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Couple Who Catch Cop Speeding Could Face Charges
a_nonamiss writes "A Georgia couple, apparently tired of people speeding past their house, installed a camera and radar gun on their property. After it was installed, they caught a police office going 17MPH over the posted limit. They brought this to the attention of the local police department, and are now being forced to appear in front of a judge to answer to charges of stalking."
We have a busy-body on our street. She seems nice enough, but she tries to take care of the "speeding" problem herself. She will occasionally zap people with a radar gun and talk to them (or their parents). I think once or twice she's called the cops. And if she doesn't have the gun out and "thinks" you're speeding she'll yell out to you.
But I find myself insanely annoyed (border-line angry) at one thing she does. If she's driving towards you in the opposite direction and "thinks" you're speeding she will pull into the middle of the road with her SUV to get you to stop or slowdown.
WTF!
Yes people speed on our street, but not by much and not often. It's a short windy street that doesn't really take you anywhere. But the speedgun is a bit much. Heck, the street just loops back into itself to make a letter P so it's not like a shortcut to anywhere so there's little point.
And stopping in the middle of the street to stop cars is pretty hazardous.
a->b, a->c does not mean that b->c
For instance:
NFL Players are people.
People are women and men.
NFL Players are women and men.
I'm not saying there aren't bad cops by any means, just point out that it isn't good logic.
An answer to you and the post immediately below:
No physics don't change, training does.
A cop is better trained in tactical driving than the average citizen. You may be a good driver, but it is fairly improbable that you have the requisite training to make you safer at speeds higher than the average speed of traffic around you (which *should* be at the posted limit).
I don't condone that they would speed when off duty, and I think they should get a mark for it or some such, but as to why things are different, it's training.
I worked with a guy (he was head of security for my old employer). He was on a local road with steep ditches on either side for a rather long stretch (5 or 6 miles). It is a two lane road and there was ample on-coming traffic. A paramedic turned on their priority lights behind him (thus they were in a hurry and he was obligated to yield), but there was no safe way to get out of the way. His solution was to speed up to about 85/90Mph (50 speed limit) and pull over as soon as the road widened enough to allow so.
Well a cop heading the other direction flipped a U-turn and promptly caught up and pulled in behind him, citing him for: Failure to yield, reckless, speeding, evading (apparently the cop figured since his lights were on our guy was running, never mind he couldn't see them). Cop refused to listen to the explanation of no safe place to pull over.
Come court day bob told the judge what happened and that his was the only reasonable and prudent course of action. Judge asked what experience he had driving at high speeds. Reply? Pursuit instructor and EOD officer for HM Army and MI6 back home in England.
Result?
Case dismissed instantly.
It's all about training.
-nB
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I have seen this story in the local news. Both me and the ball-n-chain were rolling our eyes. The police officer was pissed because the couple kept on bugging his boss with their idiotic complaint.
The speed limit in front of their house is 25 mph, coming kinda downhill. I think, in the Atlanta area where nobody drives under 50, this is just plain dumb.
They were the typical overreacting freaky parents who were making a stink out of nothing because they are a couple of those people who love to have something to complain about.
This only works if the police don't kill you. I had a similar problem where the city I lived in thought it was a good idea to dump freeway traffic on one side of a residential neighborhood, and pick it back up on the other. They didn't want to build the freeway in the land that was already owned and waiting for the freeway. I personally witnessed over 150 car crashes in just the one city block in front of my house. A few pedestrians a year would get run down, and the police would tell anyone that called them about hit and runs in our neighbor hood that those were civil matters, so they would refuse to even take a report.
When my wife and I started raising a stink, and making public statements about the situation. Started taking photos, and logging traffic speeds... I received a phone call from the police department telling me "Your just trying to make trouble.", "You better drop this. We know who you are." Now, there are some who might claim that this was not a threat of violence, but I think most sane people would take it as a very real threat.
I hope by posting, it doesn't start all over with again, but if you stick with it long enough you can get them to stop harassing you. I have two seperate acounts that both resulted in officer losing their job, getting unpaid vacations and one of them went to prison on unrelated charged that were discovered durring my investigation.
So, Yea, If you end up on the recieving end of the stick, Give them one chance to calm down. Sometimes these bullies just need to feel like they are in control and having one up on you lets them make this claim to themselves. If that doesn't happen and they constantly mess with you or you end up getting cited for something you didn't do, Make a case out of it. The cops do end up corrupt like this but they can be delt with. The key is not to lose your control and give them stuff to work with. Don't do anything that gives them an excuse to screw you were they would otherwise have to make something up.
On another note, I have been contacted by the same police department to help them in certain ways since this has happened. It is like a few bad apples were spoiling the bunch and that bunch is now gone. I don't hold anything against the law enforcment officials themselves, I know it was certain people who had a problem not the entire system (even though they used the entire system).
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