this one really chaps my a**.

i'm driving through the Mission (for those from outside Northern California it's a not so very good neighborhood in San Francisco - you could call it a barrio), about two blocks from 16th and Mission (a good spot to find a crack ho or the crack to pay her) and i'm stopped at a stoplight.

this motorcycle cop behind me flicks his lights on. i'm like "what the f**k?" i mean, i'm stopped at a stop light. so i pull over and the guy comes up and says "do you know you don't have a front plate." as he's saying this the two cars behind me (an older 911 and a nice silver rx7) pass us - both WITHOUT front plates. i look across the street and there are two cars parked without front plates.

sure enough, the cop writes me up for not having a front plate and gives me a huge lecture about how "it's the law."

so my tax dollars are going to cops who are stopping drivers to give them $10 fixit tickets two blocks from where drug dealers openly sell on the street. not only that, he seems to be doing it pretty much at a whim.

to add salt to the wound (or at least irony to the story) this was 2 blocks from my destination after driving from North Sacramento to San Francisco in 1 hour and 5 minutes WITHOUT getting pulled over (for those not from Northern California you can assume this is a pretty good time and one would have to assume that speeding was occurring).

sigh...

i'd love to know what went through his mind and made him decide to pull me over.

[Edited by malachi on 06-06-2001 at 05:44 PM]

 

Sorry to hear that.
I think they started doing this because some of the lights in that area have camera and they want to catch the RED light runners.

I don't have a front plate either and so far I have been lucky.

 

When I'm in my paranoid moods in SF, I note that only law abiding citizens get in trouble with the law here. The big block gang is out there Literally killing family members to intimidate witnesses ( I've had the pleasure of trying to put their victims back together again at SFGH on a Saturday night), and our DA's office is putting tons of resources into prosecuting the pathetic dog killers (don't get me wrong, they deserve to be punished, but murder? come on... manslaughter yes, murder, no).

 

He probably wanted to check out the car. Too bad he had to give you a fix-it ticket in the process.

 

$10 that's it?

Damn. Mine was nearly $90. Cop was upset that he was unable to get me for speeding. So he proceeded to tailgate me for a few miles...after I was behaving, he took off but noticed I had no front plate and proceeded to pull me over.

Tha prick.

I love cops...and of the dozen times I've been pulled over, they've all been nice except this guy.

 

If your car were silver you would have been safe. It is the price we pay for the best color IMHO )

 

i just got one too....along w/ 98mph speeding
me 'n tsw were on our way up to thunderhill. anyway, i plan on just f'in up the thread in my bumper or getting a wrong size bolt or something and showing a cop that one side doesn't screw in. that way i can keep it on the dash. but hell if i'll even do that. prolly just keep it in the trunk and if i get stopped, be like "oh i just cleaned the interior the other day...left it in the trunk by accident, i'll put it back now..."

think it'll work?

 

would a cop ignore me in SF if I am from Detroit? We don't have front plates here.

 

The officer would see that your from out of state and because a front plate is not required in your state, he couldn't site you because its not required in your home state that the vehicle is registered in.

 

Here in Georgia we are a one-plate state. But when I was up in New York (two plate state) I was pulled over for not have a front plate on the car. The officer wanted to give me a ticket, he didn't believe me that Georgia only issues one plate ( I was very polite and very calm when talking to any officer for the first time.) After a long talk (45 minutes) about it and checking everything on the car, lights, registration, insurance card, etc. he let me go with a warning! I wrote a letter to his commander explaining the situation and stated that their officers should be aware of this situation and this could constitute a type of harassment. Never received an answer.

But two months later the same officer had to testify in front of my father in court (he is a judge in New York and we both have the same name [different middle initial]) he later talked to him and remembered me and the letter I send. He stated that if I told him I was an attorney and my father was a judge he would have let me go earlier!

Just another example of how our justice system works. Not whether you break the law but "who" breaks the law. One of the things I love to do is get a police officer on the stand and "GRILL" him on cross. If it's a good officer he has nothing to worry about...if not let them "FRY."

I would like to say that not all police officers are bad. Most of them are respectable individuals that do not abuse their power or discretion.