Apparently, I am naive. I was aware license plate readers were a thing, but I thought mostly permanently affixed at urban intersections.
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But last night, a woman was driving a car registered to me, after dark, and she gets pulled over by a cop out in the wilds of the rural north woods. The reason? The car is registered in my name, and he shows my driver's license as expired. (It is in that state; I have a valid license in another state.)
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But she does have a valid driver's license. It was in her purse in the trunk. She tells him to get it because of course, she is blinded by his spot light. He does do this, even though I don't think that's proper procedure. He was polite and lets her go.
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So either even the cop cars in podunk country have license plate scanners, or there was one at the intersection of the two country roads he was waiting at. But his screen flashed a discrepancy, and that is a ruse to look for other illegal activities. At least this jurisdiction didn't have the policy of two squad cars being required for every stop. But as every black person and rural red neck knows, each interaction with police is a potential for misunderstanding and violent conflict, for both the officer and the civilian.
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For Christ's sake cops, please let people go about their business. We are all living with virtual ankle bracelets on now. This sucks.
Living under surveillance
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last commentOverreaching technology like this can be useful in solving crimes. But is usually just used to try to find a reason to harass people as in ops example.
The big problem is a militarized police force. Low requirements. Usually just a ged. Lots of mentally ill veterans.
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As described, I don't see why a license plate scanner necessarily came into play. Cop who was tailing your friend in your car could easily eyeball the plate and have it run, especially since it was out late at night in the rural north woods. Even moreso if it was an out of state tag.
BTW, AFAIK, cars are required to be registered in the name of a driver licensed in the state of registration. I would get that car re-registered in the state you are living in/licensed in now, or you will just be inviting one of those unpleasant and potentially dangerous LE interactions to which you refer
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The vast majority of the BLM cop incidents involve the black person literally starting a fight with cops. The outcry is generally over the fact the cop used a gun in response to punches.
Theres never been a situation as far as i know where someone got killed just for being pulled over with an expired license/registration.
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I don't see this being confirmation of a plate scanner, although at least in Florida they are pretty widely deployed on Sheriff and Highway Patrol cars. I think they're more common on cars than they are fixed in places, but I'm honestly not sure how common they are outside a few towns and high value areas.
Cops routinely run plates manually.
As to a car having to be registered in the name of a driver licensed in that state, I don't know if that's true anywhere but I'm pretty sure it's not true everywhere. Being a snowbird is a thing, and there are many other reasons for folks to have homes and cars in multiple states. I myself have a car registered out of state, it's never been to the state where my license is. I've got friends who've got cars here who don't have licenses here too.
I'm not a lawyer, but I think you are required to formally surrender a license in one state before getting a new one in another state. I'd guess the expired but not surrendered license was much more likely the impetus for the stop rather than the mismatched states of the driver and vehicle. That's what I'd fix. My guess is actually, the cop probably just found her suspicious for some reason and found a reason to pull her over to check it out. They love doing that shit, they're so proud of themselves when they catch someone on something big when pulling them over for something small.
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To add more background, the car's license plate is for the state (and county) it was in.
This occurred at 9:15 pm. Many states require the owner to license the car in a state where it is primarily kept. It is not unusual to have people with residents in two states. You are only allowed to hold a driver's license in one state at a time. So this should be a common situation.
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I was not aware cops run plates manually all the time. Makes more sense to me that the computer is scanning the plate, automatically running the tag, then flashing an alert. I could be wrong.
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I would have thought when they called up my name, they would have all the info on me, like what state my license is in. It is not that easy to hide between states any more.
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As far as no one getting hurt at minor traffic stops, that is just not true. Last year, two counties over, three cops were killed in two different traffic stops. One was stopping a known wanted felon. The other incident was just a routine stop. So I don't think it is wise for cops to pull people over for trivial shit.
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And, I remind you, this happened on a day where two people were killed in Minnesota by a man impersonating an officer. Maybe they were looking for that suspect, but this is one state over and 150 miles away. And it is a reminder that a badge and flashing lights do not prove who is a cop. If I have no idea why you would be pulling me over, I would be on heightened alert, especially as a woman. She had no idea why she was being stopped until he explained it, with those fucking lights in her face.
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^^ I don’t know if this is still available, but when I first moved to Florida there was a drivers license, that would be issued to part time residents. At that time you could have both your out of state drivers license, and a Florida driver license and you weren’t required to turn in either one.
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The statistics are pretty clear the "routine" traffic stops are the second most dangerous activity the average squad car performs. Domestic disturbance calls are #1.
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I live in Arizona and have since late 1974 after I move from California. after I got a full-time job in Arizona I got a Arizona driver's license and registered my car in Arizona.
I have occasionally have bought a car in California since then... even had them registered in California for one reason or another... such as my Scion because it was so much cheaper (as a new car) to register it in California compared to Arizona... I never had an issue having a Arizona driver's license and a car registered and driven (sometimes) in California.
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Arizona is so damned expensive to register a new vehicle for the first few years. then when the Arizona car license fee drops down to equal the California license fee it's then when I will register that vehicle in Arizona because then it becomes much cheaper from that point on.
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"Domestic disturbance calls are #1."
@gamma - There's an old saying, never intervene in an argument between two people who have seen each other naked.
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I haven't needed to discuss the issue yet with the cops and the courts... but I do own a vacation cabin in SoCal that's been in the family since the 40s. so I'm back and forth sometimes every month or two for a week or two...
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It's not new technology. Cops have been equipped with license plate readers for many years now.
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@rightfield i wasnt saying cops have never been attacked during traffic stops. I was questioning if civilians have been unfairly attacked by cops during traffic stops. And if it has happened its probably one out of every million cases. Police brutality during traffic stops is vastly over exaggerated
You stated “ But as every black person and rural red neck knows, each interaction with police is a potential for misunderstanding and violent conflict, for both the officer and the civilian.”
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