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Georgia Cop Issues 800 Tickets To Drivers Texting At Red Lights
McGruber writes "WSB-Television, Atlanta, tells us that Gwinnett County police officer Jessie Myers has issued more tickets for texting and driving than any other officer in the state. Officer Myers said he sees most people typing away on their phones while waiting at red lights. 'Most people think they're safe there,' Myers said. However, he said it's still illegal. 'At a red light, you're still driving, according to the law. You're on a roadway, behind (the wheel of) a car, in charge of it, with a vehicle in drive,' Myers said. Myers also tickets drivers using navigation apps. One driver said she was just using her phone's GPS. The law forbids that and Myers issued her a ticket. "That's right. You can't use your navigation while driving. Unless it is a GPS-only device, such as Garmin or Tom Tom, something that is not used as a communication device,' Myers said."
Citing them for texting, sure. Citing for using the GPS is fucking stupid. We do NOT want to revert to the days when people tried to manage folding and unfolding maps as they drove.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Good thing that the in-vehicle computers that cops use to check someone's plates isn't covered by this.
Hypocrites. Who will write them tickets?
Which is why I always put my car in [P]ark while stopped at traffic lights.
(I live in Cobb County, 2 counties over from Gwinnett and have received a ticket for "texting while driving")
You're not legally driving if your car is in park.
And I beat the ticket by forcing the cop to produce the dashcam footage. You could clearly see my reverse lights light up as the car was shifted from Park to Drive.
In fact, having a car in Park is one of the few exceptions written into the law.
I'm not going to get into the rest of it, I'm a cyclist and it amazes me how many people I notice have a phone to their ear while driving, especially in the daytime. Those are bad drivers. Texters are worse, so yeah, do it, but it's more sporting to get them in motion instead of at a stoplight, less they can argue against as well. Getting them at stoplights almost seems lazy.
Leave the map app guys alone. If it's displaying a map I don't care if it's dedicated or not, it's displaying a map, infact the phone could be the safer device, it's maps are updated constantly and they're more likely to have correct directions based on that tidbit, at least in cities like I live in where the map is constatly changing.
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A cop doing their job.
There is nothing short of an absolute, death-like issue that you need to be texting at a red light, or anywhere else while driving. Time and time again I've been behind people who were texting, the light turn greens and invariably I, or someone else, has to put on the horn to get them to pay attention to what they're doing as they're holding up traffic.
If you're that narcissistic or ADD that you think you need to be checking every ten seconds, go seek help.
Kudos to the cop enforcing the law.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Hes doing his job, whether you like it or not. Dont blame the police for laws you dont like.
As a pedestrian I say great. People shouldn't be texting or checking their phones while driving. While folks might think it's safe at an intersection, I disagree.
I've almost been hit a number of times as drivers inch through a cross walk when they aren't paying attention. Or they turn on red and don't pay attention. It's super dangerous.
The amount of times I have missed a red light because the dickwad ahead is fucking with their phones and failed to roll on is phenomenal. By the time said dickwad has reacted to my horn, put the phone down, and moved on, the light is often changing. Don't be that dickwad.
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I've seen people fail to start driving when the light turns green because they were texting. I've seen people almost not stop for a light because they were looking at their screen. I've seen the driver behind me with both thumbs typing away on his device and therefore no hands on the wheel. I routinely see people driving along looking at their lap instead of where they're driving as they try to do a quick text.
So, I have no sympathy for people who are convinced they're so awesome at multi-tasking that they're trying to text and drive and end up getting a ticket.
I could walk 5 minutes from my house to an intersection, and if I stood in one place and simply photographed all of the drivers texting or talking on their phone (in their hand and gesturing with the other one), that I bet 30% or more of drivers are doing it.
If the stats tell us that distracted driving is causing a huge number of traffic accidents, then if the cop has decided to enforce the law on all of these people, too bad for them.
From what I've seen, those who can't resist a quick text at the stop light are also doing it while they're driving. It's often astounding to me just how many drivers are paying more attention to their phone than the cars around them.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Hes doing his job, whether you like it or not. Dont blame the police for laws you dont like.
Police have a huge amount of discretion in who they write up and for what. He could actually, y'know, work, and catch people posing some threat to those around him; but instead, he'd rather sit at a stop light and give tickets to fish in a barrel - To people at least trying to do the right thing and not text while driving (even if still technically "operating" their car).
So yeah, that still makes him a complete asshole. To all the good cops out there - This guy explains why we loathe you all so much. When you hear about shit like this, a good blanket party would do a world of wonders for your overall PR.
Sometimes police abuse their position or become oppressive in measures inadvertently. Still as far as texting is concerned I think this should be punished in a more severe manner.
I know I know, people say what's the harm right?!
It only takes one time that you have almost killed someone or yourself due to texting to finally admit you are increasing risk to yourself and others. Texting goes a step beyond the distraction of hands free phones because you are occupying at least one hand and looking elsewhere than what's in front of you.
Over the years I have had several near misses and dangerous situations because of drivers that are texting, holding phones and generally not only preoccupied mentally with the conversation but also physically with no hands on the wheel.
Some texting ass nearly killed a cyclist one day as he slowly drove out of his lane and into a bicycle lane, just a 20cm or so is all it took. He held the steering wheel between his knees and was using his phone with both hands! -Do you think he would have gotten off the hook cause the cyclist didn't wear a helmet?
I know that you can text, stopped at a light (presumably only there) and nothing will happen. Harmless right? until that time that your clutch is raised ever so slightly and you rear into the car behind you or you didn't notice the cyclist creeping from the side, or the motorcyclists between your car and another...
You can imagine the scenarios. It's not about the 10,000 times it went right, it's about the one time it doesn't.
Feel this is unjustified? I welcome you to cycle or operate a two wheel vehicle for a time and see if that changes your mind. Let's remember that there are no such situations in which you must to text when you drive or are operating a vehicle. It's an action you can entirely do without. you can "like this" or comment that witticism later.
At the end of the day this is my life and I can do everything right on the road and still get hurt or worse because of someone else. If it was your life would you accept me texting or possibly putting you in danger? putting your children in danger?
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
So a "good" cop in your mind is one who selectively enforces the law, and not one who enforces it equally?
When you cant win, ad hominem.
So all the other police aren't doing their jobs? I can understand whacking those who're texting/calling while driving; in fact I'm all for it. Red lights are iffy, ex: sometimes folks need a simple answer to pick something up along the way. But ticketing for using a phone's GPS/navigation? Dick move. Serious, serious dick move, and one that does not improve safety. In fact, it's probably safer and less distracting for my phone to vocalize directions than for me to have to look at paper maps. Even a phone's GPS map auto-tracks the vehicle and outlines the desired route, so there's less concentration needed to track where you are than on a legit paper map.
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
Considering how many people are killed in traffic accidents compared to say, murderers, then he is doing it right.
If he were a computer scientist, we would say he is going for Big O(n) improvements and pat him on the back.
THL phish sticks
The proper recourse is for people to pay attention. That typically means don't text and drive.
But how many are killed because people are texting while their vehicle is stationary?
*IF* the person puts the phone down and goes when the light changes, I have no problem with texting at a red light. I'd sure prefer it to texting while the vehicle is in motion.
If the person holds up traffic because they kept texting, then write a ticket for obstructing traffic.
Given the fact that we all are, technically, committing scores of crimes based on technical defintions of law and regulation, I would say that judgement is a key factor for a street-level cop. . .
It is not the job of police to enforce EVERY law. The concept is called "selective enforcement" and result in things like cops issuing warnings, issuing a verbal scolding, or choosing not to cite at all for some things.
One question is often asked at interviews for police work is, "You catch your mother speeding. Do you give her a ticket?"
The proper answer is, "no". Departments don't want people who would give their own mother a speeding ticket. Contrary to popular belief, departments want thinking human beings, not robocops.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
They all get the same training. So if you have qualified developers doing sales, then yes you might want to re-assign a few if the sales team is doing busy work while the developers are in crunch time.
I'd be willing to bet that 90%+ of these texters while stationary also do it while moving.
There was a death caused exactly by that dring my journey in the UK yesterday - coming off a motor way, someone was texting while waiting for the lights on the slip road and didn't notice the lights had gone green and all the cars had cleared in front of them, and they got rear ended.
While it sucks to get busted, he's doing everyone a favor by strictly enforcing a terrible law. Everyday, you, I, and everyone violates laws. Not because we have a guilty mind or because we're bad people or doing anything wrong but because laws and regulations have grown to the point that it's not possible to live a strictly legal life. But if they're only selectively enforced, why should we care?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
catch people posing some threat to those around him
How about the people who aren't watching the intersection they're sitting at, so when the light turns green they instinctively hit the gas, rather than looking at the slow-moving pedestrians?
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Based on your example you know nothing about the police force and how it's structured.
First the cops that you see driving around in marked cars are actually tasked (for the most part) to uphold public *law enforcement* which includes traffic laws. While most of the examples you have given *could* be stopped if the crime committed is in progress by a beat cop the majority are up to detectives and special divisions of the police force to handle/solve, which you usually don't see driving around in marked cars.
So the so called cops you are complaining about are in fact doing the job for their position.
Not insightful.
Apples and oranges. A better analogy would be juggling different software developers between projects to set priorities but that doesn't give us a gratuitous dig at marketing people.
No matter where you go, there you are.
While the guy was a jerk for not paying attention while at a light, when a stationary car at a stop light gets hit, some of that blame must go to the person who rear ended him.
No matter where you go, there you are.
That's not the texting driver's fault, though. That's the asshat that rear-ended them's fault.
Perception is the thin dividing line between reality and fiction.
Hes doing his job, whether you like it or not. Dont blame the police for laws you dont like.
I can blame him. Because he uses excuses like these:
'At a red light, you're still driving. according to the law. You're on a roadway, behind (the wheel of) a car, in charge of it, with a vehicle in drive,'
There's a difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. Assholes like this guy who are more interested in the letter of the law are the reasons why laws get so complicated you need lawyers to interpret them. You can't just write a law that says, "it's illegal to text and drive." You have to define what constitutes driving, and then write an exception for being stopped at a light. Having every law consist of 30 pages of legalize is not in the best interests of society.
Why is texting and driving dangerous? Because every moment you're not looking in front of you, your car is covering a rather large distance. Unexpected things happen in the blink of an eye. If you're not moving, that's not an issue. His actions are not consistent with the spirit of the law. It's very reasonable to blame him.
I'm pretty sure the reason we have horns is to alert wayward pedestrians that they are about to get a hood ornament up their arse, or to notify other drivers that they are about to run over the front of our cars because they didn't check their mirrors before changing lane.
That is to say, emergencies.
If I hear a horn in traffic I automatically go to DEFCON 3 and eagerly watch my mirrors for the shit to hit the fan (or my rear bumper). However needing to reminding someone that they are (allegedly) in control of a tonne of steel is not an emergency, its just a display of selfishness and lack of self control. Just put the damn phone down. How hard is it?
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It is not the job of police to enforce EVERY law. The concept is called "selective enforcement" and result in things like cops issuing warnings, issuing a verbal scolding, or choosing not to cite at all for some things.
One question is often asked at interviews for police work is, "You catch your mother speeding. Do you give her a ticket?"
The proper answer is, "no". Departments don't want people who would give their own mother a speeding ticket. Contrary to popular belief, departments want thinking human beings, not robocops.
What's funny about this is that if you were asked this for a job at a corporation, the proper answer would be "yes". So, you are supposed to be willing to sell out you're own mother for capitalism but not if she breaks the law.... :-P
No, he's not doing his job.
The job of a police officer is to ensure the smooth and peaceful running of society. Police officers are supposed to use their better judgment to decide if they need to intervene in an unsafe situation. They're not supposed to be walking porcine bureaucrats looking to randomly drain and damage society by mindlessly misapplying draconian rules into incidental situations.
Texting while driving laws were put into place because of the extreme danger of distracted driving. That danger isn't present when parked at a light--you might annoy someone by not moving when the light changes, and you'll obstruct traffic in a non-dangerous manner. We have accepted the danger of people referencing, but not programming, their GPS while driving; we certainly haven't targetted GPS use while parked at a light. Ticketing people for these things is inappropriate, regardless of what the law actually says. The law was put in place specifically to address certain societal problems; these actions do not intersect with those problems, and so the officer should apply his legal discretion rather than acting like a predatory dickhead.
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Yes actually.
I know, I know, it's fantasy, but yes, a cop that has the competence to act like something other than an autonomous robot and recognise when the law is unjust and counterproductive to enforce and so doesn't enforce it is exactly the type of cop I would love to have.
No I don't support bent cops who enforce it selectively to their or their friends benefit, but I don't think asking cops to apply a bit of common sense in law enforcement is really too much to ask.
In fact, I do have a friend who is a police officer and she does draw a distinction between pulling a commuter for going 35 in a 30 zone at 6 am in the morning on a road that is open, with good visibility and there is no one around and pulling a jack ass going 50 down the same road when it's busy, parked cars make it harder to see and there are kids walking home from school. She understands that the latter is actually a danger, but the former simply isn't and that pulling the former does nothing other than ruin someone's day, and make them hate the cops for such unnecessary enforcement.
The world isn't ever black and white and the idea that the law should only be enforced in a black and white manner simply means it has less respect from citizens because it doesn't reflect the real world. Some (all?) countries even allow cops explicitly to exercise a bit of common sense so it's not like the binary mindset on Slashdot that the law can only ever be applied black and white if an officer is doing what they should anyway is even correct. For example, police have the leeway to opt to not pursue prosecution in the UK for speeding if you can prove for example that your life was under threat.
Ultimately the best police officers are the ones that recognise what the law is intended to achieve - in this case, road safety, and that if enforcing the letter of the law doesn't achieve that, then it's pointless and possibly even counter-productive to enforce.
So yes, the cop in TFA is a jackass, incompetent, and emblematic of the inevitable race to the bottom of judging cops on how many convictions they get rather than how well they're doing in improving public safety which is the fundamental point of a police force.
Besides, one might argue in just focussing on people texting this cop is being selective in enforcement of laws anyway, because he's choosing to spend all his time enforcing texting laws and none of his time enforcing other laws letting breaches of them go unhandled. Really, this guy is just trying to make himself look like he has an awesome perp catch rate and nothing more, he's a lazy waste of tax payer's money, taking the easy route to try and make himself look like a relevant member of law enforcement by the figures.
Actually it does matter. I have had cars stall and fail when attempting to accelerate from a stop. Discovered the spark plugs got fouled because of a blocked EGR valve. The car ran fine until that moment.
It is 100% the responsibility of the driver who collided with the obstruction for colliding with a non-moving obstruction. The person sitting at a light could be cited for obstruction of traffic; however that does not move the blame for the collision onto him. A person sitting at a light being a dufus could easily be a disabled car, a cop car, a deer, a construction worker, a driver experiencing a heart attack, or any number of things that the next driver needs to remain aware of and react appropriately to.
Or are you the type that also blames gun manufacturers for murders?
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I'd bet that 90%+ of your statistic is 99.9% made up! You should probably work on being less jaded. I'd say a large majority of people are reasonable enough to only text at a red light and stay off their phones while driving. From my own car or from the sidewalk I still catch far more people talking with the phone up to their ear than I do catch people texting. Not being able to touch your Navigation for a couple seconds if its mounted to your windshield because its a 'phone' and not a separate $100+ device (that requires yearly subscriptions) is absolutely ridiculous, though.
Technically a 100% of the blame goes to the guy behind who did the rear-ending. I'd feel free to yell at the stationary driver, but it's not legal to just ram someone who doesn't accelerate fast enough for your liking.
I'd be willing to bet that 90%+ of these texters while stationary also do it while moving.
Then it'd be just as straightforward to catch them while moving, as it should be. And a lot easier for them to pull over under those circumstances, as well. I've seen people get lit up by a cop while stopped at a red light...who then panicked and pulled forward into the intersection to almost cause an accident.
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Easy way to stop that problem. Don't do all of the "easy to enforce" things. Then they have nothing left but the drug dealers, rapists, murders, burglars, muggers, etc to catch.
No, it warrants better driver training. Right now we have air craft pilots train on simulators. We also have fire departments, police departments, military, oil rig crews, crane operators, semi truck drivers, network engineers, astronauts, first aid training, TSA personnel, Nuclear power plant personnel, train personnel, and a myriad of other jobs that all require a simulator for training. But for a standard drivers license you need to show you can drive around the block and memorize a test. We need to show that a person can handle an emergency while driving, not what its like on a sunny day at 35 miles an hour. We have had the technology for a low cost simulator at each dmv for a long time. States need to have them. Prove that a person can handle the most common accident situations safely and you will see the rates go down. Right now they are just not trained to see it happening and what to do when it happens.
There is no activity in a free society that is without risk. We could increase the size of our highway patrols 10 fold and we would not eliminate deaths on our roads.
The question is always one of acceptable risk vs costs. The opportunity cost of reducing highway fatalities by increasing police presence is a reduced presence in high-crime areas.
With a 1 in 100 chance that you will be injured in a car accident, driving is a risky activity. I argue that we as a society don't care that much about the risk - especially not enough to fund a massive increase in our police forces. Smoking kills far more people than car accidents, but I don't see much of a public push to rid the world of that habit. Why is that?
Simply, it is because we value our freedom over absolute security and we sure as hell do not want to pay for more police than is necessary to hold down violent crime.
I'd be willing to bet that people with sports cars often drive faster than the speed limit. We should just issue them speeding tickets when they are stopped at red lights to save some time and trouble.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
About 10 times as many die from motor vehicle accidents each year in the US as died in the 911 attack. This doesn't warrant some traffic cop activity?
No.
It doesn't warrant "some traffic cop activity", it may warrant specific activity that was proven effective in reducing motor vehicle accidents (as opposed to just extracting money from citizens).
However, it definitely warrants investing in better infrastructure.
Do not repeat the classic politician fallacy:
1. Something must be done
2. X is something
3. Therefore, X must be done.
I will say this again: Throw out that stupid outdated "United States Constitution" and write a new one. We're way too far into broken hacks on top of hacks in this alpha-quality code to keep running it in production. One of the very large and obvious defects in this code is the complete failure to implement a good process for creating laws.
Every law should have a simple, plain-language English scope statement written at the top as a preamble. Every single bill. That states the goals of the law and the scope. If technically possible, the scope statement should be written originally in Latin and/or Ancient Greek; it is acceptable to write part of it in Latin and/or ancient Greek to solidly clarify certain descriptive portions while referring to the English portions of the law that specify technical concepts too new to translate into Latin and/or Ancient Greek properly.
An English scope statement will leave you with stupid shit like "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" ending in arguments on whether "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" references the National Guard or the actual individual citizens. A large part of that argument is over whether or not the meaning in 1780 was different from the way we'd interpret this sentence today. That is: a sane, rational, and learned person might generally interpret this to reference the People as a body and thus allow them to have their state raise a military force not under jurisdiction of the Federal Government; however, a sane, rational, and learned person *in* *1780* might correctly read this as that every individual person has the legal right to carry any weapon he wishes.
Latin and Ancient Greek are well-understood dead languages. Sanskrit is also well-understood and dead, but less generally accessible: as little as 50 years ago, Latin and Ancient Greek were both standard core education in America; they still are in some public and many private school systems. A firm working grasp of both Latin and Ancient Greek were necessary to enter top-tier colleges several decades ago. Statements written in these languages have exactly one interpretable meaning, or can be made to have exactly one interpretable meaning; that meaning won't change with linguistic drift over time, as with English, and we won't have to speculate over whether or not a sane, rational person in 1780 meant that each individual should have guns or that the people should be able to raise a non-Federal military force because the specific meaning is right there in clear Greek.
As for actual laws, it should be a 100% bullet-proof legal defense that the law is invalid because it doesn't accomplish its scope. The scope says the law attempts to implement certain measures and for a certain purpose; if either the measure implemented in the part of the law you broke isn't in the scope statement *or* the action you took doesn't fit with the reasoning behind the law (for example: operating your cellphone GPS while parked at a light does NOT pose a danger to others through distracted driving increasing the risk of mis-operating a moving vehicle), the law is not applicable and has no standing.
Remember: The law must satisfy the scope as explained in Latin and Ancient Greek. Any conflict in the English scope statement with these is overruled by these. The Latin and Ancient Greek must not conflict with one another. The Latin and Ancient Greek may be partial clarifications and explanations of the English scope statement, explicitly yielding specific parts of the English scope statement to interpretation. They may even cite that a certain part of the English scope statement cannot be sufficiently explained in Latin or Greek, put bounds on the scope, offer guidance, and yield remaining interpretation as does not run afoul of these bounds and guidance. The full text of the law is in English, but is not valid outside the bounds of this scope.
Are we cool yet?
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About 10 times as many die from motor vehicle accidents each year in the US as died in the 911 attack. This doesn't warrant some traffic cop activity?
No, it doesn't warrant it. It warrants changing your driver's licencing requirements and increasing the difficulty of the tests, so people who shouldn't be put in charge of a golf cart are incapable of passing.
Society sees traffic accidents as a problem of enforcement. It's not. We've been enforcing traffic laws for decades, and accident rates haven't significantly changed. The problem is, we've been handing out driver's licences like crackerjack toys for decades, so we've got complete and total morons behind the wheels of cars.
Take a look at some of the car accident videos on YouTube. Some of them, you wonder how they manage to put their pants on in the morning, because they're so stupid. Yet, the vast majority of these people (allowing for a few who just drive without licences) have passed a driver's test, and obtained a driver's licence.
There's your problem, right there.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Yes, you will always have criminals, but right now you can't tell the criminal from the untrained. Show in a simulator to a teen driver what its like to look at your phone and all of a sudden a deer is in your path and you have done far more than a ticket at a stop light because your lottery ticket came up that day.
we've been handing out driver's licences like crackerjack toys for decades, so we've got complete and total morons behind the wheels of cars.
Sure, but if you're going to make it harder to get a license you also need to give people other options for getting around. I live in Vancouver. A few weeks ago I was talking to a woman from Omaha who had moved to suburban Vancouver and she was amazed that she didn't really need a car. She could do everything she needed to do on public transit, with the occasional taxi thrown into the mix. In Omaha that wasn't possible - You simply needed to have a car (or so she said). So if you're going to make it harder to get a license (and by extension take some people off the road) you need to concurrently fund public transit.
Technically a 100% of the blame goes to the guy behind who did the rear-ending
Why did you even use the word 'technically'? 100% of the blame rightly goes to the one doing the rear ending. If my car died while waiting at a red light someone doesn't have the right to kill me.
Even if you are doing something illegal, that doesn't shift blame for the actual accident. If I am listening to a pirated song on my MP3 player when someone rear ends me I don't share in blame for that either.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
drug dealers, rapists, murders, burglars, muggers
One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn't belong. Can you tell which thing is not like the others, by the time I finish my song?
Did you guess which thing was not like the others?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Seriously? As an honest reply to this (okay, I admit, I just got trolled) traffic cops are there for several reasons.
A) Revenue collection. I'd be dishonest if I didn't admit that up front.
B) Keeping traffic close to speed limits. Yeah, the definition of "close" varies from cop to cop, and that makes it hard for a driver to drive with a lot of confidence of just how fast you can drive without getting a ticket. I hate that. I'd like an up front admission of "The speed limit is 70, but we won't ticket anyone doing under 82 unless they are otherwise driving unsafely". We'll never see that. Besides, "driving unsafely" is hard to define, but it's easy to give the guy changing lanes unsafely a speeding ticket, and it punishes unsafe behavior about as well (which means, not very) as a reckless driving ticket does, but it takes less to defend in court.
C) Being nearby when there is an accident. A nearby traffic cop is a first-responder for a traffic accident, and that job saves lives. They also do care-and-comfort during and after accidents. You look in any highway patrolman's trunk, and you'll find a teddy bear to be given to the little kid that survived a traffic accident (whose parent maybe didn't).
Most good traffic cops (and almost all Highway Patrol) regard speeding tickets as a way to get traffic to slow down so when there is an accident, there will be fewer deaths. In their job, it's always "when" and not "if" there is an accident. Energy is mass times velocity squared, remember.
Doing A lets the state pay for more cops to be around for C. Can't really tell you if I like that trade-off or not.
And yeah, none of this stops me from being pissed when I get a speeding ticket. Don't they have something better to do than bug me when I'm not hurting anyone?!?! ;)
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Georgia law(O.C.G.A., or Original Code of Georgia Annotated; O.C.G.A. 40-8-91 (a)) requires that law enforcement vehicles used to enforce traffic laws be marked with, at the very least, four inch block lettering on the driver and passenger side, indicating the agency that operates the vehicle, and lettering on the deck lid(trunk) indicating the same. All other law enforcement vehicles, namely "unmarked" vehicles, are prohibited from initiating traffic stops, save for true exigent circumstances. Sadly, there are a few states that allow or tolerate unmarked law enforcement vehicle enforcement traffic law.
Virginia was the worst, from what I witnessed on my trips between Georgia and Washington, D.C. There were many areas where multiple "unmarked"(no agency markings, or any markings, and no lights mounted outside of the vehicle) vehicles were lined up, waiting to initiate stops for what seemed like every 10 miles, or so. That is inviting major risk where it can be easily avoided.
I do have a serious problem with some of the actions of the officer discussed in the aforementioned article. O.C.G.A. 40-6-241.2 doesn't broadly cover "operating a motor vehicle", unlike other O.C.G.A. Title 40 laws do. If a driver is at a point of rest, even with a motor vehicle that has its motor in active operation and the vehicle's transmission is set in a gear that allows for forward or rearward locomotion, there is no legitimate reason to cite said driver for operating a mobile phone, or other device not exempted by 40-6-241.2("...citizens band radios, citizens band radio hybrids, commercial two-way radio communication devices, subscription based emergency communications, in-vehicle security, navigation devices, and remote diagnostics systems, or amateur or ham radio devices."). Once the vehicle is in motion, the driver would be in violation of O.C.G.A. 40-6-241.2(unless the driver is one of the "special people" exempted by that law.
I am an ex-law enforcement officer in the State of Georgia. I arrested more than a few people for DUI without the vehicle being in motion during any of the time I, or any other law enforcement officer observed the violation(most traffic violations have to be observed by a law enforcement officer in order to stop and/or cite for the offense). So, I understand the distinction between driving, in the practical sense, and the legal view of being in control of a motor vehicle. This law isn't as broad as the officer believes it to be.