zlacker

When I was younger I lived in a fairly rural area. I was driving home late from work one day on a remote highway and came across one of the most horrific accidents I've ever seen. A driver was pulling onto the highway and was hit by a police cruiser at an almost impossibly high speed. The highway was marked at 55mph, and under normal conditions, the driver of the other car would have had plenty of time to pull out, speed up and join the road at speed. On this road, at this time of night, there were virtually no other cars on the road.

The cruiser was going at least 130mph, without lights or siren on, struck the car at the b pillar and literally sheared the car in half right behind the driver. It was unreal, the two pieces of the car looked like they had been cut in two by a giant table saw. The front end of the cruiser was smashed in pretty well.

Incredibly, when I pulled my car off the road to help, I found both drivers up, relatively unhurt, ambulatory and in a daze from shock. A few minutes later another cruiser pulled up, called a tow and drove the civilian driver home. It became a local news story as the police officer was not only not arrested, but not disciplined in any way. Insurance covered the cars and the officer was back on the beat in a new car within the week. His rush? He wanted to make it home in time to watch a college ball game after his shift was over.

>>bane+(OP)
Once saw a police car in a smallish town whip a u-turn for no clear reason, no lights, nothing, nearly hit a car that was pulling out of a bank parking lot and the driver of which had clearly already looked that way and seen no-one coming, then the cop freaked out, u-turned again (lights this time) and pulled over the car they nearly hit. Guess whatever they were breaking traffic laws and driving very dangerously to get to wasn't so important after all. What a shitty day for that person. At least it was probably just a totally unjustified ticket and an unpleasant lies-filled conversation with an upset and fragile-ego'd cop, and not death or injury, I suppose.

[EDIT] this and other dangerous-driving observations lead me to treat cop cars on the road like someone I've seen through the window drinking a 40 while talking on the phone. They're far and away the most likely category of vehicle to do something batshit crazy with no warning.

>>bane+(OP)
In the town I used to live in in GA (about 125k people) accidents like this (though not that severe) were frequent on a couple of hilly roads. Marked as 35-45mph depending on the section, the police would drive at 80mph or more down the road. Usually they ticketed the person they hit. At least one cop I knew was actually proud of how he was able to stick it to the guy pulling out of a fast food restaurant.

I respect most people by default, but individuals like them make it hard for me to respect police by default. I'll be respectful, but in my head I can't help but think of all the scummy things they or their colleagues do.

>>eyeron+Q3
I've seen a lot of talk about how a police officer's job isn't particularly dangerous, with less chance of dying on the job than say a garbageman or taxi driver.

An angle I don't see mentioned quite so often is that for the danger that does exist, most of it is vehicle crash related. One wonders how much is self inflicted due to dangerous driving.

>>Jtsumm+Y5
Several years ago I was test driving a car owned by a cop in rural Tennessee. He was riding with me and I turned onto a smaller road with a 45mph speed limit. I was taking it slow and easy when he said "ah don't worry about the speed limit, I've got an E-Tag, let's go" I didn't know what an E-Tag was at the time but apparently it's an "Emergency Vehicle" tag given to officers to put on their unmarked, personal vehicles (in Tennessee at least). I guess it lets other cops know not to bother with stopping someone with an e-tag since they're just going to let them go anyway. I was pretty young at the time, and it was my first time seeing that the police are above the law.

>>eyeron+Q3
A friends was rear ended by a police cruiser while stopped at a red light. Ten police cars showed up. They did everything in their power to find anything wrong. They photographed everything in the car. They intimidated her into saying something was her fault.

She never got the money to repair her car because they don't carry insurance the same way normal people do. She ended up buying a new car. She was lucky to not be put in jail.

It's hard to imagine there are any good cops out there with all this rot.

>>eyeron+Q3
Absolutely. I'm a firefighter. I was the designated driver for two friends. We leave a bar, and I pull up to the intersection. I have a flashing red traffic light, and the cross traffic has a flashing yellow. There is a police car sitting at his flashing yellow, windows down, watching (it's closing time, and there are several people milling about on the street, the usual). I wait. He doesn't move. I wait for approximately 10 seconds before turning, with my signal, left.

I'm immediately lit up. "Failure to yield". In addition I get an FST after "failing" the vertical nystagmus test (bear in mind at this point, my one and only pint of beer is coming up on five hours old). Cop is insistent I'm drunk, says he can go the DUI route, because my "behavior" in "failing to yield" shows I'm impaired, regardless of actual numbers. I'm lucid, but frustrated. Debates merits of blood draw, etc. Tickets me, "Get out of downtown and get home, I think we both know you're getting off lucky".

>>hundch+dg
You can get FOP bumper stickers etc., in some states to show your civilian "support" (financial, and otherwise) of police.

You can also buy them on eBay, unofficially. Of course, the police unions have gone after sellers there, for some reason.

In one state the union went so far as issuing registration-like tags for your FOP bumper sticker, so that if a cop was pulling you over, he'd know whether you were "paid up", so to speak. Of course, it's only about support, and not legalized proactive bribery, just to be clear...

>>hundch+dg
> it was my first time seeing that the police are above the law.

I like to illustrate corruption in the US by showing them the fake badges that cops’ friends or family put on the windshield of (endemic in the NYC area) or the “I donate to the police union” stickers.

Or of course the actual police union gold cards or whatever that police spouses and kids get.

>>FireBe+SL
Hahaha, yeah, same smallish town's cops love to hassle people with late or early shifts playing "20 questions" fishing for drunks or I-don't-even-know-what ("5:30's awfully early to be going to work" look, asshole, take it up with the hour-fifteen of highway I have to cover, how many drunks are you nabbing at this hour on a Tuesday anyway?), usually just obviously fabricating some reason that they stopped you in the first place, without even trying to hide that it's BS (good luck questioning it, though). That's white folks, too, I can't imagine how bad it is there if you've got too much melanin in your skin. Incredibly annoying. Often it just seems like they're super bored and looking for anything at all to do.

>>eyeron+YP
> I can't imagine how bad it is there if you've got too much melanin in your skin.

It's the same. That narrative you're pushing is hindering genuine discussion and potential solutions to the very real problems of abusive police and injustices within the legal system. It's them versus us - all of us - not some of us more than others.

>>bane+(OP)
I spent a lot of time in what's currently CHAZ/CHOP as a teen. The police in that precinct have/had a particularly visible habit of blowing red lights. When there are other cars nearby, they flick their lights on momentarily, as if ticking off a minor technicality (though still violating the letter of the law). I've seen cops do that pretty much anywhere I've lived, US or Canada, but it was especially prevalent on the stretch of road a few blocks from the precinct. I saw quite a few near-misses caused by this.

An "honest" cop would see this behavior and report the crime appropriately. But they simply don't hold eachother accountable.

>>bane+(OP)
Not as egregious, but I once was pulled for accelerating into traffic. The officer told me that onramps “aren’t like yellow lights where you speed up to get through...” I was dumbfounded. Anyway, fortunately, I knew a judge and got it dropped but that idiot is probably still out there bringing misery to others.

>>FireBe+TM
11-99 Foundation in California, by persistent legend:

https://priceonomics.com/can-you-buy-a-license-to-speed/