearing a seatbelt). Whatever “the law” is has nothing, per se, to do with whether it’s just.
Much of what “law enforcement” does being unjust.
Why is there so many Florida cop stories? No way am I retiring there. In fact most the time I just avoid any state that hasn’t legalized marijuana. I once found a pot pipe in my car that a friend lost and it had been there a month. Coffee every morning to wake up and home grown herb almost every night to help sleep, but I thought my car was drug free!
Law enforcement inherently attracts BULLIES, cowards that pick on those they believe to be weaker and incapable of resistance. It works much the same once they have a badge and a gun. They’ll readily push around those they believe to be poor and/or ignorant, and “Gawd” help the poor ex-con who’s trying to “play it straight”, as the recent tasing incident of the ex-con in Glendale, AZ attests. Sure, the cops chiming in will in effect say that just because he’s a felon out on parole, that’s sufficient justification to not only pull him out of the car as a PASSENGER, but also to pull down his trousers in public and TORTURE him by repeated electric shocks to his genitals! Let our soldiers do that to hapless Iraqis or Afghanis, and if found out, they’d be court-martialed, but the porkers can get away with it on a fellow American? While I have little sympathy for felons, nothing is so despicable as supposed “peace” officers using a felon’s status as an excuse to harass him w/o cause and to abuse and torment him.
Amen, Doug –
The wiring’s not right. Normal people only resort to violence when sorely provoked – and in defense. They don’t look for excuses to torment people, whether physically or otherwise. I submit that the underlying problem is the nature of the work – which is no longer even loosely about keeping the peace but rather imposing Authority on people.
It attracts pathological types.
I submit that no normal/thoughtful/decent person could man a “safety” checkpoint – and that’s just for openers.
At best, these AGWs are rule-barking/following automatons. At worst, outright psychopaths – as in the case of the AZ AGW.
Axiom: power is always sought most earnestly by those least worthy of it and least equipped to handle it. In other words – positions that involve making and enforcing rules will always attract the exact type of person you least want to see making or enforcing rules. See also Iron Law of Bureaucracy.
IMO there are only 2 kinds of ‘Enforcers’
1) Corrupt ones who abuse their position.
2) Chickenshit ones who know about group 1 & choose to do nothing about it.
** Honestly not sure which group is worse
Any ‘Good guys’ are either forced out for not going along with ‘the program’ or quit out of disgust. So the so called “Good Cops” is a myth like the unicorn or bigfoot.
Though I’m late to the party here, you’re right about good guys being purged. The best example that comes to mind is Seattle police officer, Greg Anderson. If you’ll recall, at the beginning of the scamdemic, governments all over did lockdowns and so on. Officer Greg Anderson made a video, and he said that he would NOT enforce any unconstitutional orders! His superiors told him to take it down; he didn’t; he was soon thereafter dismissed-all because he said that he’d honor the COTUS and his oath to the same…
Cops should have doubled down. Get the tint meter and bust her. Itd be interesting see what happens.
IM not even sure the cops can make a traffic stop in Florida in an unmarked vehicle
i KNOW they can not make traffic stops in Georgia in an unmarked car,
My youngest brother and I were driving down the highway last summer. I was driving my 2016 Tundra with no front plate attached–been doing so for 15+ years on my business logo clad pickups and been pulled over one time for it–and passed an Idaho State piggy that was just finishing his previous pull over extortion. Sure enough he pulls around me and 3-4 other cars to check out my brother in his 1990’s spray painted KTM orange Mazda, complete with KTM logo’s and a front license plate in tact. I couldn’t safely slam on the brakes and stop to record right there, so I sped up to the exit and took the frontage road parallel to the highway to record the stop.
Long story short, there was no ticket issued and the “reason” he was pulled over was because he had what appeared to be an “illegal exhaust system”. He has a large tip on his stock exhaust just being a dumbass goof off 19 year old kid. Once the cop went through everything and heard that there was no loud noise from the exhaust, he let him on his way.
Anyone who believes that state enforcers care about anything other than pleasing their masters through creating revenue by whatever means possible is dumber than dirt. Law enforcement prey’s on the poor. That is why blacks get harassed and/or killed at a higher percentage than whites. They are generally poor. The appearance or actuality of poor to the state is like that of the sick elk to a pack of wolves. They know which prey they are going after. It isn’t the ones that appear able to fight back.
“That is why blacks get harassed and/or killed at a higher percentage than whites.”
Incorrect, AnCap.
Whites are actually killed at higher rate than blacks. (No stats on hassling, though.)
We hear more about blacks getting messed with and killed, but that’s because whites aren’t a communal organism…
Hi Jean,
More whites are killed by police than blacks, but a higher percentage of blacks are killed by police than whites. I believe AnCap was making the point that this is more about “easy prey” than racism. Poor people are good targets for “policing for profit”.
Jeremy
No matter what color you are, in the eyes of the state, we are all n*****s.
First, I noted the very dark tint on the cop’s truck…pretty darn dark. Here in NC they’ll bust you for that but, as usual, unmarked enforcers are exempt.
However, if she was pulled for a tint violation why didn’t he write her up? “I don’t have a tint meter with me” as he said, means he pulls people over KNOWING he can’t make a truthful accusation or citation. If he really thought the tint was a violation, and would have popped her if she wasn’t who she was, just solidifies, if it needed to be proven, that there’s one set of laws for the Mundanes an another for our Slave Masters.
I recall my first time in NC. I pulled into the weigh station like I’d done with every other state to buy a stamp for my bingo card. I walked in and the trooper asked if I had a stamp to which I replied No, That’s what I’ve come in to buy”. He said “you can’t get one now”. Huh? Why not? “Because you pulled onto the scales”. Ok, I’ll back up and pull over and come back. “No, you can’t back up” Then he wrote me a ticket. So I asked, “Well, how do I get a stamp now?” and he said “You don’t.” Then he wrote me a ticket while looking at my DL, reached over and grabbed the cash from my billfold and said that would cover it and put the ticket and my copy both into his pocket which I’m sure he threw away. I asked how I’d prove I had paid a ticket or was in the state legally. Of course he was a great big SOB and he leaned over me and said “You just get your ass unloaded and get the hell out of this state”. Not having any recourse, that’s what I did. I haven’t been back since and won’t be.
Amazing how everybody in the east hated/hates Texas truckers. Yes, all our lights work and we sometimes have extra and we do wash our rigs and yes the chrome parts shine and we have both doors and they both close and our mirrors(multiple)are adjusted, something some states’ trucks couldn’t say. Va. were the worst trash talkers and to think we’d all been on the same side at one time.
I got pulled over by the NCHP one night north bound on I85 for going the speed limit in a light drizzle( I had spotted him about a half mile in front of me driving slowly in the right lane). I was “only given a warning” but, was told that the speed limit is only for clear dry conditions. The fact I was driving a VW GTI which, at the time, were VERY popular with those of high melanin content..Gee, I wonder…
Eric calls himself a ”libertarian”. But it’s the standard ”Cops evil badge gang, blacks fine, wonderful upstanding citizens” you expect out of any lefty. It’s easy to have your head buried deep in the sand when you live out in very White, very rural https://infogalactic.com/info/Copper_Hill,_Virginia
Unlike ”Reality Land” https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO5lqTkyZVzp77YkB3O8QPw
Considering that Florida is also ”Reality Land” https://infogalactic.com/info/Travon_Martin I can understand why cops behave like they do.
Hi YIH,
I’m not sure what you’re trying to convey by the following:
Eric calls himself a ”libertarian.”
Yes, I do call myself a Libertarian. And? Why the air quotation marks? Is my taking issue with badged goons harassing people for no legitimate reason somehow a reason to question my Libertarian bona fides? How so?
And: Here in rural Copper Hill, I’ve been hassled by thugs with badges notwithstanding my being white, middle-class, middle-aged, college-educated, CHP-holding/no-criminal-background/no long hair/tats or any other reason to “suspect” me of being a “threat” to “officer safety.”
If the badged goons do it to me, what do you suppose they do to poor black (and white) people who lack the means (monetary an otherwise) to defend themselves?
In the case mentioned in the article, the woman did nothing to warrant being pulled over – and the arrogant cop still lectured her about “window tint” – an invented crime to be used as a pretext (one of many) to hassle and mulct people.
Here is the deal:
There are peace officers and there is law enforcement. The two are very different things. What you saw in the video was law enforcement.
Peace keepers act when an innocent person has been harmed – but leave peaceful people who’ve not harmed anyone in peace. They do not go out looking for manufactured reasons to “bust” people.
How would you describe the activities of the typical American cop?
Is he a peace keeper? Or law enforcement?
Which of the two is compatible with a free society?
The perfect straw man, questioning a person’s true character by impugning his proof via something like “papers please”. I’m reminded of a line from O Brother Where Art Thou when 5 daughters simultaneously diss their real father for a future one by saying “But daddy, he’s Bona Fide”.
Hi Eric .. on the window tint issue. As a motorcyclist you know how important having eye contact with the driver who wants to join the road you are on. Most drivers overshoot the stop line, and unless you get some assurance through eye contact it can raise the possibility that they are going to pull out in front of you. Heavy window tint on the drivers window leaves you clueless as to their intentions.
Hi Electron!
Well-said, sir.
I understand the need for tint in states like Florida and AZ, where the sun is brutal. That said, not being able to make eye contact is, indeed, a major legitimate safety issue.
The typical lefty thinks power used in ways they don’t approve of is evil. A proper libertarian knows power corrupts and enables evil.
The “routine traffic stop” is the biggest scam the pheroes run. There’s absolutely no reason to pull someone over for a broken tail light or other such trivial BS, it’s just an excuse for a roadside extortion at best, or an execution at worst. Since most porkmobiles are equipped with computers nowadays they could enter the plate number and send a citation in the mail, thus getting their tribute without endangering us mundanes, though I guess that wouldn’t give occifer buzz cut the chance to humiliate us.
I had fun with some state porkers on the interstate just this last weekend. There were four of them hauling ass in the left lane at 85 mph, no flashers on. My guess is that they were heading back from an oversize escort or some training somewhere. I was driving my Dad’s car so I knew it was “clean” he being of the “greatest generation”, IOW one who obeys authority and all diktats without question.
Anyway, I jumped into the left lane too and followed them doing 85 myself which we all know is “reckless driving” because it is faster than the magically safe speed of 79 mph. I stayed back a good two hundred feet or more but cruised in their wake for about 15 minutes. Then one of them must have realized that a mere mundane was following their example of “obeying THE LAW!” and they all slowed down to about 75 with the rear guy slowing down to 70ish. I immediately slowed down too and got in the middle lane. The rear porker slowed down enough to get behind me and rode my ass (not even a car length between us) for about five miles. I knew he was running my plates. One trick I have learned is to never look in the rear view mirror whenever there is a porker behind you. Meanwhile the pork herd zoomed off, had to be doing 90. The porker on my ass suddenly pulled up beside me in the left lane and stayed there for about 5 minutes. I always play it cool by acting like I am not aware he is there. I was tapping the steering wheel like I was grooving to the music but I could tell he was looking to see if I had a dash cam which I do not have – yet! When he figured I did not have one he zoomed off to catch up with his pork friends.
Lesson learned: stay in the middle lane and pass as needed while following the speeding porkers rather than following them in the left lane.
FUnny!
But that still doesn’t work too well.
A few years back, while NJTurnpike was still a mess from the express lane exansion construction, Saturday summer traffic southbound was a horrible mess.
20+ miles of bumper to bumper stop and go, with some small sections of faster relief, in all 6 lanes.
At some open spot, an SUV porker, no lights or sound, cruised by in the left (me in middle), doing about 20+ mph more than others, in a construction zone, so did as you did.
I did move over middle and right for a bit, later back in left behind him. Distance was at least as much as you say, maybe more like 250 ft. AFter a mile or two, he pulls into left median, I pass, he gets on my tail an immediately makes me pull over.
He then acts the typical rude routine, I said nothing to him, except maybe “hold on” while pulling out the papers. he starts telling me he was watching me for a while, also in the middle lane, out the rear-view mirror, and that he TIMED my speeding through his rearview mirror as well.
That is allowed in NJ, with 0 proof other than his word, because they’re “trained to do that”.
He then writes me a ticket for 87mph. Given the general traffic situation, and that it took about 3-4h between NY and Philly that day, that speed was basically impossible. The most he, or me, could have been doing is upper 60s, low 70s.
Still speeding in that lower 45 zone, but a significant difference, given the points structure in NJ.
He purrposefully inflated it just above the 85 to put the violation in the most serious bracket.
Point is this:
they will make it up no matter what, and you are not safe by tailing.
It might have been possible to subpoena the traffic data that hour on the TP with that major, and announced, congestion, but with fighting the ticket that way costing a minimum of $2500-3000, there’s no point. The fine itself isn’t much, you only do it for the insurance premium, but at 3k, that covers a couple yeas’ increase.
Plus you still have little chance of winning, because the cops are given the legal benefit of the doubt, not you, and the judges will always side with the golfing buddy prosecutor anyway.
So, you plead guilty to a careless driving offense, pay a couple hundre more in fines, plus court fees, but get less points. Nice racket…
BTW, I litteratly said 5 words to that cop the whole time, best approach just not to say anything.
It really is best not to engage the porkers in conversation. They’ll always find some way to twist things to their advantage and your detriment. My response to them is always “I don’t answer questions.”
http://donttalktocops.com
Suburban arterial road… cop blasts my be faster enough that it made a point physically. So I trail well behind him and another cop pulls me over for speeding and “drafting” the other cop. I make it clear that the cop set the pace and nearly sucked the doors off my car when passing so close. I never got up to his speed. Cop #2 then lied about the first cop having a call up the street. They really shouldn’t make up details like the location.
Anyway after other cops show up and talk among themselves I get a warning. I check out the location of the call. No cops. Nothing. And it’s not like enough time had passed to wrap up even the most minor of bar incident.
btw, lawayer told me that it doesn’t matter that the cops speed was not legal to begin with, even if you can prove it, court doesn’t care…
typcial
Person trying to mind their own fuckin’ business: “What did you pull me over for?”
State Costume-Wearer: “Um mm. Well, um. You see. I get a hefty paycheck and pension for sitting on my fat ass here in my State-issued F-350 with Christmas lights. And in order to pass the time I simply infringe on as many people’s 4th amendment rights as I can. I scan plates to make sure they paid their mandatory protection money, I mean “fee”, to Caesar, I mean the “local public municipality”.
Person trying to mind their own fuckin’ business: “I see. So why did you pull me over?”
Mr. State Costume-Wearer: “Um, yea, well my Windows XP ‘puter I have in my truck said it can’t find anything on you. Oh, and your tint is far less dark than my own, but I thought I should harass YOU about it instead of TAKING THE FUCKING LOG OUT OF MY OWN EYE FIRST!”
I love how “Your tint is really dark” is used as an excuse to pull her over but look how dark the road pirate’s windows are as he is getting out of the truck.
Maybe he meant “her tint” as in Driving While Black.
Got the “opps, sorry about that” treatment once too. Coming home late one night, got stopped for “speeding” (45 in a 35, the road should be marked 55, road otherwise empty too). Hero aggressive, bad attitude and kind of rude, flashlight out and on.
Since he was shining his damn flashlight on my wallet as i got my drivers license out, I let him see that I had a business card with the (then new) mayors name (his official town card) on it. With his personal cell phone number written on it with pen. Not a publicly known number. Didn’t say a word. (The mayor is a friend and fellow former real estate agent, who ran on a police reform as a major issue).
The attitude changed immediately. Stripping your gears fast.
He quickly looked at my license, not really reading it and handed it back. Flashlight turned off and returned to belt. Said, “take it easy, your free to go”. He steps away and I drive away, leaving him in a cloud of dust. Looking back at him in the rear view mirror walking back to the squad car was delicious. That stupid business card saved me a lot of trouble that night.
Just the thought that I could be calling my friend the mayor at midnight was enough of a threat to make him back off. And I would have had he continued.
I did tell my friend of my little adventure the next day. He laughed how I had gotten the drop on him, but was annoyed when I told him I thought the hero was rude. I hadn’t gotten the hero’s name, but I had the squad car number. He knew who it was. He says, we are working on those guys, they need a lot of work.
It took until his second term to be able to force out that hero’s boss, the truly lousy police chief. He didn’t have to fire the hero who had stopped me, he and few others like him saw the writing on the wall and moved on. But boy, my friend took a lot of heat from folks. The general public sure give cops way too much of the benefit of the doubt. Even one that is openly corrupt.
If I recall correctly, richb, you live in Indiana. I had an encounter with a southern Indy cop back in 1973 that left a bad taste in my mouth. Such pathological bullies cops are.
Yup, Indiana just outside Chicago. (so lots of times I will be commenting on Illinois heroes too, south suburbs of Chicago are especially bad)
Since Indiana (outside my corner of the state) is deep red Republican, hero’s are generally worshipped. But the Democrats in my corner of the state ignore police corruption just as much, since they run most of the departments here. So they are rabidly anti-gun etc too. We get the worst of both red AND blue.
When my friend ran for mayor, he wanted to openly run on cleaning up the police department (along with rebuilding downtown, and getting out of the township). But we all knew that would never fly (he ran as a Republican to boot). So he had to be a politician about that and talk about in terms that would get him elected. He spoke how he wanted to clean up the two large once upscale apartment complexes owned by absent owners that were the largest problem in town. A problem the police department was making even worse.
He managed to get the property owners to make them gated communities, get their own security and put up lots of cameras. Once he could fire the police chief and get others to leave, the crime rate in those two complexes went down to the level of the rest of town (basically very little to none). Running the police department out of those complexes was just as good as running the other gangs in there out too. You never hear of those complexes in the news anymore.
Frankly he is the only elected person that has left office with the town being way better then when he started. The downtown made a huge comeback after the town dumped regulations that were strangling it. It went from 7% occupancy to 96%. It now has coffeeshops, a record shop, gun and sports store, a huge billiards hall, someone even fixed up the long closed bowling alley, antique and vintage shops, a barber-beauty shop that has appeared on reality tv, THREE awesome brewpubs (people come down from Chicago in buses and vans to go to them!).
Not bad for a little never ritzy blue collar town struggling to keep the poverty of Gary from overwhelming them. Stripping away even small amounts of government gives people with not a lot of money the opportunity to do things. Things like this does give me some hope for the future. Hopefully someday the town will ditch the township, but the reality of that happening is pretty low.
So there is at least ONE honest elected politician [besides Ron Paul]. And in Indiana, no less. Amazing!
There was, he has retired from office. He hated every minute of it, was very glad for it to be over. His words “everything government does is bat sh*t crazy”.
We need far more guys like him. Guys who don’t want it as a career. Guys who clean up the mess and get out.
The myth is that it is ONLY blacks that are terrorized “heroically.” When I was in college my father had leased a three-year-old Cadillac Seville, GM for awhile was in the leasing used cars business.
I had just come back from visiting family in Eastern Long Island, something that would always place me in a far better mood than staying in what is the now the Sandinista Controlled utopia of the Marx Brothers Cuomo and DiBlasio.
I am simply on my way home, very calm. I have a green light where I make a right turn. I use my signal and am cowing to the authorities by wearing my seatbelt. A police van enters the intersection against the light, he has flashers on, but no siren. I wait for him to proceed – he doesn’t. I make my turn. He immediately goes through the steady red light and got behind me. I see him and pull to the far right to let him pass, he doesn’t. There are doubleparked cars, so I am forced to change lanes, he follows. Finally, I get into the left turn lane to come home and stop at the light. He runs up to my car demands my license and registration. I am 20, I didn’t even download music yet “illegally” and am a good Christian Republican. I am not the slightest bit concerned.
He comes back to the car, Next time wear your seatbelt! – Officer, my seatbelt was on the entire time. Could you tell me what this is about? He grumbles something about “rich people in their cars” and starts ranting that I cut him off and how would I feel if he was responding to an “emergency situation involving someone in your family?” I looked and had to stop myself from responding: I sure hope you wouldn’t stop to harass a 20-year-old in a car you couldn’t afford…
He then threatens to “pull me out of my car and beat you” – I was on the verge of hysterical laughter. He stood about 5’6 and 140lbs. I was 6’2 and a very strong 220 at that age. I wanted to invite him to do just that as long as he put removed his badge – even let him keep his gun, because I was going to shove it up his.. – again I thought better of vocalizing what I was considering a response. I remained silent – “I’ll remember you” was his last words to me – I remember him very well – PO Mulsky. A year later as part of my journalism classes we had to do a “cop ride” – I went through that same precinct and got a couple of decent at the time cops – I casually asked about Mulsky- the rolled their eyes and grunted. I surmise Muslky is now a deputy chief of police by now…
I have been given tickets for stopping at stop signs, issued a criminal summons for walking leashed dogs (I suppose I am lucky they were shot by heroes).
Just this past week I photographed the drug dealer next door holding a 4 barrel derringer – NYC being a Constitution Free Zone, that is a big no-no. I reported it to a friend in city government as I know from numerous past experience that calling 911, or reporting it to their anonymous tips DOES NOTHING.
They waited three days to stop him and only found marijuana – did I mention this drug dealer claims to have friends that are cops and sports 4 “thin blue line” bumperstickers signifying his support of police?
The arbitrary and capricious nature of “law” enforcement these days..
I have two dash cameras in my car specifically because of the heroes…
My small town in PA was the same. The cops harrass young people because they can. They scream and act like fools and lie constantly. It teaches you pretty early how much respect to give them, zero.
follow-up
an now, because you must have an airbag in your car, seat-belt wearing is a good idea, so that the airbag doesn’t do more harm to you if you’re out of position.
seatbelt to protecct yourself from the bag, ironic….
“…and am cowing to the authorities by wearing my seatbelt.”
Here is something I don’t get about that statement, and we do get that a lot from people who known that statist anything msut be questioned, maybe even Eric has made a similar reference:
That is, the reason for wearing seatbelts.
I agree, you shouldn’t be wearing them because of laws, and there should be no mandatory seat-belt laws, and prob. not even any mandates to equip cars with them (just like any other saaaaafety device Eric has talked about).
But that doesn’t mean I don’t want a seatbelt in my car, or that I don’t want to wear one.
Smart people will want and wear them simply because it makes sense.
It’ simple physics (acceleration / deceleration mass) which makes seat belts a good thing.
There is NO argument that seatbelts do more harm than good in general, that simply can not be made.
By general I mean a risk / benefit analysis for the regular situation.
There can be some situations where the R/B falls on the side of the more risk, but they are far and few between.
Pregancy is often cited, and that is prob. true to some extent.
But overall, no, there just is no good reason not to wear them, because you cna never predict when an accident will happen, esp. given the general stupidity of others.
So, don’t wear it because “it’s the law”, wear it because you know better, and it;s the smart thing to do.
Hi Chris,
There is a very good reason for not wearing a seat belt: because you choose not to.
Similarly, helmets and bicycle riding/motorcycle riding.
The risk is slight and the benefit of not being strapped in (and wearing suffocating/bulky headgear) is… freedom.
Seatbelts suck. So do helmets. They are totems of the saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety cult and I piss down the throats of them both!
Riding a motorcycle without a helmet on feels so much better than riding with the fucking had cage on.
And I despise the feeling of being strapped into a seat for the same reason. Unbuckled, I can shift in my seat without some god-damn belt pinching my flesh and restraining my movements. I can get in – and out – and get going – much more quickly and easily. Hop in – and drive off. Stop – and hop out.
I never “buckle up – and never will.
The risk be damned.
For the same reason, I will eat fatty meat, drink lots of coffee, smoke pot every now and then and have as much sex as I possibly can.
I was born 50 years too late.
Funny you should say that about being born too late. I was told as a youngster when I complained about the way many things are that weren’t always that way I was born 100 years too late. I couldn’t disagree, still can’t.
my point is simply this
you should not choose to do that, even though I agree you should have the right to choose that!
I am rather certain that I would not be here today if I had not been wearing a seatbelt in at least one accident I have been involved in.
It doesn’t even take an actual accident in fact:
If you are traveling on a highway, even at posted speeds, and certainly at the speeds you write about, in any situation where you have to basically brake to a full stop from max V., such as a tractor jack-knifing, you will be in your windshield, there is no way you can keep yourself off it, due to your effective weight at that point, which is many hundreds of pounds when decelerating when doing the fastest possible 80-o.
This is a real danger, scientifically indisputable, and not a low frequency risk like lightning strikes..
Just last Monday, traveling in left lane at 70mph (50 posted) on a rather empty 2 lane highway (wide lanes, wide shoulders, and large grass median), I see a tractor ahead on the right shoulder, maybe 2 semi-lengths ahead, moving not too fast, with left signal out.
Just like he’s rejoining traffic from the shoulder.
Instead he accelerates into a full illegal U-turn from shoulder across both lanes, wiyj about as tight a radius as his rig permits, so right in front of me.
Had to come to full emergency stop, with tires screeching despite the ABS, and if I hadn’t steered left into shoulder and into median, would still have ended up under the rig.
The asshole was so oblivious that he still kept his U turn going,if I hadn’t backed up, he’d have hit me with the trailer.
Not me, not you, and not Arnie in his good days, could keep from being launched into the windshield in that situation without a belt.
So, it doesnt’ make sense to me to discard that concrete risk, given the , which you can’t really reduce even if you’re an alert driver, because too much is out of your control.
But it’s a choice, and you definitely have a right to pull a Barry Oakley.
Just don’t think its rational.
I don’t agree with your analogy with respect to meat, coffee, pot or sex, because unlike the real danger of the physics described above, those are made-up dangers for the most part, from the same controlling corporatocracy.
You don’t have to desist from those things because you don’t care that they’re bad for you, rather there’s no need to desist because they’re NOT bad for you.
Big diferene IMO, and not comparable.
Finally, the pinching by the seat belt:
It’s a marketing failure, in terms of supply and demand:
Did you ever get a chance to drive a Phaeton when VW was selling it?
It had independent lap and shoulder belts, two sets of rollers, etc, (one buckle of course), meaning no belt-slip-through when fastening. Way more comfortable, it feels like a floating belt.
But, even on the first redo in Europe, around 2007 or 2008, the bean counters deleted that feature to cut costs…
I don’t think anyone has offered it since, yet such a simple fix, dunno if anyone offered it before?
Not saying that would make it acceptable for you, but a major improvement vs. standard.
Still not gonna buckle up!
And I often ride without a helmet – illegal though it is.
@ Chris
Seat Belts kills. Case in point. The wife of a friend of mine was doing legal 30 on a city street. Her daughter was in the back seat of the car in a child seat. A ball appeared in the street in front of her and she swerved to miss the child following and hit a street lamp pole. Killed her instantly. No, not the crash but the belt. Seems the belt kept her from hitting the windshield but did not keep her heart which was traveling at 30 mph from hitting her sternum. The result shattered heart. The child seat had slack which kept the child from being similarly injured.
This is not the only instance where seat belts kills. I have read many reports where children have drowned merely due to the fact that the people that tried to remove them from a vehicle could not release the restraints the were imprisoned with.
I hate seat belts they are death traps designed by the state, for the state and of the state by the people that bribed the state to ensure their revenue stream aka the people that make webbing material.
BTW, I have seen evidence, that the people that produce the webbing material suppressed, that improved design of seating systems are better deterrents of crash fatalities than seat belts. Of course, the designer wasn’t politically connected and therefore was silenced.
None Ya Biz
Clapping, None Ya!
I’ll take my chances not buckled but aware and involved in the act of driving, too.
The idea that the state (that is, politicians and bureaucrats) care about us is risible and the notion that it’s any of their business beyond obnoxious.
None, worst injury I’ve had was caused by the shoulder belt. Seat belts, aka, lap belts probably cause few injuries and can keep people from being ejected in roll-overs, something I grew up seeing happen. I still see roll-overs, a great many more it seems. I’ve seen kids and adults lying in the barditch as I was slowly waved by. I can’t believe everyone I’ve seen dead were not wearing seat belts and some I know were wearing seat belts.
What I commonly see is faint black lines in a lane that get increasingly blacker as the driver loses control……on straight and level highways. Many of these almost have “cell phone” written on them.
One of the most insane things I’ve witnessed was a couple dressed in their Sunday finest crossing I-20 on foot, at 5 pm one day when the patch was booming. This was in eastern Midland county where some of the fastest, thickest traffic ever existed. They were trying to get across to the median where a big cross denoted the passing of a few of what were probably their kin at the edge of a deep creek they evidently died in. They almost caused a huge wreck on the west bound side, me right in the middle running a full load and trying to keep a decent distance from traffic in front.
People really do some stupid things out there and one I commonly see is a young mother on the shoulder(please everyone, don’t stop on the paved shoulder of any interstate or any other highway, just wait till you can get well away from the lanes)changing kids from one place to another. Don’t know how many times I’ve seen a mother taking a very small child around to her side, opening the door that’s probably across the white stripe and getting in with the child. Whatever it is they need to do is better done away from all that.
Anyone could momentarily stray to that white stripe and wipe them out and only hit the door of the car.
All the bs the “state” pushes about not texting and wearing seat belts and other things and they never tell people not to stop on the shoulder. This isn’t rocket science. 75 mph and mostly faster leaves you little time to react to someone opening a door and stepping almost right in front of traffic. This is a phenomena I see constantly and don’t understand how people can be that stupid.
When a cop is trying to stop a vehicle, in Tx. at least, you can continue to drive to a point you feel safe to stop. I never had one get mad about it but I did have a young 20 something “Midland county” DOT occifer finally pull around me and slam on his brakes to stop me not a quarter mile before getting to a road I was going to pull onto that was a safe spot. He did this and I nearly ran over him, brake pedal all the way to the floor. Two lanes of traffic have to stop since the loop around Midland has tall curbs and no shoulders, the most stupid design of a highway I’ve seen in Tx. He runs across, counting as he later tells me, on his blues and reds protecting him.
I didn’t even try to correct him. I’ve seen cops get nailed like that and it’s always fatal. Too many times I’ve seen people stop on what would be the shoulder if they’d gone further and weren’t still on an entrance ramp. Stupid is as stupid does. Had this happen this week by a guy with a shredded right rear. Why he thought not moving another 10 feet and being off the roadway and out of the entrance ramp wasn’t the thing to do is anyone’s guess. The tire was obviously ruined but still on the wheel.
Another thing people seem to be unable not to do is run up to the rear of a slower truck and then slow down and hang there. I can promise if one of those 24.5’s comes off it won’t be good for anyone. And they slow down traffic behind them. Most big rig drivers don’t expect for someone to nail the brakes as they’re about to pass but it seems we all now expect it.
And when people pass someone, don’t slow down, especially when you’ve passed a truck you were only moving a half mph faster. WTF is up with that anyway? I have it happen all the time. I’ve had people pass me as many as 3 times when my speed never varied a lick so when they slow down I have to move into the passing lane or turn my cruise off which I’m not disposed to do since losing that boost can often cost you miles of running much slower to gain back the speed you lost.
If I had my way, the only people who drive would have to be trained to run a big rig before getting a license to drive a car. The highways would be much safer. Driver’s education is a bad joke these days.
I was 13 years old when I took Driver’s Ed as were most kids back then so you could get your license at 14. It was easy to tell who had been schooled in driving by their parents and those who hadn’t. My wife and I were speaking of this yesterday and I recounted the time my grandfather decided I needed to learn how to drive at about the ripe old age of 11. We’d just loaded the trailer with cattle and he said “Here, you drive”. It was funny since only a quarter mile from the gate there was a notorious mudhole that was full and deep. I got into it and was trying to downshift and he was saying “Double clutch it” and I was saying “What’s double clutch?”. I recall me panicking and trying to get it all through that bog and him sitting there going “tee hee hee” and thoroughly enjoying himself. I admit just a pickup and no trailer full of cattle was much more easily done later that day.
You are not supposed to stop on the shoulder and that is very clearly outlined in nearly every state and every driver’s manual. It’s for emergencies, not conveniences. The fact that people don’t pay attention and do what they want anyway doesn’t
mean they should be stopping. It has a solid white line. That means you aren’t supposed to cross it.
Seat belts and airbags cause as many deaths and injuries as they “prevent”. Ask any emergency room nurse or doctor and they will tell you the truth. Safety measures lead people to be less aware of their environment and that causes more problems than are solved by the “safety devices”. Safety as dictated by governments is ONLY about control. Do not think for a minute that a bureaucratic person cares about your life. They are too evil for that Chris T.
ER/Trauma nurse for over 15 years. Prior to that was a medic and prior to that an ER tech. I have never seen an injury come through the doors as a result of someone wearing a seatbelt. Not one.
Whether the government has a right to require them is another story but your talking point is essentially a tired old talking point that has no basis in truth or fact. Sorry.
Hi Doug,
That you haven’t seen an injury caused by wearing a seatbelt does not mean such injuries have not happened. Even if it’s just one, that’s (morally) enough to be outraged. Because the person was probably forced to wear the thing. Just the same as people are forced to sit in front of air bags that may (and have) exploded in their faces, maiming and sometimes killing them.
The bottom line issue at hand is this odious business of busybodies imposing their cost-benefit analysis on others. Even if their cost-benefit analysis is objectively reasonable, the imposing of it is still immoral – because it is none of their damned business. Wear a seat belt (or a helmet) if you want to. That is your right. But you have no right to insist anyone else wear one – or be punished if they don’t.
“Not me, not you, and not Arnie in his good days, could keep from being launched into the windshield in that situation without a belt.”
Who the hell ever Arnie is I could have not ended up in the windshield and have on more than once occasion. Steering wheels are strong and so am I.
The only time I stopped in the windshield I was glad to be thrown there from a rear-ender and I stopped myself from injury with my little old hands.
Get a job loading 100 lb sacks or work out or dig post holes and you’ll find lots of things in a vehicle you can use to stop your forward motion with your hands. Running into an immovable object at speed is another thing, something tires and brakes could never duplicate.
correction:
“you should not want to choose to do that”
Actually, if you look at actual studies seat belts are of entirely questionable utility. They can be proven to kill and have killed tens of thousands of times. They cannot be proven to save lives because such a proof would require a volunteer dying in a identical crash. But statistically, about a third of the time the seat belt kills, about a third of the time, the seat belt might save, and the other third is indeterminate. And the Stapo are trained to record that someone was injured because they weren’t wearing a strap rather than that they survived a wreck because they were not strapped to their vehicle.
It is a personal choice. A matter of religious freedom- God, or nature, gives us free will and instincts to make informed decisions with the intellect we were born with. The state has no more been granted the privlege of requiring you to wear a seat belt as it has to require you to take a vaccination, kill in the military, wear orange while hunting, or wear a 6 pointed yellow star sewn to your clothing.
Of course, we no longer have a civilization, we have a mechanized barbarism where might makes right. Until enough people fight back, the limits of totalitarianism will continue to expand and will not shrink.
It was the chest belt that hurt me the most in a wreck. When I was hit from behind in another wreck(big rig to big rig)I had been out doing a walk-around since the truck was at the back of a long line of traffic during stop for road construction. I had got back in, was leaning forward to take advantage of the a/c while getting a drink of lemon water and had just sat back in the seat when I was struck from behind. The cab hit my head fairly hard but with a seat belt on I would never been able to be thrown from the seat into the windshield where I used my hands to stop my flight. With a seat belt I would have been hurt probably badly when the chest belt stopped me and probably sent me backward into the cab again.
Just yesterday I had a conversation about seat belts with a fellow driver. We are both aware there has never been a study to indicate the driver of a big rig is saved from injury with a belt. Many big rigs have a device on the cab where the belt is attached(not in the newer one where the belt if part of the seat)so you can lock the belt at any place so as to have it loose. I bought a similar device yesterday for my pickup since the belt will chew my neck without a collar. The padded covers for seats with belts help to make it not as uncomfortable but are hot and a PITA in their own way. At night when I know I won’t be passing under lights I’ll take it off and get a break from it.
I never had a seat belt bother me till they added those chest belts and that’s what really sucks.
Just the fact that buses (including most SCHOOL buses) almost never have seat belts shows that its a huge farce.
” I photographed the drug dealer next door holding a 4 barrel derringer – NYC being a Constitution Free Zone, that is a big no-no. I reported it to a friend in city government”
Snitch.
Ed. snitch indeed!. But it’s worse than that as I almost pointed out. How does he know the guy is a drug dealer? Does he have hearing devices pointed at the house? His own “gang” of snitches he cultivates by blackmailing them so they’ll tell him something about the guy to avoid being turned in to the poleez? Somehow he can just look at the guy and know what he does…..behind closed doors.
If the guy really is a drug dealer, why would he care? Unless he believes all the poleez bullshit that drug dealers are “bad” people and likely putting their neighbors at risk. Last time a supposed “drug dealer” put anyone at risk was when the costumed thug crew couldn’t tell “lane” from “way” and raided a house on the other side of town of an elderly couple instead of the house they were told to raid.
If he could see me at the door(thankfully I don’t have neighbors)he’d likely see a .54 that’s not even a firearm but could hit something in the next zipcode. A similar antique made 1500 Yd. shots at Adobe Walls.
Ha. Funny. If you had to live next to the scum that I do and had your home broken into twice by them, in a No Constitution State – “snitching” might be the only way. My moronic step-brother did a decade in prison for the same shit these lowlives get free passes for and worse. Meanwhile, these same scumbags called the cops on me numerous times when I was a kid.
And how do I know he is a drug dealer? He is blatant, carrying bricks of weed out in the open and scales. And the weed they are smoking isn’t just weed. I never got nauseous from second hand weed smoke as I always do when the wind blows theirs into my windows. I know what weed smells like, I know what $600 wholesale an ounce high grade hydroponic smells like – potent beyond belief capable of getting you high when it comes up through floor boards. The shit they are smoking is cut with PCP and other crap. And I haven’t even touched weed since I was in college and I know all this.
I am all okay with bringing them to Jesus myself, but so far the big guy hasn’t asked me too.
8, I was in a friend’s shop awhile back and a guy brought in a .54 Sharps Creedmore that looked like it was new. He said it had been his great grandpa’s rifle that he bought for competition shooting and had never fired it. I guess it was over 100 years old, but it’s the only one of those I ever saw.
I’d love to have seen it Ed……and shoulder it. Always wondered what the real deal felt like.
I didn’t even touch it. The guy was asking $30k for it, and I knew to restrain myself from handling it at all. In the same shop, I saw an original LeMat with a serial number in the 400s. That shop was known for antique firearms and Confederate relics. It was one of my favorite places to visit when it was still there.
Wow, I’ve never seen a LeMat in person. Rare is probably not a good description of them.
I guess I’m not surprised that when they ran her plate it came back with no results — as the state attorney, she’s almost certainly receiving weekly death threats, so I wouldn’t want my home address in a state database for someone to look up.
Which – it’d be nice if the same courtesy was extended to the rest of us.
The tint thing is bogus – Florida allows very dark tint on the front windows – AFAIK only New Mexico allows darker tint (20% transmittance vs 28% in Florida)
“I guess I’m not surprised that when they ran her plate it came back with no results”
You’d think that a cop would have the critical thinking skill to realize that a no-hit like that means an official entry. Of course, anyone who wants to be a cop is probably mentally ill to begin with, so….
May be mentally ill, but – more importantly – they ARE idiots, confirmed in court. Meaning, there was a court case where someone who wanted to be a cop, tried to force them to evaluate his application and test results – and was told essentially that he was too smart for the job.
I believe we chatted about it sometime back.
Jean!
Where the hell have ya been?
Speaking in general these things don’t stop these government office holders from buying cops new ANPR equipment, passing new “tool” laws, and such now does it? So long as they have their card to play it’s just fine. They never think that maybe it will be them. Black politicians and appointees are no better than any other politician on average and do the same things.
The closest I ever came to getting killed at a stop was with a black cop. If it hadnt been for his young white partner I don’t want to guess the outcome.
A good friend was duly murdered by a black Austin cop so I don’t have to guess if they’re less prone to lethal violence.
Part of my job is dealing with DOT regulators who roam the highways. I’ll take the white/non-Hispanic model every time.
Last time I got stopped the guy jumps up on the step of the truck, calls me by name and says “You’re driving a different truck”. Indeed I was and not by choice. He said “The reason I stopped you(was because of the company logo)is to do a Level Two inspection” to which I said “I had no doubt” and he laughed. I got out and he just wrote one ticket for no backup light that had just come out on the previous load. You could see where it had turned loose and I told him it was brand new and had been there all day up to the last hour….which it had. He said he would red-tag me for an air leak(oil and dust around a fitting but you couldn’t hear it leaking although he said he could. I got right down there with my ear and no sound, no feel of air blowing on my hand, nada. He allowed as if I’d turn around and go fix that leak he wouldn’t go on with the inspection since he didn’t need to since it had to do with braking. We were on the edge of a very busy interstate but it didn’t keep me from driving across the barditch(illegal)to the access road and taking an overpass just a 100 yards away. I drove back to a parts store and bought a new air line, installed it right there and took my new back up lamp home and fixed that whole can of worms. He didn’t even stop me the next day since he knew I’d have it fixed and simply let me have a bye on completing a full inspection that would have turned up something else no doubt. I could get mad but it would only make it worse and I was beyond the point of mad, just frustrated.