Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

But I don’t think this is your situation at all. I see how you’ve conveniently omitted your driving offense of which the cop pulled you over and gave you a ticket for. As far as I read your story, you committed a driving offense and were suitably punished for it, and are now upset that you have to pay a small fine compared to never being able to drive again. Driving is a privilege, not a right. You did something that was against the rules, thus you are suitably punished for it.

Not all cops are that way, but next time, try turning off the car and putting your keys on the roof. I’ve been pulled over numerous times (not lately) and I am always polite and as non-threatening as possible, and I’ve still gotten a few tickets. Take your lumps, as dynamicduo said, you only have to pay a fine. Getting your license revoked or suspended is way more expensive. Driving is a privilege.

If he treated like you were a convicted criminal, then you’d have lumps on your head where he beat you with the night stick and handcuff burns on your wrists. I think you are being overly-dramatic.

I don’t think that cops have a god complex. I think that they are just pathologically hostile to “them,” which in this case, is us. Police officers are very defensive, and operate from a belief that you hate them and will probably hurt them if you get a chance.

But I’m with @evelyns_pet_zebra on this one. Cut the drama- we all get tickets.

1) Don’t judge all cops based on the actions of one.
2) Didn’t you break a law?

My offense was turning right at a light when a no turn on red turn was posted. I simply was distracted watching for traffic. I honestly did not see the sign and had to go back and look formyself that it was indeed there! And you sound like cops yourselves. So there you go! I don’t expect you to understand.

Maybe that cop has seen accidents at that intersection.
Maybe somebody got hit by a car at that intersection due to a careless driver who was distracted and missed the posted sign.

And now you know to pay more attention to signs.

Edit: Oh, this is being written by someone who has a suspicion of most cops, and who was recently pulled over too.

No excuse for rudeness! and the plain “I have power and you don’t” attitude. Yeah I am “paying” for attention alright. Look I might be able to understand $50.00 or even $75.00 as a sharp slap on the hand. but $150.00 for a simple mistake! That’s Highway Robbery!(pardon the bad pun)

No one was endangered no one was hurt. I mean If I almost caused an accident I could even understand that! But that simply wasn’t the case!

@Rickomg Well, I guess if you know that you can get a 150$ fine, you will be much more attentive next time ?
To low fines makes people take more chances you know… more chanses leads to more accidents, more accidents lead to more dead people….

@Rickomg: I don’t think @dynamicduo was really being rude at all. I think you’re just interpreting the fact she didn’t agree with you that way, which is a little unfair of you (and rude, in its own way).

Maybe I’m being a little biased here, but my father was a cop, and while he does have an ego the size of an elephant and a temper to match, I wouldn’t say he has a god complex at all. Cops, just like everyone else, have a job to do, and the very nature of that job means they can’t always be the nice guy all the time. Yeah, there are a ton of cops that are complete and utter dicks, but considering how many complete and utter dicks there are in the rest of the populace, I’d say it’s probably proportional.

You broke a law and you’re paying the fine. Shrug it off as a lessoned learned and don’t do it again. Going on the internet to complain about it and then lashing out at people that don’t coo and say “Oh, I’m so sorry that mean cop picked on you!” isn’t going to change the fact that it happened.

LOL your right of course

I guess i just have to bend over and take it like a man! Huh? They win they will always win!

@MrMeltedCrayon: Lots of lurve!

@Rickomg: Maybe no one was endangered this time, but believe it or not, those laws are there to keep people from being endangered. I feel like a broken record (and apologies to everyone who has heard this before) but I have been endangered and hurt by a driver who thought that no one was going to be endangered by her reckless actions. But, hey, I’m sure no one else was endangered the other times she did it, right?

The best defense in your case may be to learn about your rights at a traffic stop and in traffic cases in general. If you apply them correctly, then cops will at least know that you’re not a total pushover. Part of that might be learning to respond to their words without responding to the attitude.

From the tone and wording you use in this question, it sounds like you have a problem with police officers, not just that one who may or may not have been rude.

Perhaps the officer detected your anti-cop attitude and was on the defensive?

People who get caught breaking traffic laws tend to get tickets. Learn to pay attention while you drive, or expect many more tickets.

In @Rickomg defense, those “No right on red” signs aren’t always placed in the most visible locations. It wouldn’t surprise me for someone to miss one even though they were paying attention. (And no, I’ve never missed one that I know of… but I’ve seen some in some pretty weird places.)

You broke a traffic law and you were fined. That’s how it works.
If you feel you are so right challenge the ticket.

Beyond that, there are asshole cops and there are nice ones; just like every other type of person in the world.

@btko – Great point. Rick can always take a picture of the sign and show how it is hard to see, then go to court to challenge the ticket. Either they will drop the fine, or not.

@fireside I got a ticket once where 1) I was not familiar with the area (so as to know the speed limit beforehand), 2) It looked like a 45, 3) The sign saying “30” was literally bent over backwards (I went back and looked for the speed limit sign, since I hadn’t seen one), 4) I was going 44 (thinking I was one mile under, and 5) The cop didn’t care a bit, citing the fact that I had slowed down when I saw him (ignoring that given where his car was sitting, I would have slowed down even if he hadn’t been sitting in a cop car and pointing a radar gun at me).

I would loved to have fought the ticket, but all the advice I heard after that point implied that the system is heavily biased against the accused. You’re guilty until you can prove your own innocence. It would cost money to go to court, the judge would care a lot more about the cop’s word than mine, and the court date and location would have required a five hour drive each way. The gas alone would be more expensive than the ticket itself, so instead I had to go to remedial traffic school so that my insurance rates wouldn’t blow through the roof. I don’t believe for a second that anyone on any road is safer for this turn of events.

edit: I’m not saying that the cop was a jerk. He was very nice, if you ignore the fact that he gave me a $75 ticket because of a broken speed limit sign.

I would think a photograph of a bent over sign would be enough proof for any judge.

You think you’ve got it bad? I was arrested last summer because my tires “popped” off the line from a stop light (accidentally no less, I let up off the clutch too quickly). The cop accused me of squealing my tires thru the entire intersection (a turn no less, in my FRONT wheel drive car), arrested me for “wreckless operation (a 6 point offense btw, speeding less than 20mph over the limit is 2 points), and impounded my car.

The judge eventually threw it out the charges as “completely ridiculous”, but I was unable to recoup my $200 impound fee, $500 lawyer fee, or the $150 I lost from missing work that day (oh and the judge didn’t think it right to repeal the no front license plate charge, so I had to pay a $50 fine for that, and since I was “convicted” of A charge leveled against me I had to pay court costs, $120). Not to mention my insurance company still hasn’t taken the “wreckless operations” charge off my record, which made my insurance rate hike so much I had to sell the car I was driving since i could no longer afford the insurance (it went up to about $200/month).

So in total, I lost $1020 and a car I treated like a child, because some cop had a bad day.

They wouldn’t even let me file a complaint against that asshole.

Be happy all you got was a ticket.

@fireside Perhaps. Or perhaps I would have been accused of vandalizing the sign. Who knows. It doesn’t matter, because it was pointless to go to court because the gas to get there (ten hours of driving, round trip—I didn’t live in the area) would have cost more than the ticket (not to mention the lost time). Even to get a picture of the sign would have entailed two extra hours of driving, because I didn’t have a camera with me at the time and would have had to go get one and come back to the site.

@westy81585 I’m not sure who you’re responding to, since you didn’t use an @reply. If you were talking to me: I’m not saying that what happened to me is the worst thing that’s ever happened. That doesn’t mean it was a good experience. Your experience was indeed worse.

@aidje Haha, yah I was talking to you, but I didn’t mean it as a bragging point. Just using the old saying. It does suck, but remember, it COULD be worse.

Out of curiosity, was it a local (like a city/town cop)? I’ve found that city/town cops tend to be complete assholes, but let you off (well excluding my current city), while state/sheriff cops tend to be really nice, but then give you a ticket almost every time….... Your cop seems to fit the bill of a Columbus PD officer….

Well, I was gonna tell a story about jerk cops but mine is nothing compared to @westy81585 ‘s…

I have met some cops that wrote me tickets and were absolute jerks for no reason. I’ve met cops that were insanely nice and polite that have both written tickets for things I have deserved and let me off when I should have be reprimanded. All you can do is be polite and know your rights.

@westy81585 It was a local suburb cop.

cops being assholes is a generalization, but i often think it too. i know a cop or two that i am actually fond of, but as a whole, they really piss me off.

but there’s this authority complex…i can’t remember what it’s called, or who performed the experiment – joseph something-or-other. but anyway, this joseph dude posted an ad for a bunch of guys to sign up for a psychology experiment, and then one day he had fake cops come to their house, arrest them for some nonsense, take them to a ‘jail’, and put them in cells – the whole 9 yards.
joseph had a bunch of guys acting as if they were guards. the guys were aware that they were not guards, and that the guys imprisoned weren’t actually guilty of anything. however, their authority title got to them, and they took full advantage of their role. the experiment was supposed to last 2 weeks or so, but they called it off in a matter of days because these ‘guards’ ended up being really harsh on these innocent guys. it was just a matter of filling in the role. you know, they started off ‘playing’ a cop, but their actions affected their thoughts, and soon enough they felt like they really were guards.
in fact, at one point the ‘prisoners’ were planning some sort of prison break, and joseph himself called an actual jail, and asked if he could put his inmates there, and one of his colleagues ended up having to come and talk sense into him. he started acting as if he were legitimately in command of real criminals.

i thought it was really interesting. even a slight sense of authority can lead people to become complete assholes, is the moral of the story. (;

@tiffyandthewall I’m not sure when or where that took place, but it would’ve had to be from before the 50’s. That would NEVER gain approval today (psychology/sociological experiments are REQUIRED by law to gain approval from a board of peers), and if he did it anyways he would be facing severe jail time himself.

@westy81585 The Stanford prison experiment happened in 1971. (And the guy’s name was Philip Zimbardo, not Joseph.)

Bottom line is YES I violated a law… yes I got a ticket… yes I wil pay the ticket even though I feel it is a completely ridiculous amount. All I am saying is that there should be accountability within the police force. The people enforcing the laws also need to have those same laws enforced upon themselves. So Ideally we could have a cops cop or at least some sort of Valid Ticketing system for police officers. That I can bust them on as well. No they are not all bad but the bad ones are the ones making all the decent ones look like shit. You need ethics presence (be ethical yourself) to effectively enforce ethics. Leadership by example. I’m not seeing that. What I am seeing is the neanderthal attitude of Who’s got the bigger dick!

Maybe a better question is why do lawbreakers have such a persecution complex?

Apparently fireside, you are a police officer. You sound like you have that “I am above the law” attitude. Why can’t you follow the laws you are supposedly enforcing? All I’m asking is Equal Rights, Why are you scared of that? How many laws have you broken?

lol, um, okay. I’m not a cop and I’ve broken plenty of laws.
I just don’t whine about it when I get caught.

Demanding Equal Rights is not whining. It’s what your forefathers did that allows you to say trash like that.
I fought for my country and I have earned the right to demand it. Hell I even fought for your right to say whatever you want so go ahead and do so. But know that you are only serving to shit on the very rights that you are using.
Your welcome!

@Rickomg Equal rights? You’re making this into an equal rights issue?

Sigh. Spoiled.

@Rickomg: Doesn’t fireside have the right to tell you you’re being a pissy little bitch about getting one ticket? I certainly enjoy that right…

Oh yeah, It’s real easy to sit back and take pot shots from the side lines. At least I’m not affraid to get out there and fight for what I believe in, or fight with ferocity against what is not right. It’s the simple principal of the whole situation. There are many things wrong in this world and as long as the majority sit back and do nothing about it then nothing will ever change! EVER! The ticket is of no concearn. I’ll pay it and be done. but the fact remains, where will it end? All it takes is a little shrug to begin with and before you know what hit you, youv’e lost all rights of justice. So to all you sideliners out there I say the freedoms you enjoy are because of people like myself that are out there making a difference. Go ahead and sit back relax waste your lives on the latest TV Show/Soap. I intend on making a difference.

@Rickomg: Why don’t you put that energy into something like…hm… improving the foster care system? Or how about feeding the hungry? Clothing the homeless? Educating people about voting so that everyone can make a difference? Maybe instead of sitting on a website complaining that you’re losing your personal freedoms because you had to pay a ticket, you could go volunteer at a Planned Parenthood so that everyone in this country (I assume you’re American) can maintain the freedom to employ birth control. You want change? Complaining doesn’t bring about change. Doing brings about change. Instead of sitting on here telling us that we’re lazy and whiny and don’t protect our own personal freedoms and that you’re the only one who does, go out and do it!

I do everyday! I am out there pushing and working to wake people up! It’s what I do. Um… (and I already said that I will pay the ticket no problem) now if you want to debate then I suggest you step up and stay on the subject this has turned into. Which is: there should be a penalty system of equal severity for those enforcing the penaltys. Fair treatment for all. All your trying to do is distract from the point so you can try and degrade the fact that What I am saying is correct. If you wish to debate the subject at hand, and not some diversion, I will gladly take up that debate! Up to you. I will not be distracted again and I know for a fact that I am not alone in this way of thinking. The ones that support this are just too freaking asleep to sit up and take note! Been trained or beaten down from standing up for what is right. Trained into giving up and rolling over to whatever happens.
If each individual in this world would take responsibility for his own actions and then step out and take responsibility for his area of influence then the world would be IDEAL. I don’t expect that to happen tommorrow but Where does it start? With one man. Demanding equal and fair treatment for all humanity accross the board! Laws are made to protect everyone. No one should be above the law anywhere.

Hahaha. rick, you’re very entertaining. I suspect if we ever met in real life, we would piss each other off to no end. Have fun on your high horse, I think I’ll walk from here.

Happy trails to you! The view is great from up here!

@Rickomg you claim that your offense is that you simply were distracted. The last time I was simply distracted I was watching traffic and missed a red light. Fortunately no major injuries but totaled two cars and traumatized my then six-year-old daughter (the cause of my distraction.

As far as your secondary question: ” there should be a penalty system of equal severity for those enforcing the penaltys.

There is. It’s usually called Internal Affairs.

Yeah OK you can believe that if you like. it’s a free country… sort of….