Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Common Interests Cops and "blue light pass"

So I was driving back to my house on Monday night
at 11:45pm, on a two-lane road posted for 50MPH. I had the cruise
control set at 55MPH, and I look in the rearview
and see a car tailgating me.

This car looks like a police car.

So I continue looking in my rearview and some
light coming from somewhere in the distance allows
me to make out the lightbar on top.

Definently a police car.

Time to slow down to 50MPH. So I hit the coast
button, and before I've even slowed down 1MPH, his
lights come and I think "oh great, he's pulling me
over". Except that he doesn't want to pull me
over, he wants to pass.

And pass he does (on a double-yellow, which I
suppose is made "legal" by turning on the lights),
and he speeds up to what must
have been 80MPH, ensuring that I can't get his
plate number.

He passes me and the lights go off. Then I see
them come on again in the distance and see him
pull the same thing.

So this got me to wondering...

1)What sort of stereotypes/opinions do you suppose
members of the general public who are treated to
this sort of behavior from cops might
form about cops?

2)Is there an overall negative impession of cops,
and does behavior like this contribute to that
impression?

3)Was this cop hoping I'll speed up so he
can give me a ticket?

4)Was he actually trying to get somewhere in a
legitimate hurry (such as responding to a call),
and if so, why the hell did he
tailgate me instead of passing at the earliest
possible opportunity? Alternatively, if he was
not responding to a call and merely in a hurry,
why did he not wait until there was a passing
zone?

5)Do cops realize that when they wear the uniform
and drive the car, they are held to higher
standards of conduct and behavior by the general
public?

Brian

If the officer has a legitimate reason to be hauling @$$ everywhere, well then that's fine...I find that in most cases though, COPS speed, pass on the right, or on other sides of the road. Thet turn on their sirens once a traffic jam occurs so everyone gets out of the way (only making the situation worse for the rest of us!), they always go through red lights...not to mention doing turns and other things without signaling. I think unless they're responding to a call, they should follow the rules the rest of us have to.

Oh great, here we go again...

This anti-police rhetoric is getting deep enough to require waders.

Get over it. There is no conspiracy here. They aren't causing you excruciating pain.

You have no idea why the officer did that and speculating why is moronic.

My brother was an EMT and they were not allowed to drive more than 10mph over the speed limit (granted, the chief would probably look the other way) because people complained to the city. But he had people yell at them because they thought they should have driven faster! They can't win.

I'm sure if you were the one waiting for that cop to come to your aid, you would be happy that he made haste.

For crying out loud folks, get your head out of your backside and for ONCE realize that not every cop is out to get YOU! Yes YOU! People are so stinking paranoid about police officers, like their sole purpose in life is to pull YOU over and trump up charges on YOU! There are other citizens in this world other than YOU! Get over it!

:rolleyes: Whatever. How much time do YOU spend with a police officer? An hour a week? An hour a month? Or only on that chance meeting driving down the road? So basically you see ONE officer for a couple of seconds performing an act you don't like yet you have NO idea what call he is responding to. Furthermore, in the case of an emergency, what good does it do to have your officers stuck in traffic?

Get a clue you uninformed, self-centered critics. :rolleyes:

I always support cops and I actually teach tennis to a few and they are great guys. But, I think that like anything else, the few cops we see driving like crap, is more prevalent than what we see....Here in Duluth, the county cops actually caused a couple of accidents.
BUT, the idea to understand is that a few examples always mushroom to represent larger numbers, and they should be aware of that. That is sociology for you.

I think that if the cops are responding to a call, they should light up immediately and go like a bat outtahell!! But tailgating ( i had cops 1 ft from my car plenty of times) isnt cool.

I think its cut and dry...Lights on, drive on as fast and do whatever, but as long as your lights are off, behave like the rest of us...although after sitting in the patrol cars for 8 hrs, they do have a tendency to get impatient...I personally can live with whatever, BUT not the tailgating...i bet if i put on the brakes and the cop hits me,,,he would be at fault, and not happy!

I bet he just realized that Dunkin' Donuts was closing and was in a hurry to get some creamed filled ones.

You could have just hit the gas and followed him. If he can do it, why not you?? Right?

Actually my brother did enjoy following cops at whatever speed they were doing (non emergency situations of course). Even if it was 90 or so...

I'll put my 2 cents in here. I am not anti-cop; my aunt and uncle are both on the job down in MD and I am very close to them.

My uncle is actually worse about this sort of thing. Not necessarily doing a "blue light pass", but generally driving every car he's in like it has a light bar on top of it. He doesn't seem to understand why everyone is getting annoyed around him when he's cutting people out in the family minivan and tailgating at 85 MPH. I guess he's just too used to people moving over for him when he's driving his cruiser. Once, he told me to squeeze my SVT into a spot that was too small to safely pass, and I refused because a) I like having a clean insurance record and b) my 7 y/o cousin (his son) was in the car with us. He asked me: "Doesn't this thing have some b*lls?". :rolleyes: Of course, I opened it up on the next strip of clean road for him. This behavior surprises me since he's a very good cop in general (he's not 40 yet and he's a Lt. and barracks commander for the MD State Police).

He once told me that if he was in court after pulling over a motorist that was followng him exceeding the speed limit (the speed he was doing), he would just tell the judge that he was responding to a "lights off call". I'd love to be in court and have to respond to that. "So, did pulling me over delay yor response to this important call? What/where was the call and why was it so important to illegally exceed the speed limit with no emergency signals?" That said, I followed a DE Trooper for about 90 minutes, matching speed as high as 95 on a rural highway. She would notice me not getting smaller, slow down to 55 (so would I and not pass), then speed up. She even waved her hat to me on one slow down, but she never bothered to pull me over. This wasn't even in the SVT. I'm sure she realized she was in the wrong and that's why I wasn't ticketed. I made good time that day.

My aunt is a good driver when she's in a civillian vehicle. In her cruiser, she's just used to cars parting like the Red Sea though. She tells me that she earns the right to speed because she risks her life on the job every day. I tell her that she (especially in her cruiser) should be setting a good example for everyone else. It's a never ending argument that starts every time she chastises me for speeding on the highway. Of course, she thinks I'm going to kill myself at a drag strip (in a Contour? I doubt it) so there is just no getting through to her sometimes.

the fact is that cops break laws all the time, especially in chicago. anything from getting free doughnuts to beating people up without prevocation (If you don't think it happens on a regular basis, you are 100% clueless). OK, ok, cops have a hella stressful job, and they deserve free doughnuts, and the people whos civil rights they violate MIGHT have deserved to be punched around, but Traffic laws were designed for everybodys safety, i see cops roll right through red lights w/ no sirens ALL the time. if it was safe, why cant we all do it? If we didn't have complex traffic patterns and lights and such, it would be Chaos. A police vehicle with no sirens on has just as much responsibility as you or I on the road, and the fact that cops abuse their power in this reguard is only an indication of the many other ways they use their power to raise themselves above the laws that reduce Chaos. Fother Muck the police.

Well, at least you spelled doughnuts correctly. The rest of your post was complete horse dung...

Let me take a second to say this. I have been harassed, mistreated and even acosted by a police officer improperly (Atlanta, super bowl 99). But, I do not, for even a single second think it is indicative of the average police officer or department.

Are you saying that blowing through a light is not an abuse of power? are you saying that police do not recieve freebies from stores and other institutions? are you saying that your average street cop (forget, for a second about narcotics detectives) in an inner city neighborhood has NEVER roughed somebody up for intimidation purposes? the fact is, while some instances of the abuse of power are more extreme and more prolific in inner city neighborhoods than in middle class neighborhoods, The act of blowing through a stoplight without flashers IS an abuse of power, and it is indicitive of other abuses as well (if a cop is willing to BLATANTLY disreguard a law that is meant for nothing but citizen safety, how far else is he willing to go?) it is simply a case of, "how are you going to uphold the (traffic) law when you don't even follow it yourself?" Does my logic threaten you?