Cop Stop....Yet Again....

[bryan gibson]

I've been gigging off and on for over 20 years now and just have to ask if this happens to everybody else or only me....

While on the way home from last night's gig I was (yet again...) pulled over by the trusty Illinois State Police. No I wasn't drunk, no I wasn't speeding, no I wasn't doing anything stupid. I was told I DID however have a non-functioning license-plate light. Huh? I can understand them looking for drunks etc, but twenty minutes alongside the highway at 2:30 am? Gimme a break. I had no booze on my breath, I was clearly driving in a straight line, and we do have lots of local traffic at this time of night due to some 24 hour warehouses, etc.

Last month I was pulled over for no apparent reason-by a cop that was LEANING ON THE HOOD OF MY TRUCK 5 minutes before outside the venue and we even had a polite conversation about said drunks inside the building. The month before that, my "front wheel touched the centerline" and I was pulled over by the ISP dude that lives in the same small town (150 pop) that I do.

Long story short, I have an immaculately clean CDL, with exactly ZERO tickets and/or accidents in the last 15 years, and no legal issues of any sort EVER. So I've just gotta rant a bit and ask if anyone else has repeated cop delays on the after-gig commute? On a similar topic, do you think it's getting worse recently or just my normal crap-luck?

[GoesThump]

I've done a lot of late nights & used to get pulled over a lot back in the day. Cut my hair & 94 & have been stopped exactly twice since, and both times I was definitely speeding.

Back in long hair days? Stopped by Montreal cops all the damn time for zero reason.

GT

[MouseRat]

Ha! Yep, me too. And IL, too.

It's happened to me three times, all 2-3am-ish and all coming home from gigs. Once I was driving down Lake-Cook (a six lane 55mph road) at 55mph, totally sober, MAKING SURE to drive absolutely straight because there were no other cars around, and sure enough, a cop car pulls up behind me and follows me for 10 minutes. Everything on my car is in perfect working order (plates, stickers, lights) and I gave him no cause to pull me over. Sure enough he lights me up as I pull onto my street. I stop, and he gets out and gives me the once-over, telling me I was swerving on the road and he wanted to make sure I "wasn't falling asleep or anything". Once he realized I wasn't drunk he was nice enough and let me go.

[GoesThump]

See? There's your problem - driving TOO perfectly. You must be hiding something.

GT

[bryan gibson]

Lake-Cook? Yup, been there several times... generally at 3am pulling a 53' Walmart Grocery trailer I'm also 45 years old, very mild looking, clean cut, and drive either a Dodge Caravan or nice Chevy Silverado-not exactly drunk/meth head profile. Goofy thing is , I've NEVER been stopped in a big orange Grocery-mobile-they even waved me thru police "sobriety" roadblacks. Oh well, I'm not out any money this time, it just appears that the ISP is really ramping up there revenue....err... law enforcement attempts.

[millsbass5]

Huh, you should do a weekend gig here in WV. The cops use some type of felt-tip marker with invisible ink, that is until it's hit with headlights or, a spotlight. They take the marker, and run a mark across the rear ends of vehicles while they're parked in the parking lot of the clubs. That way, the bar patrons are easier to spot by the cops driving on the roads. Talk about being singled out!

[bassfran]

When I used to drive home from gigs late at night I kept my vehicle clean and well-maintained and found that a regular "Joe Citizen" appearance went a long way in minimizing getting stopped.

Unfortunately our strange hours of work tend to attract unwanted attention from Johnny Law.

[Winfred]

Late night cops are gun-toting tax collectors. They're just looking to bust us for DUIs. Here in VA, the fines are now up to $10,000 for your first DUI. And yes, they can garnish your wages to collect it.

Like most of the guys here, I've been playing music for decades, and I can't even take a guess at how many times I've been stopped. NEVER got a ticket for anything, but always got pulled over for something.

I had a friend of mine, who was a cop for several years, give me some great advice. He said:

"If you're driving, and there are other people in the car, tell the cop you're the designated driver."

"If you're by yourself, tell the cop you don't drink. And then shut the #### up.

[HolmeBass]

Originally Posted by millsbass5

Huh, you should do a weekend gig here in WV. The cops use some type of felt-tip marker with invisible ink, that is until it's hit with headlights or, a spotlight. They take the marker, and run a mark across the rear ends of vehicles while they're parked in the parking lot of the clubs. That way, the bar patrons are easier to spot by the cops driving on the roads. Talk about being singled out!

That seems illegal to me. Yuck.

[b_carville]

All this stuff has escalated bigtime over the last few years.
It's really bad in suburban/ rural areas. Many bars/ venues have ceased operating because of it.

[Bassamatic]

It is a shotgun approach. They figure anyone out that late has been out drinking, and they are probably right a good % of the time, so they do random checks.

Not taking sides, but I am sure they find quite a few that should not be driving, and I am glad that they get them off the roads.

[jgroh]

They are just looking for reasons to pull people over to find bigger and better things. I recently got pulled over (not on a gig) in broad daylight when it was "misting" (i.e. not even drizzling...but enough to every now and again flip on the wipers) because my tail lights werent on. In my car, everything but the tail lights go on when you start it...of course they go on when you turn on the lights. The cop went over everything looking for something else to write up. Everything. He let me go. As we both traveled down the road to a busy 4 lane intersection, he sat behind 20 cars with no day running lights on and didnt pull any of them over. I honked the horn while sitting next to him and yelled for him to pull over everyone in front of him...he just glared at me.

[otherclef]

Used to be that most cops were a-holes.
Now all of them are.

[Profania_bass]

Hehe, good job! I hate when cops pull you over for nothing.

[pacojas]

the cops around here park down the street from the popular bars and the pull-overs begin immediately after closing. talk about efficiency!

[Munjibunga]

It's 2:30 a.m. The roads at that time are populated with drunks. He wanted to find out if you were one of them and needed cause to pull you over. License plate light.

[Lee H]

I had an officer pull behind me and turn his headlights off multiple times, while driving down the road. I pulled over, thinking I was being stopped. When I asked him why he did this, he said that he was checking to see if my license plate light was operational. He was not really pulling me over, but since I did pull over he was checking to see if I was OK

after a lengthy discussion, I asked him why I was singled out, of all the people leaving the bar... His response "You were the one driving a corvette".

[DiabolusInMusic]

What police doing profiling??? That is absurd and unheard of!!!

[Tractorr]

Originally Posted by bryan gibson

On a similar topic, do you think it's getting worse recently or just my normal crap-luck?

It could be. I have heard from a number of people, working in law enforcement, that budget strains have caused departments to urge their officers to step up their traffic stops.

[nortonrider]

I read somewhere that 40% of the drivers on the road after midnight are drunk.

With those odds,
by pulling over just 3 cars , the cop is pretty much guaranteed a DUI arrest.


Yes! their stepped up enforcement has had a dramatic effect on the bar business!