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Pulled over for no seatbelt

if6wasnin9

if6wasnin9

Member
Cop pulled me over in front of my house because I had no seatbelt. He asked me where I was going and I said Right here. He asked me where I was coming back from and I said Food Lion. He asked me if I bought anything and I said Yes. (Bunch of irrelevant questions.) He said he was giving me a warning so I guess I have to wear my seatbelt if I don't want a ticket.
 
if6wasnin9 said:
Cop pulled me over in front of my house because I had no seatbelt. He asked me where I was going and I said Right here. He asked me where I was coming back from and I said Food Lion. He asked me if I bought anything and I said Yes. (Bunch of irrelevant questions.) He said he was giving me a warning so I guess I have to wear my seatbelt if I don't want a ticket.
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Wearing a seat belt is not so much about avoiding getting a ticket / fine but the significantly reducing the risk of serious injury or death if you're in an accident.

Seat belts are among the most effective safety tools thay we have.
 
VictorR said:
Wearing a seat belt is not so much about avoiding getting a ticket / fine but the significantly reducing the risk of serious injury or death if you're in an accident.

Seat belts are among the most effective safety tools thay we have.
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I know that. I worked at USAF High Speed Test Track where seatbelts originated with Col. Stapp using himself as a guinea pig on top of rocket sleds.
 
My sister has gone through windshields twice in car accidents and still refuses to wear a seatbelt. Don't know if she's gotten any tickets for it.
 
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Jumpinbare said:
My sister has gone through windshields twice in car accidents and still refuses to wear [a] seatbelt. Don't know if she's gotten any tickets for it.
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Ouch! 🤕
full
(It sounds like she should, at least, consider a helmet...!)
 
I say this with love and respect.

Freaking moron.

I've seen the human body burst through glass. I've seen that it bounces. These images never fade and it never gets easier.

Wear your seatbelt you idiot.
 
We have detection cameras for all of that everywhere these days. Not wearing a seatbelt, using a mobile phone, animals or children on the driver's lap, etc. The cameras don't miss much and there's no nice cop that can let you off with a warning, you start getting fines in the mail and then you get the letter telling you you've lost your license.

The cameras also check vehicle registration and if the driver holds a valid license. Dash cams and side cams on cop cars also do the same thing, and once it's on camera they're not allowed to let you off.
 
Sounds like you were the victim of a "Terry Stop". A consensual encounter between a law officer and a civilian with the express purpose of getting a better idea of why they were suspicious of you in the first place. A procedural step of investigation just above being "profiled".

Your apparent behavior based on their cursory observations amounted to "reasonable suspicion" on the part of the inquiring police officer. The seat belt issue amounted to a premise to ask unrelated questions to establish both your sobriety and credibility and whether or not you may have committed a crime or were about to commit a crime.

Another reason for benign encounters between autistic civilians and police officers have the potential for getting terribly complicated really fast.

In-house insurance investigators I used to work with having previous law enforcement backgrounds would do conduct similar interrogations when it came to questioning claimants over suspicious circumstances pertaining to losses of property, auto accidents and particularly workers compensation claims.
 
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I worked in an urban emergency room that saw its share of victims from auto accidents. In general, the people who were treated and discharged were wearing seatbelts. Those who went to the OR or morgue weren’t.
 
WhitewaterWoman said:
I worked in an urban emergency room that saw its share of victims from auto accidents. In general, the people who were treated and discharged were wearing seatbelts. Those who went to the OR or morgue weren’t.
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Which amounts to a "telltale bad sign" to anyone in law enforcement. Or as the saying goes, "Where's there's smoke, there's fire". "Smoke" having been seen in a vehicle by the authorities while not wearing a seat belt.

That many DUI convictions often involve drivers not wearing a seat belt to begin with.

With insurers, such a consideration leaves underwriters with a suspicion of a policyholder as a "morale hazard". One who fails to take responsibility for maintaining their end of the insurance contract not as a deliberate act, but rather from indifference and/or carelessness.

A trivial distinction perhaps for a policyholder, but not trivial to an underwriter who reviews your motor vehicle record on an annual basis.
 
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Judge said:
The seat belt issue amounted to a premise to ask unrelated questions to establish both your sobriety.....
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Here we have random drug and alcohol testing and any time you get pulled over for any reason the very first thing they do is test for drugs and alcohol. In fact pulling people over randomly and testing them is used as a premise to satisfy other suspicions.

I've heard a lot of people from another country get all upset about that and start ranting about "my rights". Here the rights of the community as a whole come before the rights of the individual so if you're drink driving you have no rights. Random testing is a condition you have to agree to before they will give you a license, so if you're on our public roads then you have already agreed to allow this.

 
Outdated said:
Here we have random drug and alcohol testing and any time you get pulled over for any reason the very first thing they do is test for drugs and alcohol. In fact pulling people over randomly and testing them is used as a premise to satisfy other suspicions.

I've heard a lot of people from another country get all upset about that and start ranting about "my rights". Here the rights of the community as a whole come before the rights of the individual so if you're drink driving you have no rights. Random testing is a condition you have to agree to before they will give you a license, so if you're on our public roads then you have already agreed to allow this.

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Agreed. There's a plethora of considerations that allow law enforcement here to do all kinds of things in the course of investigation pertinent to a citizen while driving a motor vehicle.

Often triggered by responses that may not be in the best interest of a motorist to freely answer. Though most persons tend to be caught off guard with such questions whether they've done something wrong or not.
 
Here there's a lot of debate at the moment over the use of cannabis and driving because most people on cannabis are not impaired drivers, and now that people can get cannabis legally it's opening up a whole new round of debates on the topic.

Attitudes of police in general match attitudes of the local community though and in my state the general population never had any issues with cannabis. Technically it was illegal but cops would just ignore it unless you were being a public nuisance.
 
Outdated said:
Here there's a lot of debate at the moment over the use of cannabis and driving because most people on cannabis are not impaired drivers, and now that people can get cannabis legally it's opening up a whole new round of debates on the topic.

Attitudes of police in general match attitudes of the local community though and in my state the general population never had any issues with cannabis. Technically it was illegal but cops would just ignore it unless you were being a public nuisance.
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Our US law enforcement is not so considerate relative to any substance that can impair your driving. With individual state laws that are sometimes crafted to make such an issue ambiguous as to the proximate cause of impaired driving.
 
Where I am the cops (mainly California Highway Patrol on the interstate and on roads in the unincorporated areas, police and sheriff handle crimes in incorporated towns and non-road crimes in the county, respectively) love to find reasons to pull people over and start asking questions. If they see a local address on your drivers license and you're nice to them usually they let you go with a written warning.

The latest tactic they use is for you to show them your car registration and insurance slip, they have all that in the system but tweekers around here like to store their dope and pipes/needles in the glove box of their cars so the cop is just watching to see if any fentanyl or meth tumbles out.

One time I got pulled over on the interstate at 4am bc I was coming home from Sacramento and was tired and the cop thought I was drunk. He sniffed around and opened a bottle of water I had and sniffed it, gave me a breathalyzer test, and when it came up zero he let me go.

Some states in the US, including Oregon, have a law that says that issue of a drivers license is predicated on the understanding that a cop can check you and your vehicle for stuff like drugs and substance impairment. If you refuse you go to jail.

In California, our driving under the influence law covers ALL substances that can alter your judgment/perception, so even though marijuana is legal here if you drive stoned it's just like driving drunk.
 
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