****Disclaimer: This is not to be taken as a generalization of all law enforcers, as clueyee was on border patrol...I'm talkin' the aviator-sporting traffic cops here :D****

I had a rather embarrassing encounter last night that I am going to share with you guys, hopefully get some input, and possibly spark a bit of a debate/ranting thread on similar experiences of other people...

I went to a wedding last night and saw lots of people who I haven't hung out with in probably three years, since my graduation. I took Kaspar home at about 10:00 and came back and wanted to loosen up a bit, catch up to my friends, and all that jazz. So I ended up having a few drinks...I think four by the time I stopped and started to drink water. I rarely drink, and I haven't driven after drinking since three years ago when I was a young, stupid teenager. :embarrassed: I've since acquired many more responsibilities, so yeah. Still no excuse.

Anyway, after about an hour of drinking water, it was 2:30 and I was exhausted and really just wanted to be at home. I knew that Kaspar would be up early, and that he'd need my full attention. I felt fine, could walk perfectly fine. The only thing was that I was wearing my contacts, which really mess up my eyes after about an hour of wearing them...and I had been wearing them all day :eek:. They kind of make my eyes really glazy and make it so that I can't really focus or look anyone in the eye if I'm talking to them. They're kind of like instant autism for me, if you pardon my insensitivity for this moment hahah.

So yeah, as I'm leaving the hotel, there is a police car with lights flashing right outside, stopped with a truck. I walk by, get into my car and start driving home (it's about a 7 minute drive). I see two more police cars on the way...I'm not speeding, being very careful to go the speed limit. I was just coming up to my turn off of the main road, when a vehicle comes up suddenly behind me, follows me for a minute or so. I thought it was just some jerk who wanted to get past me so that he could go faster, so I wasn't bothered. Then the lights come on, I say "<insert curse word here>" and instantly signal and pull over.

The officer comes to my car, asks me where I am coming from and I said a wedding, asks me if I've had anything to drink and I said yes I had a couple. He then looks at my license, I pass him the first registration I see in my glove box, and he examines the license. He asks me if I am wearing contacts because I'm obviously not wearing glasses...I say yes, he makes me look to the side while he shines his light into my face to make sure I'm wearing them (honestly...I wouldn't have even found the door to get out of the hotel if I didn't have them in!!!). He asks me if this is my vehicle, and I say yes. Then he asks if there is any open alcohol...I say no, he does a flashlight search of my car, asking me about the empty drinkable yogourt bottles of Kaspar's that are on the floor, and the other various garbage that I have lying around in my car. Then he tells me that he pulled me over because I was weaving, ever so slightly and he was suspicious, so he was going to ask me to step out of my vehicle for a breathalizer test.

At this point, I'm shaking, I can practically hear my heart pounding all the way up in my throat...He explains the breathalizer test to me, and I am fully capable of understanding everything but he still explains like I'm a dummy. Anyway, to make a long story short....those tests are freaking HARD...you need so much air, and a hard steady flow for probably like 10 seconds at least. When you're upset and practically hyperventilating, this is not easy. He tells me that most people can do it in three tries at the most, and that if I take any more than a couple of tries he was going to write it up as a refusal to provide a sample, and I would be charged. He tells me again how it works, and asks if he needs to demonstrate again. I tell him that I am a singer and I understand how to breathe, but I'm exhausted and freaking out......after 11 tries I finally get it...and it comes up as a "warning" which is not a pass, and not a fail. Somewhere in between, and from what my mom read online, the officer is supposed to use their judgment whether the driver is fine enough. But at this point he's convinced that I must be slobbering drunk (riiiiiight...) and that I started to cry to get sympathy, and he told me that he can smell the alcohol on me (hmm...perhaps from my friend who spilled half of her drink on my jeans earlier!).

So yeah, he tells me that he is going to give me a $190 ticket, and is going to impound my car for 24 hours and take my license for the same amount of time. Now is when I start to bawl....as I've been having serious money problems lately...so he makes me sit in the back seat (since I've been drinking, I must be very dangerous) while he writes up the ticket, calls a tow truck and all of that. Then he notices that I have a clean driving record, and tells me he'll let me off of the ticket. Then he explains to me again that I absolutely cannot drive for 24 hours...I tell him that I understand (and in fact understood clearly the first time he even mentioned it, before he explained it the first time...didn't say that though). He asks me repeatedly if there is anything I need out of my car, but after I had the car seat out, I was fine...and repeatedly told him no. He then got me to sign the ticket, the tow truck came and took my car away, and he again tells me about the 24 hour stuff. Then, an HOUR after he pulled me over, he finally takes me home.

I was freaking out, really crying a lot and over all feeling horrible about myself. I realize that I was completely wrong to have driven, and it was a horrible judgement call...but also horrible luck too. My mom got up and talked to me quite a bit, and I finally went to bed at 5 am. Was up at 8 with Kaspar, and have had a seriously long day...it's now 9:30.

BUT....

At about 5:30 this afternoon, I decided to look at the ticket...to see if it said what my alcohol content was (it didn't), and I looked it and it said that the owner was my dad....that's not what my registration and insurance papers say.......so then I go downstairs and grab the papers that he had written from and handed back to me, and get this: :!:

The insurances is for a "Vehicle in Storage Policy" (this is highlighted on the form)
Also highlighted is: Effective date 16Aug2003, Expiry date 15Sept2004.
This is an old insurance paper from a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CAR that my dad owns and is in storage because it is wrecked...who knows why those papers were in my glove box, but that's what I handed to the officer.
My real papers are in the glove compartment in my car, which is in the impound lot. So.....

Something good out of this: I can report this to his superiors and get him in quite a lot of trouble for not checking any details at all...the other car is still a BMW but is a 1980 528i, versus my 1986 535i. The license plate number is different, the owner is my dad, and the address is different from my driver's license. I'm wondering if this would even be grounds to get a full refund on the cost it will be to pay the towing company.

Something potentially very bad: The towing company has absolutely no reason to release my real vehicle to me, when it had a completely different vehicle written on the ticket. I have nothing to prove that the car in their lot is mine.

I'll be going into the station tomorrow morning to pick up my license and demand that perhaps the staff sergeant come with me to the impound to make sure I get my car. And then I will be writing a letter to them about this, definitely. It just completely amazes me that he didn't even read the information at all. I am still wrong for driving after having a bit of alcohol, but he was doing his job very very wrong. What if I was driving a stolen car and had just changed the plates? He didn't even match the plates to the paper in his hand.


Soooooooo what do you guys think? And has anyone had a run-in with a police officer where you had to challenge it, or you felt as though you were being treated in a very condescending, bullying way? I didn't even write the half of the types of things he said to me....I figure this message has gotten quite long enough!!! My apologies for it being so long :razz:

You went to a wedding at a hotel... perfect place to pull people who've had a couple and are going to chance it.

"I'm not speeding, being very careful to go the speed limit" - Over here, police watch out for that. Although we don't have that 'probable cause' thing... do you have that in Canada or is that just a US thing?

"I am fully capable of understanding everything but he still explains like I'm a dummy" If he didn't fully explain, than you could probably get away with saying that you were not in possession of all the facts or some other technicality.

"I felt fine, could walk perfectly fine." But your judgement may have been affected by the alcohol. :P

Over here they do a 2nd breath test. A roadside one, and if you blow over the limit, then you are arrested for drink driving and taken for a proper test on the big machine at the nick. If you fail that, you're in drink driver doo-doo. If you pass that, you're ok. You'd have been ok, I would think in this scenario, cos it could take a coupla hours to get you on the machine - and you'd be from warning to clear by then.

With regards to the incorrect data he should have noticed that at the time - particularly if the insurance was out of date! But I suppose technically, you've provided false information to the police.

I reckon policey-peeps have to come across assertive and forthright (condescending and bullying, perhaps) particularly when reprimanding someone. They have to maintain control of the situation, and also have to make you see that you have been naughty and that they have the authoritah.

I figure you won't be driving after a drinky-poo in the future - it can take a shock to the system to make you realise that its not the best of ideas - and you got off pretty lightly - no fine, you keep your license, and you're still alive. Win win.

And congrats to the happy couple :)

I just wanted to add an anecdote of mine. It is similar in the way that the police thought I was drink driving, but no further action was taken in my case.

I was driving home from the work's Christmas party with a few of my colleagues who were either tipsy or drunk. I was unsure about where one of my colleagues lived, but she was a bit drunk to help me very much.
Anyway, I took a wrong turn around a roundabout and made a u-turn around the roundabout's exit in order to rejoin the roundabout because, being about 2am, there were no other cars in my sight. It just so happened that there was a police car right behind me, which by then had turned on its blues and twos.
They said the usual things like "Is this your car?" and "Licence and registration please", which I promptly answered. They did a breath test, which I passed (I only had half a glass of champagne at the party), but I wasn't upset in the way they treated me. I got really upset purely due to the shock of being pulled over, because I had only passed my driving test about 3 weeks before the party.

Although I passed the breath test, as a result of this I feel that I should not drink at all when I'm going to drive, just to be on the safe side.

More than anything, I have treated my "experience" as a lesson, and I agree with Ches in saying that I think that you should do the same thing. You have reasons for him making mistakes and in turn he had pointed out mistakes in your judgement. I would try to move on from it, like I have done with my encounter, because it will only bring you down thinking about it. Then again this is only my advice through an encounter of mine.

Take care out there :)

Thanks for replies and such....

Well, bottom line is that I know I made a crap decision in judgment...I just figured that he could have written things up properly. When I went back to get my license, I got the same lecture from a different cop, who was equally belittling (and I was entirely sober, so no misunderstandings there). Because I pointed out that his colleague made a near-serious mistake when he wrote up the ticket, he felt it necessary to quiz me on why I didn't decide to take a cab....I told him it was something to do with only 50 cents in my pocket. Oh well...the moral of the story is that I won't do it again (obviously) and really it was a freak encounter...it's not like I do that every week (nor do I even drink at all any more than once a month or so).

It's a big problem around here though, with police officers really being on extended power trips, constantly. I was just wondering if it was a problem in other areas.

I'm not sure what "probable cause" is, Ches...but probably yes, they would look out for people driving the speed limit at 2:30 in the morning. But, if I had been driving like I normally do (about 15 kph over the limit, and just as weavy because my car pulls to one side), I would have gotten stopped instantly. Catch 22 there.

Anyway....yeah. I have everything back, I'm not anxious to repeat anything, and I had a $115 bill with the towing company. *vomits from anxiety*

Jmac's Bad Cop Stories:

Just be glad you dont live in mexico... its pay a bribe to the cop, or get beat and framed: one example: Person i know, Margarita, is living with other guy i know named Jose, not married, just living together. Margarita wakes up one day and finds that 1000 pesos (about 100 dollars) is gone from her hidden stash. She calls the police and suspects that it was Jose. The police find Jose coming home from work that day, he tells them he didnt do it. They tell him to just give him 200 pesos and it will be ok, he tells them he doesnt have the money. They hit him, and tell him to just pay them some of it and theyll let him go. He again tells them he doesnt have any. They eventually beat him up (he had a ton of bruises all over, black eyes etc the next day) and when he is on the ground they force him to hold a knife and take a picture of it as evidence against him. Turns out, Margarita just missplaced the money. Moral of the story: even though some cops are maybe less competent than others, we have it good in USA/Canada/UK.

Now a story from the US that happened to me: I was like 16ish, and me and my friends were playing a game called Fugitive (ironically named lol). Basically a few people have to get on foot from point A to point B without the other people in the car spotting you. so we were doing this, and this guy thought we were trying to steal his car, as we were hiding behind it, calls the cops, they find us by a road a few hundred yards up, and split us up (there were 4 of us) to interrogate us... my cop (was a girl, reason why i will never like an on duty clueyee :P ) well she was being a jerk, condescending etc. and lying to try and get me to confess to doing something. I, knowing i did nothing wrong, was sitting there smiling kind of because it was funny to me, and then she started getting mad because i was smiling, and started cussing me out. I remarked "I dont think someone with your authority should be saying those things to a minor." She was not too happy, and said "oh, so now you want to tell me how to talk huh" and put me in handcuffs and in the back of the car (which is really uncomfortable btw), eventually i was let go because our stories matched and we really hadnt done anything wrong. I called the police department on it, they investigated the incident, and she was suspended for one day for verbal abuse of a minor.

In general though, I find police are necessary and usually do the right thing. I understand that they have to show that they have the authority as to have the upper hand over real criminals, but sometimes i think they go overboard especially with some more clearly innocent people (not me in my case, as i wasnt clearly innocent, but ive heard other stories were its pretty obvious).
anyways this post is long enough already, but i just wanted to put those stories out there as Casta asked for more stories.