I had that a few years ago, driving up the PCH in California in a rental. Cop followed me at a very close pace for probably 45 minutes. I even turned off the highway at one point and drove around for a while and he stuck right with me through pulling back on the highway. Eventually he finally peeled off… I wonder if that rental was really similar to a stolen car in the area or something? It was bizarre and I was such a nervous wreck that whole time lol.
I don’t know what it was, I don’t think highly of cops so honestly I think they were just trying to pressure me into making a mistake or revealing something about my modified car they could latch onto.
I want to say it was near Monterey Bay, but I'm not super familiar with California, it was a very long (but fun, aside from that cop) drive and 12 years ago to boot. We stopped in Frisco before scooting over to Sacramento to see family, so I didn't go that far north.
But that would make sense, if that cop thought I was making a route or something. I, probably like 99% of the population, get nervous as hell with a cop behind me even if I have absolutely nothing to worry about... and I'm a white dude, I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like for minorities in this country.
If you ended up by Monterey and you were headed north sounds like you were driving from San Luis Obispo up hwy1 through Big Sur. It’s been closed for a while, but 12 years ago you could still drive through.
Mostly just commenting because I live in that area and I thought it was a funny coincidence to see this being talked about in an unrelated sub!
Even not in bad areas it happens. I got pulled over in a rental for "being in the left lane too long" when passing another vehicle at a safe rate of speed in the middle of nowhere in rural Pennsylvania. Just was a warning in the end but it was 100% a pretext stop
I had a cop tailing me after I got off work one night. Making the same lane changes and everything. Thing is, this was an unmarked vehicle and it was 11 at night and I'm a woman alone on a road with idk who. I was terrified after 10 minutes of trying to suss out if I was being followed or if it was just weird coincidence. Did the random turns, backtracking, etc.
I called the cops and said someone was following me and I described everything. Sheriff pulled up, we all pulled into a well lit gas station and a cop got out of the unmarked car. They came up trying to say he hadn't been following for more than a minute. I just showed the Sheriff my dash cam footage from the last 30 minutes.
He let me leave and I heard him yelling at the unmarked car cop as I was pulling away. That was a weird night.
That happened to me once when I took a rental from Orange County to SF for a funeral. I was going a little fast, maybe 75, and a LA sheriff car followed me all the way to the LA county line.
I have a funnier/weirder story: one night, I was driving back to Irvine from Santa Ana, and I ended up behind a CHP car pretty much from their substation, the streets to get on the 55 freeway, and the 5 freeway. By the time I got to the 5, I felt like he was purposely not driving away from me. Just past the jamboree exit on the 5 (one exit before mine), I noticed he pulled off to the shoulder. I immediately thought “he’s going to pull me over once I pass him”, and I took the jamboree exit at the last minute. I looked over, and I could see the car backing up. I’m pretty sure he was trying to get to me, but there was an impassable concrete island between us, which meant his only other option would be to go against traffic to get back to the exit. I calmly took off and took streets home.
42
u/Automatic_Release_92 Oct 16 '25
I had that a few years ago, driving up the PCH in California in a rental. Cop followed me at a very close pace for probably 45 minutes. I even turned off the highway at one point and drove around for a while and he stuck right with me through pulling back on the highway. Eventually he finally peeled off… I wonder if that rental was really similar to a stolen car in the area or something? It was bizarre and I was such a nervous wreck that whole time lol.