Police response to traffic accidents?

[Leonidas]

See my thread on government service reductions: http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f27/government-service-reductions-44787.html

I don't know where accidents currently fit in on the priority list at my former employer. It shifted so many times while I was w*rking that it wasn't weird to hear an officer come over the air and ask "are we working accidents this week?"

Click on any date on one of these calendars and you can get an idea of how many accidents there are in one 24-hour period in a major city. Houston Police Department

When I first started w*rking there we had a division that did all accident investigations. I learned how to do it in the academy but forgot most of it before long because of disuse. A couple of years later management's response to the crisis of the week was to gut the accident division and shift manpower elsewhere. Investigate most accidents was shifted to patrol, where everyone was clueless about how to do it. One of my first accident calls was an 8 or 9 car chain reaction crash, caused by a DWI, with one car on fire and the occupants trapped. It was the first call of the shift and it took the rest of the shift and some overtime to clean that mess up.

 

[Walt34]

So why not take that off their plate. Why not have an accident response team, no guns, no tazers, no sticky fingers.

In part because so much other crime is uncovered during irregularities in going through the paperwork of an accident. For example, "why don't you have your registration card?" frequently leads to an unregistered car, or tags issued to another vehicle, or even a stolen car, although the drivers of stolen cars usually leave if they can still run.

Often there are outstanding warrants for one of the drivers if there are irregularities in the paperwork. Criminals very rarely commit only one crime. It's a lifestyle and they can't understand why the police pick on them so much. The concept that someone could go their entire life without being arrested is foreign to these people.

During evening shifts on weekends we'd stop as many cars as we could for even the most minor infractions, looking for DWIs. The theory was that given that one out of ten drivers was DWI, if you made ten stops you'd hit on a drunk. AKA "trolling" for drunks. We did NOT write tickets for stuff like a tag light out or 5 mph over the speed limit, but we'd make the stop for it and check the driver's license/registration, and find a lot of DWI's and other crime that way.

 

[thefed]

I wonder what happened in the situation where the cop pulled over the ambulance in the video above?

 

[PX4sc40sw]

Good info, stuff I had not factored in to my solution. I recall during some training rides in Long Beach that the officers targeted "types" of vehicles and occupants after midnight. And it worked well.

But my OP was because I have recently seen 2 accidents just below my 20th floor window, at a very busy intersection and it was traffic chaos and very dangerous for 20 minutes or more. Actually I thought several times the drivers were gonna get either hit by a careless driver or the crap beat out of them by irate drivers.

It just seemed to make no sense for them to feel like they had to leave the cars "as is" to determine fault. Then have the police show, give a breathalyzer and drive off with a "exchange phone #s".


But I am starting to get the same buzz you mention. This country has a fairly high percentage of "career" criminals. Guess I lived in academia too long.

In part because so much other crime is uncovered during irregularities in going through the paperwork of an accident. For example, "why don't you have your registration card?" frequently leads to an unregistered car, or tags issued to another vehicle, or even a stolen car, although the drivers of stolen cars usually leave if they can still run.

Often there are outstanding warrants for one of the drivers if there are irregularities in the paperwork. Criminals very rarely commit only one crime. It's a lifestyle and they can't understand why the police pick on them so much. The concept that someone could go their entire life without being arrested is foreign to these people.

During evening shifts on weekends we'd stop as many cars as we could for even the most minor infractions, looking for DWIs. The theory was that given that one out of ten drivers was DWI, if you made ten stops you'd hit on a drunk. AKA "trolling" for drunks. We did NOT write tickets for stuff like a tag light out or 5 mph over the speed limit, but we'd make the stop for it and check the driver's license/registration, and find a lot of DWI's and other crime that way.

 

[RustyShackleford]

During evening shifts on weekends we'd stop as many cars as we could for even the most minor infractions, looking for DWIs. The theory was that given that one out of ten drivers was DWI, if you made ten stops you'd hit on a drunk. AKA "trolling" for drunks.

Let me get this straight - you're admitting that you harrassed 9 drivers
to catch one, when that one was not so impaired that it was clear HE
was the one DWI ?

 

[kumquat]

In my province we have mandatory insurance that you get with license plates. Theoretically everyone is insured and you can check by looking at the expiry date on the plate.

Here the rule is, don't call the cops unless : someone is injured, or damage (in YHO) exceeds $2K. Most people assume $2K is real damage. Most accidents go to the insurance company. Works fine.

 

[ERD50]

Let me get this straight - you're admitting that you harrassed 9 drivers
to catch one, when that one was not so impaired that it was clear HE
was the one DWI ?

It is not "harassment" to stop someone who was breaking the law. Having "a tag light out or 5 mph over the speed limit" are offenses.

Now, if they stalked a single individual, and ticketed him for every minor offense, that could be harassment - but here they were just stopping people as they came across them, not "targeting" individuals.

I came across one of your older posts recently while doing a search for something else. You seem to have a real problem with authority figures....

-ERD50

 

[harley]

It is not "harassment" to stop someone who was breaking the law. Having "a tag light out or 5 mph over the speed limit" are offenses.

Now, if they stalked a single individual, and ticketed him for every minor offense, that could be harassment - but here they were just stopping people as they came across them, not "targeting" individuals.

I came across one of your older posts recently while doing a search for something else. You seem to have a real problem with authority figures....

-ERD50

Legalese as opposed to intent. You're right, this isn't legally harassment, but it certainly isn't the way those who protect and serve should be behaving. The police are supposed to prevent crimes when possible, but "trolling" for DUIs is IMHO misuse of authority. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

 

[ERD50]

Legalese as opposed to intent. You're right, this isn't legally harassment, but it certainly isn't the way those who protect and serve should be behaving. The police are supposed to prevent crimes when possible, but "trolling" for DUIs is IMHO misuse of authority. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

And one could say that by getting drunks of the road, they *are* "protecting and serving" and behaving well.

I agree that it is a fine line and a slippery slope, but stopping random people for actual violations is on the "good" side of the line, IMO.

-ERD50

 

[harley]

Not me. If they stop everybody who is crossing the legal line on some minor offense, I'd accept it (without liking it). But IMO this is not what the police should be about. It's a just little thing, but that doesn't make it right. It smacks of being asked for your identification for no reason, just because they can. Not my definition of America.

 

[mathjak107]

all i know is i saw a commercialt night that said 45% of all traffic accidents involve drinking.... so isnt it safer to drive drunk?" the other 55% are straight!

 

[ERD50]

Not me. If they stop everybody who is crossing the legal line on some minor offense, I'd accept it (without liking it).

But isn't that what they described? I guess the only "picking" they did was time/place, but the cops can't be everywhere. If that time/place was more likely to have drunks on the road, I think it is reasonable. I'm willing to be somewhat pragmatic, rather than a total purist on issues like this.

We can agree to disagree - I think we both see it as being near a dangerous line, you see it slightly to one side of the line, I see it slightly to the other. I do think it needs to be monitored closely, so as not to veer off into harassment, but I don't think the example given fits the "harassment" description that one poster labeled it with.

-ERD50

 

[Leonidas]

The Supremes have voted 9-0 on the ruling case in this area that says the Constitution is fine with the police using discretion on who to stop and who to arrest, as long as there is probable cause to support it. And, more importantly, they say that even though an officer may be motivated in that decision to investigate a possible crime for which he did not have sufficient probable cause to make a stop or arrest (drugs, murder, robbery, etc.), he can use some other legitimate probable cause to make that stop or arrest (traffic violation) even if he might not normally make a stop or arrest for that offense.

See Whren v. United States and Atwater v. Lago Vista

Such power is open to abuse, just about any power is (and I think Atwater was), but without the ability to use discretion to conduct this kind of stop the effectiveness of law enforcement will be curtailed to something close to zero. I think the fact that the governing decision was 9-0 shows that even the liberal wing of the court recognizes that fact.

 

[Walt34]

Let me get this straight - you're admitting that you harrassed 9 drivers to catch one, when that one was not so impaired that it was clear HE was the one DWI ?

If that's the way one chooses to see it, yes, and I make no apologies for it.

I developed that attitude about the third time I had to knock on some stranger's door and tell whoever answered that some relative wasn't coming home. Ever.

The "harassment" amounted to at most 30 seconds, plus whatever time it took the driver to produce a driver's license and registration. And I made it clear within the first sentence or two that I was not going to issue a ticket for whatever the violation was.

All that was to accomplish the task at hand (lock up drunk drivers) as painlessly to others as possible. No one ever complained about the practice that I knew of. And as Leonidas noted even the most liberal side of the SC didn't have a problem with it.

 

[RustyShackleford]

I personally feel more threatened, when driving, by the overstressed
yuppie soccer mom jabbering on her cell phone, than by the drunk -
meaning simply I have a lot more close calls where this is the cause.

I suppose the theory is that traffic stops make the roads safer.
I think it's basically tax collection at the point of a gun; not really blaming
the individual officer though. I feel that if gov't was truly that concerned about
road safety, they would:

1. Ban 18-wheelers from the interstates between 5pm Friday and 5pm Sunday.
2. Ban 18-wheelers from using cheap tires that regularly disintegrate and litter
the highway with hazardous debris.
3. Ban tandem tractor-trailers.
4. Ban cell-phone use while driving (THAT is starting to happen).
5. Improve driver training so that, for example, people know not to
make a turn into the far lane, not to block intersections, not to change
lanes when the lane marker is solid (that's just a start).
6. Address the rampant corruption/incompetence in the road construction
business, that causes highway projects to regularly take YEARS to complete.

But hey, many of my suggestions would cost the gov't; traffic citations
generate revenue. Follow the money ...