Traffic Stops (not Arizona)

[SoCalDem]

My town is famous for their Friday night "traffic stops". At first glance, a person would think that they are doing a civic service by getting drunk/unregistered/unlicensed drivers off the streets AND making money for our beleaguered city.

They would be wrong.

They are actually ADDING to the costs

My friend has connections to this "event" and today when we spoke, he told me some interesting things.

of 2000 cars stopped in a month, they impounded over 150 cars, took into custody 75 unlicensed drivers, 25-30 more were cited for no registration, and how many were drunk? THREE.

My friend was in charge of taking kids home for the ones who were arrested on the spot.. He was very upset when he got to the home of one mother who was arrested. He took her 3 kids home. (aged 7,9 & 13)..He said their apartment would have fit in his dining room, and all three girls were crying all the way home. Their Mom's fine was going to be around $1300.00, and of course she would probably lose her job, and their car as well.

This was a family that was just limping along.

Was she irresponsible? sure? but the only thing she did wrong that day, was to turn left on that street.

He also said that the cops all know they are really looking for "immigrants" without licenses/registration. Once these people are "processed", they end up locked up and the cost of incarcerating them falls on the taxpayer, since they cannot afford bail, court costs or even the fines levied against them.

Why don't they set up the roadblocks on streets with bars? Because the "businesses" are taxpaying entities who "frown" on having their customers "targeted"...so the guy in the $40K pick up or the new Mustang who sat on his ass at a bar for 4 hours drinking,?..he gets a "pass", and may just kill someone on his way home, but the "immigrants" who cannot afford to pay fines, end up as "invited guests" of the penal system.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

1. Anyone know about the practice of cops marking tail lights of cars in bars' parking lots?

I don't mean to hijack the thread but the idea of 'businesses frowning on having their customers targeted'-- I'd heard cops do this but I assumed it was to catch drinkers and now I'm wondering if it's to skip hassling the patrons of certain bars.

[SoCalDem]

3. I had not heard of that trick

Anything that gets drunks off the road is not a bad idea:)

[barbtries]

2. but the police love it

job security, plus they get to auction off all those vehicles! i lost - not sure - was it 3, 4, or 5 vehicles - to policing agencies in SoCal in the '90's and earlier this century. my crime? poverty. how dare anyone be poor in southern CA.

now i live in NC and i'm not so poor.

[SoCalDem]

4. Our beloved 1980 Toyota Corolla wagon ended up this way

Our son's friend needed a car, so we sold it to him for $500 and of course he ended up letting the registration slide, and when he got it impounded, the impound fee was more than it was worth, so he let it go :cry:

[sinkingfeeling]

5. I'm a tad confused. Was the mother in the OP arrested for not having a license? Being DUI? Not

having a registration? Or being an immigrant?

[SoCalDem]

6. No license n.t

[sinkingfeeling]

7. And she didn't have a license because she was undocumented?

That's what I assumed, but you know what they say about assuming anything.

[SoCalDem]

8. My friend did not elaborate, but she was Hispanic

This was a few weeks ago, so he doesn't know what's happened since..

If she could not produce the necessary paperwork for the DMV, that could be why she's not licensed..I don't know..

Most of the people taken into custody were Hispanic or Black..very few anglos.

It could be a poverty thing, as much as anything else...but those two often go hand-in-hand

[Obamanaut]

9. "No license", and in the OP we find "...but the only thing she did wrong

that day, was to turn left on that street..."

Well, on that day she drove without a license. That's one other thing.

[SoCalDem]

10. eventually she would have been stopped, but yes on that ONE day

her "mistake" was to turn left. The fact that she had been driving unlicensed was indeed, wrong, but here in CA there are LOTS of people who do it..just as there are lots of people who speed regularly, but until a radar gun tags them for it, they get away with it:)..every time they speed, they are breaking the law, but until get get caught, they are free & clear..

I am not excusing what she did, just commenting on how the whole process is misleading. Instead of making money for the community by assessing fines & fees, they are often doing just the opposite.

Getting unlicensed drivers off the streets is fine, but we need to realize that once they have lost their jobs, their cars, their freedom, we all are going to be paying more, not less.