Here Are Your Worst Traffic Stop Stories

I wrote a sentence or two earlier. I’d written this up when it happened so I wouldn’t forget the details, but it took a while to find it.

I had to drive from NE PA to Indiana, to pick up my daughter from college. Because we had to haul all her stuff back for the summer, I needed a van, so I borrowed one from work. The night before we left, I grabbed a tag, and filled out temporary registration info, and picked out an ‘11 Grand Caravan (nice van, even being a Chrysler product).

It’s basically a 500+ mile trip on I-80, through PA, OH, and IN; maybe 9-10 hours, stopping every 2-3 hours to stretch. Traveling out Thursday was uneventful, other than it was chilly and rainy. We loaded her up Friday morning after her last final, and after stopping to eat we were on our way around noon.

It was a beautiful day for driving, 70* with no wind, and not a cloud in the sky. We crossed into Ohio around 2PM, and around 2:30 we were looking for the next rest stop. Motoring along with the cruise set at 74 (speed limit in Oh is 70), Mrs said, “Cop ahead.”

“It’s OK, I’m not speeding, and anyhow that Jetta just passed me.” And sure enough, I looked in the rear view and the cop pulled out. “Looks like he’s getting pulled over,” I said.

Except it didn’t happen. The cruiser took up position right off my left flank, and tracked me. I slowed down, from 74 to 70; the cop slowed down. I slowed down to 65; the cop slowed down. “Ahhhh, hell.” I said to the girls. “I can’t believe it. I’m going to get ticketed for going 74. What a ticky-tack state!”

The cop tracked me for about 5 miles, and then I looked in the rear view, and flying up from waaaaaay back was one of those Hemi Charger pursuit cars, all black with the real skinny light bar, headlights flashing and light bar blinking. “Ahhh, backup,” I thought. “They must be going after that guy, she was waiting.” But as soon as he got up in place, they both pulled in behind me, the first car threw on the lights and siren, and I pulled over immediately. “Son of a bitch,” I thought. “I really am going to get ticketed for 74!”

I turned off the ignition, and put my hands on the wheel like a good citizen; rule number one is to maximize your chance of talking your way out of it. But they were both out of the car, and yelling at me! Huh? What kind of stop was this? I put down my window, and they were yelling, “PUT YOUR HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!” I looked in the rear view, and I couldn’t hear them, but the officer from the first car, a woman, was motioning me to get out. I got out, and started walking back, thinking that this wasn’t like any other traffic stop I’d ever been in, and I noticed that the guy from the Hemi had a riot shotgun pointed right at me. And they were yelling, “TURN AROUND! TURN AROUND! PUT YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD AND WALK BACKWARD TO US, SLOWLY!”

Holy shit.

OK, now I was really confused. But I figured out that my best course of action right then was to turn around, put my hands behind my head, and walk backward to them, slowly.

When I got there, the first officer, who did all the talking the entire time, said, “Okay. put your hands behind your back. Do you have anything sharp, and weapons, anything that could hurt me?” And she proceeded to pat me down, and of course I had nothing. “Okay, turn around, put your hands in the air where we can see them.” Meanwhile, the other guy had the shotgun leveled at me.

“I need to tell you,” I said, “I am confused, and scared as hell that you are going to mistake my confusion for noncompliance. Please, don’t tase me. If you tase me you will kill me, I have a heart condition.” They didn’t say anything, they didn’t change expression, nothing. The officer said, “Do you have ID on you?”

ID! “Yes,” I said, and I reached for my wallet. IMMEDIATELY the shotgun came up to attention! “Slowly,” she said. I got out my drivers license. She took it.

“Where are you coming from?” She asked. I told her, picking up my daughter from college.

“Is that your family in there?”

“Yes, my wife and my daughter. Can I ask, what is this about? I am really confused.”

“Who does this van belong to?” I told her, Nationwide Car Sales. “Do you own the dealership?” “No.” “Do you work there?” “Yes, I borrowed a van to pick up my daughter from school.”

“You really don’t have any idea why we stopped you, do you… The reason is, when you passed through the Westgate, they snapped a photo of your license plate, and it’s been reported as stolen.”

“WHAT? I grabbed a tag out of a stack of tags! We’ve been using these tags daily, there’s nothing wrong with them!” And just then, over the speaker clipped to her lapel, the dispatcher said, “Plate number is registered to Nationwide Car Sales.” Ahh. Finally, something is going right.

“Okay, now I understand,” I said.

“It’s a dealer tag. I’ve seen it happen before. If I really thought this car was stolen, you’d all be out here on the ground, face down and handcuffed. But sometimes a plate is reported stolen, and some states replace it with the same number. I need to ask some questions, I’m going to call Nationwide Car Sales.”

“Can I put my hands down now?” I’d been holding my hands up for about 15 minutes. As soon as I said that, the shotgun came right back up to attention.

“No, that’s OK, keep them up where I can see them for now,” she said. She went back to her car, and talked to someone for a couple minutes. Ringo kept the shotgun on me. He looked like he was itching to make the newspapers.