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I got pulled over for drunk driving

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by TheForce, Jun 1, 2010.

  1. TheForce

    TheForce Stop War! Lets Rave! Make Love!

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    Well kind of. I'll explain. :)

    <----------- YAAAAAAY!! 3000 posts!!!!!!!:cheer2:

    This is the first time I have ever been pulled over. EVER!

    Here is some background.

    On my way home from work its 11:00PM and I drive on 35MPH roads through the city. If you can even call it a city. Anyway the road has two lanes in one direction and the right hand lane is filled with potholes. The left lane not so much but they are there. If you want you can take a look at the road I travel here [ame=http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=38.741683,-82.958493&spn=0,0.016512&t=h&z=17&layer=c&cbll=38.741698,-82.958377&panoid=9tt7qkdivKXfP6ZCr8RiCg&cbp=12,70.15,,0,15.23]Google Maps[/ame]

    I started you out on the first major pothole. You can go all the way down until you see Wagners rental on the right. I have to tell you there are about 2-3 times as many potholes now than when street view whent down the road plus the holes have gotten deeper. These potholes have been there for years and the road has not been repaved in I don't know how long.

    Now at night when there in no one around I can do pretty aggressive driving to avoid the holes all together and that is mostly what I was doing tonight since there was no one around. Plus like always when there is no one around I was traveling under the speed limit. My speedometer was saying 25-30MPH. I've been doing this kind of driving for years on this road and even had the cops follow me and even pass me while I'm avoiding the holes. But those times it was in daylight. I think they knew what I was doing then.

    As I was avoiding the potholes I seen I passed a cop. I knew eventually I was going to get pulled over for avoiding these nice features in the road it was only a matter of when.

    I was still driving down the road and I did not seem him pull out until I was a good 500 feet away. I was still avoiding potholes. I then knew I was going to get pulled over.

    Well the lights came on and I pulled over next to the Wagners rental. I saved my data from the CAN-View just to make sure I would not lose it. I always do that before I shut the car off just in case the CV loses power I will still have current data. I rolled down the window and shut the car off.

    The officer came up and asked for my drivers license. I said sure and I told him I had a conceal carry license but I did not have my firearm with me tonight. He said thats fine. I then asked him why he pulled me over ( that way he does not get to ask that question to me and try to get me to confess to a crime I may or may not have committed ) and he said I was weaving and going 20MPH. I then told him that was correct and I was just avoiding the nice features in the road. He then suggested that I use the left lane to avoid the potholes. I told him I could but that would mean staying in the passing lane and holding up traffic. Both of which I could get pulled over for.

    He then asked for my insurance and I handed it to him. He wanted to do a quick sobriety check with his pen. Had to keep my head still while he moved the pen and I had to keep my eyes on the pen. Since I just got off work and was tired I had a hard time focusing on the pen. It almost put me to sleep because it seem like he was doing that for a good minute. He asked me if I had anything to drink and I said no because I just got off work from the hospital. He said one of my eyes was a little slow and I told him he was a little fat. Just kidding :p I told him I was just tired. He believed me.

    I got my cards back and we was done in just a few minutes. He was a nice guy.


    I'm glad they are doing their job of getting the drunks off the road but he should have picked a better spot without potholes to check for drunks. I guess he could have pick that spot just to get his quota for the night. Catching people avoiding the potholes.


    DONT DRINK AND DRIVE!
     
  2. Armywife

    Armywife New Member

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    HAHA Love it!

    One time I was weaving really badly because my oldest is an escape artist with his car seat and I was trying to get him to SIT DOWN. The cop walks up and sees my son sitting on the bar of his car seat. (We got him one of the ones with a bar across the front bc we were told it would keep him in the darn thing) He just laughs and writes down my driver's lic number, they have to for every pullover, and helped me put LM back in his seat. I thought I was going to get a ticket for his escape, at least, but nope...
     
  3. patsparks

    patsparks An Aussie perspective

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    Wouldn't it be so much easier to breathalize you rather than go through the pen waving bull?
    Oh I forgot, you have rights. You have the right to have your time wasted while a cop waves a pen in your face.
     
  4. DaveinOlyWA

    DaveinOlyWA 3rd Time was Solariffic!!

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    Breathalyzer requires paperwork around here. used only when cop is certain they have a score
     
  5. Politburo

    Politburo Active Member

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    The breathalyzer is an objective measurement and the cop already knew OP wasn't drunk. The subjective sobriety test allows for a lot more fudging (like the BS line about one eye being "slow".. that's not an aspect of the test, see below), and probably makes the cop feel a bit more powerful since he is the one making the decision, not a machine.

    Here in the US, it's all about stroking the officer's ego, not proper and equitable law enforcement. For example, "Many sober people are unable to perform the tests properly with a false positive rate of 23% and some are even arrested for failing the tests."

    Drunk driving in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Eye test: Physiologic nystagmus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    ETA: I should also add that some states, such as NJ, allow only the desktop breathalyzer to be used.
     
  6. Salsawonder

    Salsawonder New Member

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    Good thing you kept the fat comment in your head....jail time looks bad on your records!
     
  7. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    Theforce,
    Welcome to my world (my wife would say, "I don't WANT to be in your world!) !! I'm on the road around 3:50am each morning. That's shortly after the bars close. Driving stealth / below the speed "limit" ... I've been pulled over TWO times! After all ... below the speed limit? Who does that?
    :p
    Same explaination ... P & G ... saving batteries ... both times, but it's never that easy getting back on the road. It seems my plates are not easily accessed in the DMV data base. I explain why ... they fiddle with running the plates some more ... then finally get me back on the road. Is it any wonder that I leave for work an easy 1/2 hour early?

    .