Professional courtesy from police at traffic stops

Roy Fokker, BSN, RN · Aug 17, 2007

Was pulled over last week.

Despite telling officer I was headed to work because they called me in (they were getting slammed) - I was in my scrubs and had my ID badge on and was 4 blocks from work.

Was 8 MPH over limit.

Was still ticketed.

Just paid the ticket yesterday....

TrudyRN · Aug 17, 2007

it also helps to be young and pretty and pleasant. :devil: :idea: Life is unfair but at least it's unfair in our favor once in a while, eh?

Altra, BSN, RN · Aug 17, 2007

Love #13 above ... :lol2:

And I might have to adopt #4 for MVA patients w/ ETOH levels of 358.

I'll add one I heard yesterday from the officer with my patient:

"I might believe what you're saying. But look ... you've heard of Missouri, the Show Me State? I'm the Show Me Officer."

Made me giggle ...

58flyer · Aug 19, 2007

After reading a number of posts about police giving nurses a break on a traffic stop, I am curious. To those who have enjoyed the benefit of professional courtesy, some of you several times, do you reciprocate the favor? I mean do you treat your police patients extra nice, or quicker, maybe just do an all around more compassionate and caring job? What goes around should come around I would think, perhaps as a way of saying "thanks, you guys looked out for me, now I am going to look out for you."

CaLLaCoDe, BSN, RN · Aug 19, 2007

true tale:

there is this circle, garces circle, in town that has 3 yields and one stop sign at the entrances. i unfortunately did not stop fully, since at other entrances there's a yield. pavlav dog testimonial, yeah! well i got pulled over and usually i'd flash my registered nurse card, but was angry and forgot to. the ticket when it showed up through the mail was for 900 dollars! omg!!!!

someone at work suggested i go to court and plead guilty. so i did and lo and behold got slapped with a 75 dollar fine! imagine those individuals who don't ever show up for court and just pay pay pay...the system is so messed up, it isn't funny!

ps. my only regret is that i was angry for one and i forgot to show the traffic cop my registered nurse card! the card worked for me once, should try it again and again!

Elvish, BSN, DNP, RN, NP · Aug 20, 2007

After reading a number of posts about police giving nurses a break on a traffic stop, I am curious. To those who have enjoyed the benefit of professional courtesy, some of you several times, do you reciprocate the favor? I mean do you treat your police patients extra nice, or quicker, maybe just do an all around more compassionate and caring job? What goes around should come around I would think, perhaps as a way of saying "thanks, you guys looked out for me, now I am going to look out for you."

When I do have a police officer (or a police officer's wife) as a patient, I treat them just like I would any other patient. I try to look out for all my patients. I do, however, make it a point to thank LEOs for what they do, because I know they have a difficult, underpaid, and often thankless job. So I really try to let them know that I appreciate what they do to keep me safe. I do the same for veterans and folks currently in uniform, even though I don't like war.

I have never gotten out of a ticket because of being a nurse. I wouldn't expect to at all if I'm not in scrubs. And if I am in scrubs, I wouldn't mention that I'm a nurse unless the LEO asks. If he decides not to ticket me, that's his/her business, as it is with anybody s/he pulls over. But I won't try to get out of it.

Good question, flyer.

ZASHAGALKA, RN · Aug 20, 2007

I've told this story on this site before, but it's funny and relates.

A friend of mine was pulled over. Told the cop she was a nurse. Cop says, "I'm still going to write you a ticket."

She says, "If you ever have to come to the ICU, and since you ride a motorcycle, that's more likely than other officers, I have a foley the size of a garden hose, with your name on it."

Officer: "Ma'am, you just threatened a peace officer. I could arrest you right now!"

Friend: "Yes, but then you'd have to explain to all your buddies how you arrested me out of such grave concern because I threatened your member."

All she got was a ticket.

I have had a few officers, that recognized me from my ER days let me go, one without even a warning.

My fav get out of a ticket story was in Reader's Digest, years ago. In "All in a Day's Work", an officer related that he let a woman off once, because, in addition to her registration, she handed him, out of the glove box, a 'get out of jail free' card from a monopoly game.

~faith,

Timothy.

blueberrybon · Aug 20, 2007

it also helps to be young and pretty and pleasant. Life is unfair but at least it's unfair in our favor once in a while, eh?

Okay, maybe that's my problem right there.

Just two days ago, I was on my way to work, and yes, like most who've replied, in scrubs and badge, when out of nowhere came the dreaded blue lights.

I pulled over, thinking right away that I most probably would just get a warning.

I was wrong. $154.00 down the toilet. Proffessional courtesty my lead foot!

Blue

woody62, RN · Aug 20, 2007

Okay, maybe that's my problem right there.
Just two days ago, I was on my way to work, and yes, like most who've replied, in scrubs and badge, when out of nowhere came the dreaded blue lights.
I pulled over, thinking right away that I most probably would just get a warning.
I was wrong. $154.00 down the toilet. Proffessional courtesty my lead foot!
Blue

Be thankful that you don't live in Virginia. That $154 ticket could have cost you more then $2,000 there. They changed their moving violations law and are hitting their residents with outrageous fines.

Woody:balloons:

Elvish, BSN, DNP, RN, NP · Aug 20, 2007

Be thankful that you don't live in Virginia. That $154 ticket could have cost you more then $2,000 there. They changed their moving violations law and are hitting their residents with outrageous fines.
Woody:balloons:

VA cops are notorious. Even more so for out-of-staters.

ZASHAGALKA, RN · Aug 20, 2007

Advice from my father when I first started driving: He was a police officer. I've been pulled over perhaps a dozen times in my driving career. I've received tickets less than half the time. So, much of this works, by first hand experience.

1. Be pleasant. It's a job for them. The HAVE to be there, they HAVE to write tickets. But, they don't necessarily have to write YOU a ticket. Be pleasant. (Besides, there are plenty of people that AREN'T pleasant for them to fill their 'quota'.)

2. Put your hands on the steering wheel, in the 2 o'clock/4 o'clock position. If it's night out, turn on your interior lights. The MOST risk an officer faces in any given day is approaching a car at a stop: he has no idea if you are about to pull a weapon on him or not. Placing your hands in plain sight, and providing illumination into your surroundings will put him more at ease approaching you. An officer more at ease is an officer more likely to give you a warning.

3. Pull over in a well lit area, preferably off the road, EVEN if that means driving a bit to get off the expressway. Officers are taught that you have the right to find a well lit, public area to pull off into. They cannot penalize you for doing so. Turn your hazards on in the meantime to indicate that you have acknowledged him behind you. In fact, most will tolerate you driving, at a reasonable speed, another mile or so to write you a ticket in the gas station parking lot, as opposed to standing by the side of a busy interstate. There's less risk there, all the way around, for that officer. Do you know how many officers get sideswiped in traffic a year? Several.

4. Tell the truth. Many lawyers might tell you not to say anything. In fact, the radar is a device that DOES hold up in most court cases. You just don't incriminate yourself that much more by telling the truth. And, many officers will appreciate that. I once told an officer, "I didn't know how fast I was going until I saw you, but when I looked down, I was doing 72 (in a 55). I don't know how I got up that fast, except to say there wasn't any cars around me and I wasn't paying close enough attn to my speed." Result: warning.

5. The crying, hysterical female thing doesn't normally work. It falls under the 'honey, seen it all before' routine. Now, pretty girls probably DO get out of more tickets. But a few studies suggest they get all kinds of perks in life. Life's not fair.

My father suggested to me that, if you weren't drunk, just about anybody could sweet talk him out of a ticket, save for parking unneccessarily in a handicapped spot and children unrestrained. If you weren't 'sweet', nobody could talk him out of a ticket.

I think this works. I've had pleasant conversations with officers that DID write me a ticket. Even if I still got the ticket, it was worth it, personally, to not get so worked up.

~faith,

Timothy.

ZASHAGALKA, RN · Aug 20, 2007

Only 1 ticket did I ever really, truly fight, because I thought it was unfair. I filed a 16 page motion to dismiss on the grounds that my Constitutional rights were violated 3 different ways, that State Law defined the area at a higher speed than posted (the sign was incorrectly placed) and that, in any case, Federal guidelines sufficiently rebuffed the State's prima facia speed law. The city atty postponed a Court date until after the 2 yr statute of limitations expired. It's a brilliant piece of work. I spent over a week working on it. I LOVED arguing that a speeding ticket violated my substantive due process, my procedural due process, and, equal protection under the law.

It was SO worth it to say I fought the law, and I won.

Excerpt, if you're interested:

"Equal Protection ensures that any law must hold an equal and reasonable chance of enforcement. The Texas (Prima Facia Speed Limit) Law doesn’t even purport to live up to that standard. No reasonable lawman or Court would stipulate that the law, in design, has a reasonable chance of catching all or even most speeding motorists. The actual usual and customary practice of the statutes is to enforce speed by randomly prosecuting the alleged criminal actions of a fourth of the population.

This is not to say that, because a significant percentage of the population may violate a law, that that law should be held to be Unconstitutional. It isn’t mere high non-compliance with a law that violates due process, but the reason for such high non- compliance. The State has purposely devised a law that criminalizes the safe and prudent actions of a significant plurality of its citizens. As a result, its agents can or must only discriminately or randomly enforce the statute. Such a scheme breaches Equal Protection precisely because, under this scheme, prosecution of the law is not dependent upon guilt, but upon the discretional acts of agents of the State. This ability and necessity to discriminate, by any and whatever standard, deprives the population as a whole, and 27.2% of the population particularly, of Equal Protection under the Law.

This is the quintessential trade-off in enforcement vs. safety. The highest reasonable speed to allow safe movement of the population should be regulated in order to ensure better compliance with the law. The standard for this relationship, as previously discussed, is the 85th percentile speed – the speed at which 15% of drivers would violate the law at any given moment. Federal and State (see appendix 1) standards declare that the 85th percentile speed (criminalizing at the 15% level) is the most reasonable trade-off between safety and enforcement.

The old National (55mph) Speed Limit Law came quite close to the 15% standard with 16.3% violations (enforcement at the 83.7 percentile). The new Texas Law criminalizes 27.2% of motorists (enforcement at the 72.8 percentile!). That is a 40% increase in non-compliance. The result is that approximately 45% of speeding motorists are operating their vehicles safely above the speed limit (12.2% - motorists in violation of the law but driving at or under the 85th percentile divided by the total number of violators – 27.2%)!

Under this scheme, even though 45% of speeding drivers are operating their vehicles safely at or below the 85th percentile, the State resolutely grants itself prima facie evidence to enforce at the 72.8 percentile level!

This is the essence of Equal Protection concerns with the State’s scheme. At what point is the State randomly enforcing law regardless of guilt versus enforcement for actual unsafe and imprudent driving?!

The State’s obligation should be to legislate standards that allow for the highest percentage of compliance with the law as possible. It can be reasonably argued that this is simply not the case in current law."

(Ultimately, I'm sure that the city atty postponed the ticket, not because of the arguments such as the one above, but because I made a credible challenge to the placement of the sign, under State Law. If I had prevailed, they would have had to move the sign, or change it. It wasn't worth one ticket to put their speed trap in jeopardy.)

~faith,

Timothy.