Worst Traffic Warnings You've Received

Started by MultiMillionMiler, January 31, 2023, 09:06:26 PM

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MultiMillionMiler

What's the worst offense that you got pulled over for but didn't get a ticket? My worst warning for a moving violation was last year for driving 73 mph on the Belt Parkway In Queens, New York City. The cop was driving on the road near me in an unmarked car but didn't flip the lights on until I crossed 70 mph. No ticket! Thanks to that I still have a perfect driving record free of moving violations.


pderocco

Years ago, I was stopped on I-5, driving from Seattle to Portland in the middle of the night, for going 80. No ticket. No big deal. Exactly one week later, I repeated the trip, and got stopped again for the same thing by the same cop. Still no ticket. I almost blurted out "See you next week," but something restrained me.

Scott5114

I had an Oklahoma Highway Patrolman running right behind me in a known speed trap. I was keeping my eyes glued to the speedometer to make sure I wasn't over the limit...and blatantly cruised right through a red light. Of course he flipped the lights on and pulled me over. I told him exactly why I ran the light, which got a good laugh out of him. He ran my license and told me to pay more attention, and that was it.
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MultiMillionMiler

Quote from: Scott5114 on January 31, 2023, 09:29:16 PM
I had an Oklahoma Highway Patrolman running right behind me in a known speed trap. I was keeping my eyes glued to the speedometer to make sure I wasn't over the limit...and blatantly cruised right through a red light. Of course he flipped the lights on and pulled me over. I told him exactly why I ran the light, which got a good laugh out of him. He ran my license and told me to pay more attention, and that was it.

And that right there is a good example of how low speed limits can be dangerous. You end up focusing too much on your speedometer and rearview mirror instead of on the road. That is funny though.

MultiMillionMiler

Quote from: pderocco on January 31, 2023, 09:28:55 PM
Years ago, I was stopped on I-5, driving from Seattle to Portland in the middle of the night, for going 80. No ticket. No big deal. Exactly one week later, I repeated the trip, and got stopped again for the same thing by the same cop. Still no ticket. I almost blurted out "See you next week," but something restrained me.

Did the cop recognize you or you only recognized him?

Dirt Roads

The first time after the curvy segment of the West Virginia Turnpike opened up (still using the old Memorial Tunnel), I was headed northbound on a weekday with literally no other traffic on the road.  This was still in the NMSL days.  I was driving a Pontiac Firebird and pushing hard through the curves, but I slowed down to about 60MPH the two times that I saw State Police cruisers headed northbound.  When I came around a curve approaching the (then) southbound truck pull-off (still no facilities), I saw a northbound State Police cruiser sitting on the berm, with the officer standing, waiting patiently for me and waving to me to come in for a visit. 

Instead of asking the usual questions, he politely indicated that I had been clocked at 55MPH and he needed to thank me for obeying the speed limit.  Then we spent the next 10 minutes having a wonderful chat about our jobs and trying to figure out who'all we were related to.  When my time was up, he said "That ought'a do" and let me go with a gentle verbal reminder to keep my speed down.  I'm absolutely sure that the other two Troopers compared notes and hand-calculated my real speed between the mile markers. 

Bruce

Rural Idaho town, going 38 in a 35 approaching a 45 zone. Got the whole spiel.

Fuck those racist cops.
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jeffandnicole

85 in a 55.   It was the only written warning I've received.

MultiMillionMiler

Quote from: jeffandnicole on January 31, 2023, 10:32:48 PM
85 in a 55.   It was the only written warning I've received.

Do written warning appear on your record?

jeffandnicole

Quote from: MultiMillionMiler on January 31, 2023, 10:33:52 PM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on January 31, 2023, 10:32:48 PM
85 in a 55.   It was the only written warning I've received.

Do written warning appear on your record?

Not sure.  If they do, it hasn't affected me.

MultiMillionMiler

I could see it appearing on your record because even if there's no penalty (points/fine) if it's in the system a future cop could look up to see if you've been warned for that offense in the past. Otherwise, you could keep claiming you have a perfect record even if you got 100 warnings.

jeffandnicole

Quote from: MultiMillionMiler on January 31, 2023, 10:43:59 PM
I could see it appearing on your record because even if there's no penalty (points/fine) if it's in the system a future cop could look up to see if you've been warned for that offense in the past. Otherwise, you could keep claiming you have a perfect record even if you got 100 warnings.

Records only count for being cited for a violation, not warned.

MultiMillionMiler

No I know, but I'm saying if a cop pulled you over and looked you up and saw the written warning for the same violation in the past, he may decide to give you a ticket if you were already warned in the past vs never warned.

tchafe1978

I'll say this is my worst, if only because it was the dumbest. When I was about 17 or 18 I got pulled over for my rear license plate light being out. I got off with a warning, I can't remember if I was told to get it fixed and then report that it was fixed or not. I've been pulled over a 3 or 4 times for speeding and only ever received a warning, I usually only go 5-7 over the limit.

jakeroot

Quote from: Bruce on January 31, 2023, 10:27:17 PM
Rural Idaho town, going 38 in a 35 approaching a 45 zone. Got the whole spiel.

Fuck those racist cops.

I feel the same way here in Japan. The local police are very quick to stop gaijins, even for things that locals do all the time. Eg, locals can play with their phones without much repercussion, or drive 30+ (km/h) over the limit. Either of those things would get me into serious trouble. Even 15 over is pushing it. 5 over is insane to get stopped for though.

Max Rockatansky

Back during 2016 a Texas Highway Patrol officer followed me for about 30 miles on I-20 when I was moving to California.  It was about 6 AM in the morning and I was driving a car with a Florida license plate.  The excuse the Patrolman finally found to pull me over was that I was 600 feet from a semi in front of me driving at 70 MPH.  When he pulled me over, he asked if I was running drugs.  Apparently being on I-20 instead of I-10 was "suspicious" give I had an out of state plate.  I responded that I wasn't running drugs, but I was moving across the country on a PCS order.  This seemed to have loosened things up as I was talking to a someone who was obviously former military.   He still printed me a warning ticket for the 600-foot thing, and I went on my way after a ten-minute exchange.  Essentially this was just a classic pretext traffic stop for those not familiar with the term.

FWIW I was on I-20 so I could get to US 180.  I was headed to Carlsbad Caverns for a day hike and staying the night in Las Cruces, NM.

FrCorySticha

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on January 31, 2023, 11:34:35 PM
Essentially this was just a classic pretext traffic stop for those not familiar with the term.

Had a similar situation about 10 years ago. Driving from Dickinson, ND to Billings, MT along I-94 with the cruise set at 80 (MT was still 75 on Interstates at the time). About 15 miles from the end of I-94, a highway patrol car went by in the eastbound lanes, which are higher than the westbound lanes. Right after he passed me, he immediately hit the brakes and drove down the median to pull me over. Of course I immediately complied.

When the trooper got out of his car, he was accompanied by a DEA agent. My car, a brighter blue Dodge Charger was apparently conspicuous enough to check out. The trooper came to my window and the DEA agent went to the passenger window. I gave the trooper my paperwork, and he went back to his car to run them. Meanwhile, the DEA agent was making small talk while very obviously scanning the inside of my car for any reason to conduct a search. He didn't find anything, as there was nothing to find. The trooper returned, and gave me a "friendly" warning that the Montana speed limit was 75 MPH and have a good day.

This happened while the Bakken oil boom was going on in North Dakota and Eastern Montana. I-94 from Billings was a major corridor for hauling drugs to the oil patch, and nondescript cars with lots of horsepower, like my Charger, were popular vehicles for hauling the drugs.

US 89

When I was 19, I was pulled over in Blackfoot, Idaho for 42 in a 35 (I was going south on 91 and speeding up as the town was ending and I was about to pass the 45 sign). Given my age, out-of-state license plates, and location on US 91 instead of I-15, the cop assumed I was carrying weed. Another cop showed up and asked if they could search my car. I consented as it was clear I was going to get a speeding ticket otherwise. After 15 minutes of going through every nook and cranny in my car, they decided I had nothing, clearly felt bad about the whole thing, and let me off with a warning.

As of now, that's the only time I've ever been pulled over. I had a Talbot County cop ride my ass through the middle of nowhere in Georgia, clearly trying to egg me into breaking the 55 mph rural speed limit on US 80, but eventually he gave up and pulled into a gas station.

TheHighwayMan3561

#18
Headed west on I-70 in Kansas in 2019. I had a truck in front of me and when he accordioned upon seeing a cop in the median I violated Kansas's nebulous "following too closely" law and got stopped for it. Cop made me get out of the car for a pat down and made me come sit in his front seat while he ran my information. Told me just to be careful and let me go after that.

I think it was a point of emphasis being used to target out of state plates, because he rushed off and already had another car (Florida plates) stopped before I even left the shoulder from where he stopped me.
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JoePCool14

So far, I have yet to be stopped by police for any reason.

I did have a cop follow me around a small Wisconsin town after 11pm one night while out for no reason other than to just drive. Thankfully, he did not pull me over.

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MultiMillionMiler

Christ, sounds like the cops are Nazis in those states. 80 mph in a 75, 42 in a 35, and people have actually gotten tickets? I thought Long Island was bad but given how many cops I have passed at 70-75 in a 55 with them never doing anything, man. To put it into context, the speed limit was 50 where I was pulled over last year. That's 23 over and just a warning. I thought in these rural states they don't even bother with much traffic enforcement cause it would be a waste of time, but some of these sound worse than New York!

royo6022

Once when I was 18 (still a senior in high school), I was driving with a friend down a major rural road that connected our two local towns through the country here in Indiana (going about 63 in a 45). The problem wasn't just that I was speeding, but it was also 9 am on a school day. We were trying to make it to one of our other local high schools to get on a bus to Indianapolis to catch a flight for a school sanctioned business club trip.

Unfortunately "we're trying to catch a flight and we're running late" is not a good excuse for speeding through the country on a school day where there's no airport around lol... the first and only ticket I've ever got
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royo6022

Quote from: MultiMillionMiler on February 01, 2023, 11:03:02 AM
Christ, sounds like the cops are Nazis in those states. 80 mph in a 75, 42 in a 35, and people have actually gotten tickets? I thought Long Island was bad but given how many cops I have passed at 70-75 in a 55 with them never doing anything, man. To put it into context, the speed limit was 50 where I was pulled over last year. That's 23 over and just a warning. I thought in these rural states they don't even bother with much traffic enforcement cause it would be a waste of time, but some of these sound worse than New York!

This kind of reminds me of the drive to Orlando on I-75 south of Atlanta... when there's troopers at every median but everyone's going 95 in a 70 and that's just the "flow of traffic"... I've never seen them stop anyone that was going under 100.
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zzcarp

I've had several "warnings" in my driving career.

When I was 19 and visiting a friend near Columbus, Ohio, we'd gone to a 24-hr Denny's around 3am and were dropping off someone before heading back to my buddy's place. The officer pulled me over after I drove away and asked what I was doing. I told him that we'd been to Denny's, we dropped someone off, and we were heading back to my friend's place to go to sleep. The cop again asked again "what are you doing" and I repeated that same story. He then told me to get out of the car, said "you're mine," patted me down, and locked me in the back of his cop car. He said that if my friend was underage (he wasn't), I'd get a "contributing to the delinquency of a minor" charge. After a long search, they found nothing, then the cop told me that if I hadn't taken an attitude and just been truthful, he never would have searched me. This was a good life lesson that even if you're not doing anything wrong, the police can still mess with you.

On I-80 EB, this time near Minooka, IL while we were heading to Ohio for Christmas circa 2010, I was pulled over and given a warning for going "72 in a 65". Knowing that my cruise control was set at 68 and based on the officer's line of questioning about if I had any drugs in the car, I believe this stop was a pretextual fishing for a drug interdiction search. Luckily, Illinois has both raised its speed limit to 70 and legalized cannabis, so these types of stops should be less common now. I drove away playing an appropriate NWA song on my iPod.

Back when I was married (in the mid 2010s), my then wife was driving on I-80 EB in Nebraska at night while I was sleeping in the passenger seat. She was going 80-ish, and for some reason abruptly pulled into the right lane (probably to let someone pass). That woke me up just to see us closing quickly onto a state trooper-I thought she was going to hit him! Luckily, she was let off with a speeding warning, but it scared the heck out of me.

The last warning I got was in southern Utah on US 191 in 2018. I was heading downhill and coasting while downshifted when a state trooper decided I was "following too closely" the only other car on the road. As I was headed to a professional training in Arizona with another gentleman with my pup in the back, he let us off with a warning. Again, I assume this was a fishing expedition.
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oscar

Quote from: Bruce on January 31, 2023, 10:27:17 PM
Rural Idaho town, going 38 in a 35 approaching a 45 zone. Got the whole spiel.

Did you get off with a warning rather than a ticket?

Sounds like Carey ID, a notorious speed trap at the US 20/US 26 junction.
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