Never drive anywhere in Fargo at 3:30 am. (Interesting story inside)

[SmileyBoy]

You could be driving like a saint, and the cops would pull you over for something.

Scene:

NDSU Campus, 3:45 am friday Morning.
NO FUCKING PEDESTRIANS OR TRAFFIC AROUND IN THE WHOLE GODDAMN CITY. ALL 190,000 PEOPLE IN THE METRO ARE IN BED.

Case in point: I got pulled over tonite. I just got home from doing some late-night grocery shopping. I ran out of stuff yesterday, and had the munchies, so like a night-owl college student, I decided to go pick up some frozen dinners.

Well, I was driving back home, going north on 10th Street. The speed limit on 10th was 35mph (I was aware of ALL the limits), and since I was getting tired (like I am now), I was pretty comfortable cruising at the speed limit, give or take one or two miles. I'm still going the speed limit when I reach campus, and the campus posted speed limit is 15 mph. From the 25 mph speed limit zone in a residential area I was in briefly, I emerged onto campus soil from just east of University Avenue, and I was still going 25, when I was proceeding to slow down. And all the time, a cop is following me.

I pull into my dorm parking lot, knowing that a cop was following me, he flashes his lights, I say to myself "Oh FUCK this bullshit", I stop, and I think to myself "THIS is the Fascist Police Department they're telling me about." The cop walks next to my window, (KEEP IN MIND that I have a driving record as clean as a virgin's pussy) and I'm fumbling for my license, trying to explain to him that this is the first time I've been pulled over, and I'm VERY nervous. The guy also has this monotonic, stone-cold voice that you could bludgeon a grizzly bear with.

After asking why he pulled me over, he informs me that I was going 25 in a 15 zone. Hell, I'm pissed on the inside now, because I KNOW I've been wrongly pulled over, but I keep it all inside throughout. I give him my license and insurance, he comes back and tells me that I shouldn't be speeding and that this is a warning. He says this in his cold voice, also. But the weird thing is that for a while, he's scoping out the back of my car, and when stopping to stand behind my car briefly before entering his car again, he appeared to be looking at me through the back dash, jotting something down. In the end, I just thank GOD this was just a warning he gave me.

So let's recap. At 3:45 am, where there is 100% NO CARS OR PEOPLE around, I'm driving in a 25mph zone going the SPEED LIMIT into a campus zone at 15 mph. I drive into it at 25 mph, proceeding to slow down to 15, all the time for the past 6 blocks, a cop has been watching my every move. He pulls me over and says it's because I went 25 in a 15 mph campus zone whose surroundings in the middle of the night could be mistaken for an abandoned town.

I was wrongly pulled over tonight. Also, this isn't just some denial sob-story that a lot of people tell. I'm telling you the flat-out, bare, honest truth. No embellishing, no change of story to suit my needs. It happened 45 minutes ago from the time I'm typing this, so my mind is pretty clear.

Welcome to John Ashcroft's America.

Big Brother is watching you.

[xchrom]

1. you recount just one

of the reasons why i don't like to live outside major metropolitan areas in this country{and no, houston doesn't count}.
i have roots in the midwest and understand what happened to you.

[RC]

2. Grow some gray hair and add some "character" lines.

And they mostly leave you alone. :evilgrin:

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. Not necessarily

I was pulled over and fined $35 for stopping at a stop sign before turning right onto a road. This is no lie. It was in a town in AR notorious for fining 'out of town' cars to support the town. A few years later, this practice was finally abolished by the courts.

All in all, I've been pulled over a few times, and that's been since I've been middle aged. When I was young, it never happened. Luckily, the cops around here are fairly friendly. But I get the jumping jeebies every time it happens anyway.

[Branjor]

4. It also happened to me...

I was living in the midwest at the time and I went out at 1 AM to buy some cigarettes. Not a car or a person was in sight anywhere. I pulled up to a stop sign, braked and made a right turn. The next thing I know, a cop had pulled me over and I was warned for making a "rolling stop" instead of a full stop at the sign and he did a computer check on my license (which turned up nothing).
Another time I was out in the middle of the night buying cigarettes (I had bad insomnia then), a cop at the store stared at me with a fixed, icy stare from the time I went into the store, made my purchase until I got in my car and drove away. He did not detain me for any reason, just stared at me the whole time. I am a woman and was in my 30s at the time. Like you, my driving record is also squeaky clean.

[FlaGranny]

5. My son told me a story

about getting a ticket, oh, probably about midnight. He was 17 and he had asked permission to go to a concert with one friend, another boy about the same age. He got a little lost trying to come home from the concert so he was nervous anyway. He came to a stop sign, at a divided highway. He swears he stopped at the stop sign. Then he pulled out across the first half of the divided highway, and since he was a bit uncertain he stopped again, in the island, before he made his left turn. He swears he came to a full stop twice, because he was not sure where he was and was trying, to get his bearings. A gestapo-type cop pulled them over, scared the living daylights out of the kids, I think he got them both out of the car and put them against the car. Then he gave my son a ticket for running the stop sign!!!!

When he got home he told me all about it and told me, "I wish you had not let me go." I didn't really want to let him go, but he was 17, and I did trust him. He had to go to traffic school to avoid a big increase in our insurance rates. That was his first and LAST ticket and he's now in his 30's.

Edit: typo

[radwriter0555]

6. Honey, he was GLAD you kept him AWAKE.. he was bored...

doncha see?

WTF are you doing there? You gotta go where the sun is warm!

[Mairead]

7. There's a good way to win 'bar bets' in Massachusetts

When you see that a state cop has pulled someone over, bet that the victim is a non-elderly woman. You'll make money.

[underpants]

8. Oh yeah sure the virgins

I knew a virgin in hgih school who got a raw hotdog uh stuck. I know it sounds like an urban legand but it is true.

Not always as clean as you might think.

[NicoleM]

9. FPD

I knew somebody in Fargo who was on her way to work at 4AM. She had dropped something in her car, so when she stopped at a stop sign she paused long enough to pick it up. The only other car around belonged to a cop who pulled her over for STOPPING TOO LONG at a sign.

But Chris Magnus* seems like a decent guy. I used to read his Q&A column on the In-Forum website. I don't know if he still does that, but maybe you could e-mail him your story.

*For the non-Fargoans, Magnus is the police chief.

[SmileyBoy]

10. Yeah. I met a couple nice Fargo cops a few months ago.

They were pretty cheerful and outgoing. This guy just seemed like a dick in particular. I think he was trying to fill his quota. I bet he really wanted to see previous violations on my license. Welp, too bad for him.

[Xithras]

11. Well...you WERE speeding!

While I agree that the cop was probably looking for an excuse to pull you over, you were technically speeding. There have been court cases on this in the past, and it's fairly well established law that you must be doing the posted speed limit at the point you pass the sign...there is no legally recognized "deceleration period". The theory is that, if you are properly paying attention and looking ahead, you will see the sign and slow down to the new speed before you reach it.

Sounds like the cop was a prick, but he did have a legally valid reason for lighting you up.