16 replies to this topic

[Madkore]

What's your best Cop Story?
I know there must be some good ones out there.

Here's mine:

Way back in 1981, I was driving my 1975 Civic on Sunset Blvd in Los Angeles, rolling Eastbound from UCLA through Brentwood heading for Beverly Hills and the Sunset Strip.

Now understand that my 1975 Civic was painted all dark primer grey, with huge fender flares, and 13 X 8 wheels with BR50-13 BF Goodrich T/A Radials.
It was lowered with CACI springs and custom machine shortened Koni wet shocks with CACI sway bars.

My engine was a 1.5 with a ported and polished Canadian cylinder head. I was running a big cam with a 32/36 DGV progressive Weber carb, and a 4 into 1 header with a 2 inch exhaust.
I also had installed a 1974 1200 Civic 4 speed trans because it had a 4.93 final drive.

If you are heading East from UCLA, there is a series of right hand turns going uphill, then a downhill right that dives into a huge banked left hand 180 curve that runs into an uphill right.

So it's like 2:30 AM, the road is totally empty, and I am on it.
I fly around the downhill right and hit the banked 180 degree left in third gear.
Just as I'm entering the 180, there is an LAPD black and white going West on the other side of the road.
They see me and literally stop the car right in the middle of the curve in the left lane.
As I'm flying around the turn, I can see their heads rotating around to follow me.
Naturally they throw a u-turn and start to chase me. Hot fudge sundae with a cherry on top.
My car is way too loud to hide, and there is no where to hide in this part of Beverly Hills, so I slow down and they pull up behind me.
I drive another half mile to where I can turn off Sunset, make a right, and pull over.

I'm sitting with my hands on top of the steering wheel and my fingers spread because I don't want to be on the 11:00 clock news.
One cop walks up to me and calmly asks for my license. I slowly and carefully pull out my wallet and give him my license, then give him my registration, then put my hands back on the wheel.
He looks at my license, and asks me how to pronounce my last name.

Then he looks at me and says "So, why were you driving so fast"?
Me: "I wasn't driving that fast, was I"?
Cop: "I've been on this beat for 15 years, and I have never seen a car go that fast through Sunset. Ever."

He gives my license and reg to his partner to call in and check, then starts talking to me again.
He's scanning my car with his flashlight, looking at my tires, and noticing that the car is completely gutted.

Cop: "So what do you use this thing for anyway?"
Me: "Oh, I run autocrosses and slaloms with the Datsun Club."
Cop: "Oh yeah? How do you do?"
Me: "I do OK. I need more horsepower. Some of the Datsuns are pretty quick."
Cop: "You have high speed cornering marks halfway down your sidewalls."
Me: "Yeah, I need to find tires with stiffer sidewalls."
Cop: "So where are you coming from?"
Me: "My friend's house, we were watching the NBA finals." (The NBA Finals were broadcast at 11:30 PM at night in those days. No live TV on weekdays)
Cop: "Oh, how did that turn out?"
Me: "Houston won, too much Moses (Malone). Malone had 24 points and 22 rebounds."

The cop then looks at my hands still on the steering wheel with my fingers spread and says "You can put your hands down now"
His partner comes back with my license and reg, says I'm clean, and the cop gives them back to me.

The cop says "You're OK, just slow down and be careful. OK?", and starts to walk back to his car.
I turn to look back at him and say "That's it?"
Cop: "Yup, that's it."
Me: "THANK YOU"!
Then the cop turns around and walks back up to me, leans over and says,
"Look, if you have to drive that fast, take it into Beverly Hills and make them chase you. Just don't do it on my beat."
And walks away.

[Screech]

None for driving, just looking suspicious and normally getting pulled twice a month, half the time having to wait on the K9 unit to arrive to sniff my car.

But I was driving my Lincoln, wearing a black trench coat with a Metallica patch on the left arm and, well.... my hair was nuts back then. And it was the mid-90s.

The car: (before I installed the 15x7 and 15x8 keystone classic wheels with 245/60R15 and 275/60R15 tires)


My hair:

[silentdork818]

Once time I cut off a guy in a late model Accord, who proceeded to chase me around Canoga Park for the better part of 20 minutes. Lost him a couple of times, too.

Turned out to be an undercover cop.

[cbstdscott]

In one of my previous lives, I was a TV news camera man. In those days the equipment was really heavy and so we would look to park as close as possible to the story so we did not have to schlep the equipment too far. And knowing this, our boss would pay the parking tickets without too much complaining.

One day we are in Beverly Hills, parked illegally, shooting a story inside some fancy shop. I look out the window and a Beverly Hills motorcycle cop had pulled up on our vehicle and was preparing to write us a ticket. The story inside the shop was finished so I thought it would be funny to get some footage of the cop writing our car a parking ticket, something for the gag reel. We came out of the shop, camera rolling, only to see the cop getting back on his motorcycle without writing us a ticket.

"Where's our ticket?"

"I can't write you a ticket."

"Come on, write us a ticket."

"I can't write you a ticket."

"No, really, Write us a ticket."

"I can't write you a ticket."

"Why not?"

"Because I ran out of tickets." And with that he rode off.

[vgsrule]

Well back when I was in high school a few years ago rollin in my bright red 95 integra, lowered on red rims (probably had a body kit and wing lookin all fast and furious) I definitely got pulled over a few times. One night when I pulled on the freeway after work as I was merging on I was passed by a green 3000gt going pretty fast. I decided to catch up to him in the left lane as there was no traffic and we were both going well over 100. Now I knew my car wasn't fast but his was heavy so I got up right behind him to draft like the pros do it and then changed lanes to pass him. Of course right when we are side by side we see a cop up ahead and both slam our brakes. Long story short my exit was less than a mile up so I get off and the cop decides to follow me rather than the mitsubishi which keeps goin down the freeway.

The cop comes up to my window yelling at me asking what I'm doing and I just told him I was headed home from work trying to keep up with traffic and not paying attention to how fast I was going. Since I slowed down fast enough he did not get a speed reading on me and all he saw was two cars coming up quickly and then suddenly slow down. I had a big SCCA autox sticker on each side of my car and the cop noticed that and proceeds to tell me "I know you race because you have these stickers on your car. I have a mustang and I know it's fast but you don't see me racing everybody to prove how fast my car is." He listed off some mods he had done to his and said he doesn't even take it to a dragstrip because he knows his car is fast.

Since he did not actually get a reading on how fast I was going I just got a warning slip with SPEED written on it haha. And he told me if he ever saw my car there again going one mph over the speed limit I would get a ticket. That was actually the second "racing" ticket I had gotten out of with the other one being on prom night... oh high school...

[RARECRX]

I just won my speeding ticket court case on Dec 19th . With some simple math and a recorded speedometer calibration of my car (free at friends shop) . He claimed the "pace" method on me at 75+ in a 65 . I demolished him in court and made him look like the biggest liar ever . He changed his story many times and contradicted himself many times. Had no record of calibration of his cruiser etc.. The judge stated " If your day job fails , look into law " and found me "not guilty" . Saved me $400 bucks after traffic school etc.

[firstgencrx]

In my late teens, I lived in a neighborhood that was patrolled by a rather cranky motorcycle cop. Like clockwork, he would hang out every morning on the corner that was the exit to our neighborhood. He was usually busy pointing his radar gun at everyone who drove by on the main drag.

One beautiful Sunday morning, I removed the damaged passenger side fender off my pride and joy. It was my very first car, a 66 Pontiac GTO. This was all in preparation to replace it with one I was picking up at the local wreckers later that day. But as luck would have it, unforeseen circumstance prevented me from getting down there. It soon became Sunday evening, and I found myself staring at a car in the dark with no right fender, and facing an early morning commute to work the next day. I knew if I pulled out of the neighborhood on Monday morning without that fender, the motorcycle cop would surly pull me over for something.

So I thought about it, and decided that because the inner fender-well was still installed, the tire was legally covered. I convinced myself the only possible citation he could give me was for not having a passenger side headlight. I carefully collected some scrap tubing, an old headlight from a forklift, and proceeded to kludge together a light for the passenger side of my car. I even found a big "C" clamp to securely attach it to the exposed front frame horn. After some quick electrical work, and a little careful bending to get the light pointing in the right direction, I had a fully functioning headlight! I felt very proud of myself at this point.

Early the next morning, I approached the the exit intersection of our neighborhood in my car. It was then a shot of adrenaline pierced my smug satisfaction as I could clearly see the motorcycle cop had his keen eyes on my lighting contraption. I passed carefully by his waiting stead without making eye contact. As expected, the next thing I noticed was his small flashing red and blue light in my rear view mirror. Shit!

I pulled over and waited. He carefully parked his bike on the soft shoulder, and slowly walked up to my car on the passenger side. He purposely headed straight to the front of the car to get a better look at my handy work. He stood there for what seemed like eternity before my nervousness was too much to take. I carefully climbed out and walked around to the front of the car and stood in front of him. He never looked up at me. I wanted to say something, but I was too scared.

It was then I noticed the creaking of his right leather boot as he shifted his weight. Lifting his left leg high, and with considerable effort, he gave the lonely little headlight attached to the end of a thin length of tubing a good hard kick! My efforts to safely secure this light was no match for this guys tall riding boot. All came tumbling off with a crash and a smash of broken glass to the ground. He picked up the twisted assembly, pulled it hard enough to tear it from the 12 volts that gave it life, and hurled it into the empty lot next to us. I will never forget the expression of satisfaction on his face.

He reached over to his side and pulled his ticket book out of a harness that attached to his thick, black leather belt. As he stood there writing away reveling in his victory, I asked what I was being cited for. "Driving with only one headlight!" he said with a smirk.

I hated that guy. Everyone did.

[Vitamin J]

This happened to me a few years ago, but it still makes me laugh every time I think of it.

So I just got off work and had just ran an errand so I was in a hurry to get home. I was driving my Miata and kicked the ass-end out as I was leaving the parking lot, and then proceeded through the gears through the business park's twists and turns. At this point I had no idea that a cop was following me. In fact, that cop was trying as hard as he could to keep up with me in his Vic. At the other end of the park I pull up at a red light and look in my mirror, I see the Vic hauling ass with lights on. I mean really hauling ass haha. I'm like whoa where's the murder and he pulls behind me.

I have the top down on the Miata so he walked up asking me the usual questions, "why you going so fast" "where ya headed" etc. I can see he's checking out my rear tires, and then he spots my A/F gauge and asks what work I've got done to my car. I just kinda blow him off trying to say as little as possible because I know I'm fucked.

Anyway he writes me up a ticket for "Exhibition of Speed." No fine or points listed on the ticket, a judge will decide that he says. Oh fuck I'm fucked I think,

So a few months go by and I head to court. I wait with the other poor fools and finally am called to speak with the prosecutor. She brings me in and starts reading my ticket. Then she looks something up on her computer and sighs. She turns around and pulls a book of the shelf, flips through it and puts it back. She tells me she'll be right back. She leaves and comes back with an even bigger, dustier book and starts flipping through it.

The next thing she says blew me away, she says that Exhibition of Speed does not exist in their city and the cop wrote it up wrong. Then tells me that Denver may come after me later "but probably not." She says the ticket has been dropped and I'm free to go. Never walked out of traffic court with a smile before

[Madkore]

Keep them coming!

Here's another one:

Back in the late 80s, a group of my friends and I were driving up to Santa Cruz.
There were six cars in our little caravan, and we were buzzing up the highway just North of San Luis Obispo.
All of our cars were lowered and modified, and all had loud exhausts.

We had gone down the really really long hill, and were cruising through the rolling countryside at 95 to 100 MPH.

I was driving trail, or last, since I had all my tools in my car, just in case.
As we were rolling along, two other cars had joined in, so there were now eight cars blazing along the highway in the left lane.

As we were approaching an overpass that crossed the highway, my friend in the lead car suddenly hit his brakes, signaled, and moved quickly into the right lane behind a couple of pickup trucks and some other cars. The rest of us quickly slowed down and moved over to the right lane behind him and the other cars. But the two cars that had joined us stayed in the left lane and kept on going.

As I passed under the overpass, I looked around and saw California Highway Patrol cars everywhere. There were at least a dozen of them.
There were CHP cars on both the right and left side of the highway writing tickets, and two more CHPs were coming down the onramp. I naturally slowed down and let them into the right lane in front of me.

The last two CHP cars were Ford Mustangs, or as the CHP called them, Interceptors. There was one on the left and one on the right, and they both took off after the two cars that didn't slow down.
The CHP uses airplanes to track speeders, who then radio the ground units. Since we had moved right into the middle of a pack of slow moving cars, the CHP couldn't figure out which cars had been speeding and which had been driving legally.
They were all looking at us as we passed them, but we were only going about 60 MPH and were in the middle of the pack, so what could they do?
They had probably been told that there were eight cars speeding, but they could only bust the two that sped right by them.
They couldn't figure out where the other six speeders were.
And they couldn't do anything to the rest of us since they didn't know who was who.

A couple of miles up the road, the two CHP Mustangs had the other two cars on the side of the road and were writing them tickets.

We were so freaked out, that we stayed in the middle of that slow moving pack for about 50 miles.

Whew...............

[CRX HF]

So, this was back in 2009, I was driving in my 1989 Honda CRX HF down Commercial St. In Salem, OR. Keep in mind, I was 16 years old and still in high school lol. It was about 8:30 PM, after swim practice, I was passing by the Best Little Roadhouse and there was a woman wearing a pencil skirt and some high heels walking to her car from the resteraunt. I rolled down my passenger window and yelled "OW! OWWW!!!" and it took about 5 seconds for the cop behind me to flip on his lights and pull me over.

He comes up to the window and asks for my license and registration - blah blah blah
After checking all of my information in the computer, he returned and told me, " Look kid, no matter how easy the ladies are on the eyes, you have to keep your excitement to yourself! Have a good night!"
And he sent me on my way.


I love funny encounters with police, its too bad every encounter isnt a funny one.

[dalkor]

A VW Jetta and me in the CRX were playing tag. He'd speed out ahead and I'd catch up, then lead. Rinse and repeat. We were going kind of fast like 110ish maybe a little more. After doing this for about 30 minutes we hit a summer road work zone AKA double fine area. I had slowed down about 20mph which may have been above the now reduced speed limit. As I'm slowing down I spot a cop car on the left. When I go to slow the heck down he turns on his lights. I wallow in defeat and prepare for my life to be over. I also sink in my seat about 2 feet so no one can see me. Odd thing about this cop though, he only used his red lights not his blues and... and he isn't chasing after me? Needless to say I stayed 5 under the speed limit the rest of the way because I was super paranoid that he just called up ahead and decided it wasn't worth his time. I also had to change into a new pair of pants when I reached my destination.

[Madkore]

Here's one more.

Some friends and I were riding the Fullerton Loop on our mountain bikes. The Fullerton Loop crosses through several park and forest areas, and you have to cross some streets to continue on the trail.

I rode down a quick descent, and was waiting for my friends. So I started riding up and down the street in circles when I heard someone yell 'Help!'.

I rode up the street to a steep driveway that led to an access road for the park, and at the top of the driveway was a motorcycle cop who had apparently tried to ride up the driveway to turn around at the top.
His motorcycle had started to tip over on him, and he was desperately trying to stay on the motorcycle and not let it tip over and slide down the hill with him underneath it.

I called my buddies and we all rode up and helped him right his motorcycle.
He was very very grateful, and I think he would have had a hard time explaining what happened to his motorcycle back at the police station.

Although I still don't understand what he was thinking when he rode up that steep driveway to turn around.

[Fireman]

Okay, so I got a pretty good one. When I first got my license, my parents gave me a 1992 Ford Taurus with the SHO Police High Speed Intercepter package on it. The was an unmarked unit with an all aluminum 3.8 v6 and a factory tack that went to 160 mph. When we bought the car from the town ploice department where I live, they neglected to take off the spotlight, police window tint {which included the front window}, and Interceptor wheels, which in washingto means that we got to leave them on and use them. Good car for a 16 year boy old to have. Anyway, I was running late to school one day, and while trying to make up time I was going a little over the posted limit { well into the triple digits.} Anyway, As I was bombing down the straight, I blew past a local officer who had pulled up at a stop sign to enter the road I was on. by the time I noticed it was too late to slow, so I just eased off the throttle so he wouldn't see me brake. But the odd thing was he didn't chase me. Later after school I was getting gas, and low and behold the same officer pulls into the parking lot and blocks me in. He proceded to read me the riot act, but did not give me a ticket. He said that due to the tint on the windows, he could not identify who the driver of the car was at the time of the incident. Probably the luckiest thing that ever happened seeing as I had only had a license for 2 months. I really miss that car sometimes. It was so much fun to have everyone on the rad think you are an unmarked police car, they all get out of the way on the freeway. Anyway, just thought I would share.

[Madkore]

Any More?

I have a few more, which means I get pulled over way too often.

I was driving South down La Brea Ave in Los Angeles, coming back from Hollywood one evening.

I had my Yellow Labrador Retriever 'Cody' in the passenger seat. Cody was about 105 pounds of muscle, so he was a good sized Yellow Lab.
I was in the middle lane, and there was a station wagon in the left lane that was oscillating back and forth outside the lane lines as he drove.
The wagon would drift three feet outside the lines to the left, then three feet outside the lines to the right, then back to the left again.

He did this a few times as I was approaching him from behind, so I waited until he drifted left, downshifted to second gear, and gassed it to pass him on the right.
I accelerated up to about 45 - 50 mph, speed limit is 35 mph, and stayed there for about a mile or so.

A mile later, an LAPD black and white lights me up and pulls me over.
The cop walks up and Cody immediately starts barking at him. I get Cody to settle down and the cop then asks me why I suddenly sped up.

I explained to him about the station wagon not paying attention to the one lane per customer rule, and told him I decided the safest thing to do was pass him before he hit me or someone else because he might have been under the influence or something.

The cop is pretty cool, and says to me "Well you want to be careful with your dog in the car like that. If you have to brake real hard, he's going to fly off the seat and hit the dash".

I looked at the cop and said "No he's not. He's wearing his seatbelt".

The cop bends over and uses his flashlight to look at Cody.
Cody is sitting sideways in the seat facing me, and he's got his seatbelt on going across the right side of his chest.

The cop stands up and yells at his partner "Hey come check this out! This dog's wearing a seatbelt!".

His partner comes over and looks at Cody, and starts laughing.

Then the cop leans over again and says to me "I have two Labrador Retrievers at home. How in the world did you train him to do that?".

We talked for a few more minutes, and they let me go without giving me a ticket.

[Madkore]

One More........

I was driving up to Santa Barbara, and was buzzing along at 85 mph or so coming into the city on the freeway.
I was driving with both door windows and both rear quarter windows open.

My Yellow Labrador Cody was sleeping on his bed in the back where the rear seat cushion used to be. Since I had no back seat, he couldn't be seen from outside since he was so low in the car.

As I entered Santa Barbara, I slowed down and moved over to the right to get off.
Since I was still going about 70 - 75 mph, I attracted the attention of a California Highway Patrol car.

I get off at Las Positas, and hang a left turn. The CHP car follows me off the freeway and also turns left onto Las Positas.
I drive about two miles down Las Positas to where the street dead ends into Cliff Drive at a T-intersection.
The CHP is still right behind me. Cody is snoozing away on his bed.

So I make a left turn and start driving up the big hill on Cliff Drive in the left lane.
The CHP car also makes a left turn, and is pulling up on me in the right lane.

Just as he's catching up to me, I yell "Cody! What's that?!".

Cody jumps up, looks around, sees the CHP car, and starts barking at it. Cody is a big dog with a big bark.
Cody is now barking, growling, and snarling loudly while looking directly at the driver of the CHP car.
My windows are all open, and his driver's door window was down.
He's looking out the driver's door window and is even with the rear quarter window of my car, and Cody is going nuts.

The CHP could now clearly see and hear Cody barking directly at him, and he could clearly see how big Cody was.

So the CHP slows down, makes a dead U-turn in the middle of the street, goes back down the hill, and goes about his business.

GOOD DOG!