CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee (AP) -- A Tennessee judge gave a college student a driving lesson in court this week: don't correct the police. Clay Palmer, a student at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, honked his car horn when he saw a policeman turn on blue flashers to pass through a red traffic light. The officer then turned the flashers off after moving through the intersection. Palmer said officer Matthew Puglise then stopped his patrol car and issued him a ticket for honking his horn for no reason -- a violation of the city noise ordinance. The charge was reduced to a warning Wednesday when he went before a judge who told him he acted wrongly. "The horn blowing is not the real problem here, it's that you were trying to correct the police and they didn't need correcting," Judge Russell Bean said. Did you catch that? "The police... [don't] need correcting." THAT from a judge who works for the people. Am I wrong, or isn't the idea of a democratic system that of which the people have the ability to take part in the entire governmental process, rather than have the government walk all over them, and tell the populace that the people are entirely wrong - no matter the circumstances? And since when is undue honking illegal, anyway? Seems kinda daft to me...
<sarcasm> If you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about, right? </sarcasm> Sorry, I should have been clearer the first time.
I hate that phrase it is almost always used to justify an attempt to infringe civil liberties horribly
Might want to re-word that bit. Cthippo, the whole point of this is that the man who received the ticket did nothing wrong. He actually pointed out that the police officer was the one in the wrong. It's good that he got it reduced to a warning, but still bad that it happened in the first place. - tf
Thanks It was very early in the morning (I couldn't sleep), and I was trying to fix something on my main system, so was working on my laptop... Well, anyway, this and another of the threads I posted had massive errors in their titles. Fix'd now though
If you correct the police, its just going to be a bad thing. They tend to have a rather large ego and any correction or critiscim tends to agitate them, not true for all. My brother in law was able to yes sir his way out of a 20 over. Just for agreeing with the cop. I even was alowed to keep my licence because I was polite to the state trooper. Its a terrible thing but they hold too much power, read about the people who wanted to file complaints agianst them but were chased out of the station.
Where's the law saying you can't correct the police? If there isn't a law against correcting the police you can't be punished can't you? Either way, that's just stupid, citizens have every right to correct anybody!
I hate abuse of power, I was tailgated by a police car on the M40 for about 10 miles as I did 50 miles per hour in the flow of traffic. I couldn't go anywhere faster but he insisted on sticking 4 feet from my rear bumper. I called 999 on my handsfree phone and reported it to the police. The dispatcher was confused initially but took the complaint and within seconds the car had dropped back to a reasonable distance. I waved a sarcastic thanks to them as they pulled back...
Similar incident happened to me not long ago, but being young and 'of ethnic descent' I decided not to rock the boat and just let it go. Basically I was on a dual going a tiny bit over the limit and noticed a police car approach. Obviously I slowed down a bit but they just stayed there, didn't try to overtake or anything. If felt really close, don't think it was anything like 4 feet (that's incredibly reckless at 50MPH ) but it was enough to make me a little nervous.
4 ft at 50? i can manage 4 ft at 80+ (my mates and I tend to ride in convoy to car shows so we cruise in a tight formation like that when we get open roads) as far as correcting police... it's 100x easier to just be polite... but it's still wrong that the guy got a ticket when the cop was obviously abusing his power so he wouldn't have to sit at a traffic light
I could have easily tapped my brakes and caused an accident. Nobody alive has reflexes good enough to stop at that distance, and a police driver of all people should know that.
Damn right. It seems that judge is acting like a parent, cant handle being wrong! I love the way everyone craps themselves when there are police cars about. The dual carriageway on teh way to work is usually mediiumly busy and most people do between 60-80mph. The other day a police car was going down the right hand lane at about 85 (no lights or anyhting) and everybody moved over to the left and did about 50-60. Theres me following the police doing 80. Im not gonna let them break the speek limit if i cant.
I was parked at a red light once and my mobile rings. It's my wife, so I answer. This was before the new laws on mobile phone use while driving came into force but this did not stop a policeman (pulled up behind me, as it turns out) to rip open my door and shout at me: "Do you want to be arrested?!? Do you!?! Then hang up the phone!!!". The light changed and he drove off. I followed him and pulled up next to him at the next lights, asking him to pull over because we needed to discuss something. At the next junction we both did. I walked up to his car, and told him that shouting at me was an inappropriate and confrontative way of handling the situation, which generally leads to escalation rather than resolving matters, and that asking me in a calm manner would have been sufficient. He sort of grunted and skulked off. The reason I was able to do this without adverse consequence is because I made sure that I was assertive but calm, polite and rational throughout, and did not make threats or sarcastic and insulting comments, so he had nothing to pin me down on. Being eloquent and wearing a suit helped of course --it conveys a message that you can handle yourself in a legal confrontation. Good old psychology...
I remember reading about a similar story here in Blighty a few weeks back. A council worker guy driving to work sees the police sitting in a lay-by as they do. He gives them the thumbs up and a smile (supposedly...), then drives off to work quite happily. Later that day two police turn up at his workplace and find the guy, and give him this big lecture. They let him off with a warning (for what I ask?) but the guy almost got fired for it. Unbelievable. This is all IIRC, and I have an increasingly bad memory.
Wow, if a cop does that in my area they get fired. Then again thats probably why most of them are either chill, or complete PITAs.
