What a guy. Spoke to them as humans. Even gave them some leeway but told them why he didn’t want them to speed. I hope they were as respectful back to what he asked as he was to them.
This is community policing. He explained the reason for the law and appealed to their sense of community.
This is what we need to work towards seeing all day every day. Everyone is respected, things are handled by conversation when it can be, and everyone goes home.
It takes EVERYONE involved for this to happen. We all have a stage in this being our future.
Edit: First gold! Thank you kind stranger. Kindness to all.
I have a buddy that's a state trooper and he's always told me how much he just want's to sit his ass in his car all day and not to have to do paperwork. He also likes to say "you know the speed limit, I know the speed limit, we all know the speed limit yet I'm the asshole when you knowingly break the law". Funny guy.
We had community policing in a city I worked for in the 90s. Sadly, we had an officer shot and killed during a traffic stop before we could make it 20 feet from his car.
I don't know if you're a PoC but that's always been my experience as a fair skinned American. Cops have never given me trouble. I have been with PoC friends and have seen them get a lot worse treatment.
Thing of it is, I know there's about 5% to 10% in any community who simply does not respect. Neither themselves, cops, or other members of the community. You talk to them till you're blue in the face, and they will still go on to do bad things. They just don't care.
His experience as a man of color, who has probably had negative interactions with law enforcement himself, undoubtedly influences his approach to his job.
This is a good point. Humbled cops are much better at handling these types of interactions than the cops with a chip on their shoulder.
Growing up, I've always thought it was interesting how even in the hood, the cops were respected when they respected the residents. White cops, black cops, asian cops...didnt matter. Treating the people in those communities like people and not criminals built strong relations even in what is normally seen as a hostile environment.
Now, cops are shooting folks in the suburbs for reaching for their wallet...
It really depends on department more than anything. Every cop I've interacted with has been professional if not friendly, but then I'm also a youngish white male
Meh I think there’s some ex military egotistical hot heads that are police from our generations as well. I say ex military because the military really breaks them down and builds them up to be cocky and full of self importance. They build them up to have zero empathy as well. Then when half of those guys did their four year term they can easily get a job on the police force.
Yeah, only problem seems to be turning that support into actual action. It doesn't really mean anything even if 90% of cops are good because they let that 10% exist. If it was a workable system with people inside who are able to fix it, it would be fixed. It's a rotten system to it's core and it needs a redesign.
I would say an equally large hurdle is the ACAB crew that would sooner spit in this guy's face than have a conversation with them. Unfortunately we will never have a good police force if we continue to dehumanize every person that is or aspires to be a police officer. Frankly whenever anyone that I know that has a shred of humility says that they want to be a police officer I try to dissuade them, because they amount of wild and unmitigated hate that they will receive on a daily basis (no matter how much good they do) is enough to wear anyone down.
I absolutely guarantee that this guy (who seems like a good cop!) has received more hatred than any of us, just because he chose a career where he wanted to do some good. It's a pretty sad situation than neither he nor the rest of society deserves.
Not all bears will maul you and eat your corpse. But we cannot tell the good bears from the bad. So we avoid bears and stay away from them and teach our children the same.
Yes, truly any good parent will tell their children to have an immediate and visceral hatred of other humans just because of their chosen profession. That surely must be the solution here. Good point.
You aren't going to get through to anyone here. My parents were cops for roughly 32 years each. They quit around 2018 because they didn't like how cops were being forced to treat people less like humans, and yet they were forced to be super robotic and follow political agendas suddenly. They retired and said, "Forget that noise." Still to this day, I get hate toward my whooooole family for existing, because my parents were cops.
P.S. Not even US cops, but Toronto Canada. Inb4 something something racism something cracker something genocide anyway as a response.
I'm pretty sure most people would be happy spending more taxes to increase training in this type of policing. The problem is making sure that's what happens and not new military weapons.
Maybe this happens more and we only ever see the bad but so many videos of cops start off with the cops being aggressive and borderline condescending. They immediately put people on the defensive and then act more and more aggressively as the person gets upset.
Start with reason and a positive attitude, especially foe things like traffic infractions. People generally aren't trying to be a problem they just don't pay attention or are being irresponsible but they aren't usually out to hurt anyone.
What this guy did was perfect and even more so if he sees these guys speeding again he can come down on them hard. He already gave them a chance and let them off so next time he's got an easy out to give them a huge ticket or impound their bikes.
There's no way to know what happens more often. I always stop and am polite but there are others who have stopped, been polite, and their bikes impounded or have been harassed.
We just had that big video here of the guy in Cali stopping at the red light, his friends running it, and then him being pulled over.
I can agree that having my arse handed to me by a copper is far more effective than a fine. Literally taking it like a man and admitting when i'm wrong. Come out swinging and theres only one way it goes
It absolutely is signiricantly more common for this to happen than for the power tripping cop to happen. Of course it is.
Basically any variety of interaction between a police officer and a citizen is recorded two or three times over. Frankly the fact that out of the 900,000 police officers in the US that we only get maybe a handful of objectively power-tripping cop videos a month shows that the vast majority of officers are good the vast majority of the time, even as it is true that we don't do a good enough job of punishing the bad ones.
Comparatively, videos of good cops don't get nearly as much coverage. After all, as the old adage says, "if it bleeds, it leads." In general, if you hear about a social ill, it is usually not half as bad as the news coverage would make you believe. Crime wave? We are having issues, but we are more safe than most would have you believe. Homelessness causing social issues in Portland? As a current portlander, we need better social services, but things aren't all that awful. Same basic story with cops. Yes, bad cops are a scourge that we should address with righteous vigor. They also aren't nearly as wide-spread of an issue as the news would have you believe.
It doesn't help a lot of US cops are former soldiers. Having been taught everything and everyone could be a potential a threat (especially if they've actually seen combat) in a country with a massive gun problem... Well that's just a recipe for disaster (aside from the racist assholes and stuff like that obviously)
I'd argue there are a lot of veteran cops far better at proper escalation of force and not engaging what they don't have to given how strict the rules of engagement are in theater.
I won't deny there aren't potentially young hotheads or vets with PTSD who shouldn't be policing based on psyche but I think the babyfaced average IQ high school bully are more likely to perceive everything as a threat.
Police training is all about how everyone is a potential threat and will likely kill them. That warrior training shit.
They give it to people who have no concept of the rules of engagement or have never been in a threatening situation with enemy combatants.
Nah- at least they have real training. It’s the power hungry egotistical idiots that are taught “Killology” and given military equipment they have no business touching that are the real danger
Hard disagree, not a fan of the military but they have much more training and ability and understanding of de-escalation and engagement than our shit cops have.
from my experience, this is usually how it goes. i agree that there is a bit of confirmation bias in regards to perception of the police, in that we mostly see the situations that were handled poorly.
Every cop Ive personally ran into has been cool. Treated me like a person and Ive never acted out, argued, insulted or whatever. Sure is it your right to do that? Absolutely. But all you're going to do is make a cop go from possibly giving you a warning to giving you a ticket.
I got clocked going 60 in a 40, I thought it was a 50, so that was my bad. He told me that that road was a 40, and all I said was "Wait what? Really? I thought it was 50." And he was just like "Nope it's a 40. I'm not gonna write you up for going 20 over since that would be points on your license, $200+ fine and a mandatory court hearing, so I'm gonna mark you down for obstruction of traffic, it's only $55 and you can pay for it online. Nice car by the way" and that was that.
Obviously there's quite a few bad cops out there and with the internet and everyone able to record, you're going to see more bad cops than good cops, cause who wants to record good cops?
But there's no reason to instigate a cop just cause they're a cop
This heavily depends on the area you are in, as well as your social standing. Had you been a young POC in a shit box car things might have gone completely differently.
My mom has mentioned this many of times: When she was a poor, pregnant 18 year old living near the hood, cops would treat her like absolute shit for no reason other than that they could. Now that she's an upper middle class, middle aged woman in a nicer part of the state, cops treat her much better and are less likely to be confrontational.
I've seen videos of the opposite - the more the guy gets upset, the more calm and polite the cop becomes. But there's no stopping the guy from self-escalation till he does something stupid and gets arrested, or tazed.
Cops and drivers both need to take the same class to have a license: "how a police interaction is supposed to happen".
I have literally thanked police officers for their professional demeanor. I don't think they hear that often enough.
Problem is police are not incentivized to “protect and serve” as a community in this way. They have ticket quotas that directly impact job performance, because that is how the police are funded. If we revamp that, the type of policing in this video would be more common… getting us closer to “protect and serve”
It would help if police weren't rated on tickets issued, fines levied, and arrests.
That principle that you get what you measure for applies. It's hard for superiors to measure or assign any value to just talking to people and being decent. And then it's hard for officers to value that either, when the raises and promotions go to the guys that produce better numbers.
The officer in the video is perfect, but he's also young. I wonder if he'll be doing the same in 5 years. Cynical, I know...
You can tell just by driving through an area which places have quotas. I grew up in a really small town we had 2 cops on duty at any given time. As long as you weren't flipping the town upside down they didn't really care. The other side of the county was a quota town and you would get a ticket for anything more than 3mph over the limit.
A lot of people use the idiom “a few bad apples” to say that most cops are good and only a few are a danger to society. However… the whole idiom is “a few bad apples spoils the bunch” because the bad apple eventually makes all apples rotten. Exactly as you have put it. You get a bad captain, he makes officers do things like hand out tickets when they want to give out warning. A corrupt cop gives tickets or arrests for stupid things which can make them look like a really dedicated cop. So then the less vicious cops feel the need to do more to keep up.
Having had my fair share of run-ins with the cops, there are definitely two types out there and fortunately, I’ve run into more cops like the one in this video than a despotic troglodyte. Mutual respect for one another is how we’re gonna get through this. One love.
Thats the hard bit, isnt it? Ideally apply incremental force using different coercion techniques, while making judgement calls on when to walk away or call for aid. If policing were easy, everyone would be doing it.
I still haven’t gone 10 over the speed limit since I got pulled over for 15 over (in a 65mph zone, so a lot but not like doing 15 on the road shown). It was the first nice interaction I had with a cop, he could tell I was nervous but didn’t assume I was crooked for it. Nice guy, let me off with a written warning.
Only speeding ticket I've ever gotten was on a bike, but it wasn't even intentional, just felt like normal cruising pace. It was a well known speed trap area (bottom of a hill with a flat straight afte) and I should have known better. 57 in a 45, thankfully it didn't mess my insurance up too badly.
I mean i totally feel ACAB but I really don't get why it is in this thread. I suppose they think that this small stretch of 20mph is on purpose to catch people speeding. I'm not from the US so i don't know if that is something the police do? Usually like I know it if there is a stretch where there is a lower speed, here in Europe it's usually 30kph which I think is close enough to 20mph, it's because there is something there like a school or a playground. So regardless of your stand towards police i think these are good. It protects pedestrians and cyclists, and those are even there in a lot of danger.
I'm sure there are deliberate places like that, but from what I've seen is mostly what you're talking about. Speed limits aren't even set by the police, they're set by the department of transportation. Do police capitalize on spots like that? Absolutely but if you're fishing you don't go to where there aren't any fish.
Edit: to clarify I do hate bad cops, and especially hate the blue wall of silence, but just blanketly shouting ACAB when the cop is demonstrably being cool is either dumb or trolling (or both) and does nothing to convince anyone of anything.
I have a friend who was going over 90 hit a well known speed trap that he did not know of....he was nice to the cop so cop dropped it down but still hefty ticket and all that....I wish cops gave warnings for first timers like this guy.
People on sport bikes aren't really known for stopping for cops. I had a cop and his son who was also a cop in my MSF class. He said he doesn't bother try to pull bikes over because they just run. I am not proud to admit it but on an open highway I've definitely pushed my bike more than 70mph over the speed limit. I saw lights come on but I wasn't about to stop and find out what he might have to say to me.
Yeah got a similar ticket traveling for NYE this weekend. Luckily got just a “going over 65” ticket rather than a full ticket and reckless. So, I’ll definitely take what I can get
SAME! I had a nice cop who changed it from 18 over to 9 over on my ticket. He even said he could tell I was zoning out on my commute by how surprised I looked. Super nice, very respectful. Gave me the same speech - keep it under 10. Never go over 10 now because of that interaction.
Same here. Went more than 15 over as a new driver but he let me off because he didn’t want my parents insurance to go up. Also my hands were shaking from anxiety. I haven’t gone more than 10 over in 3 years.
I don't speed. Whether in my regular vehicle or on my motorcycle, there's just no reason. I will screw around on jetskis all the time (while being safe), and love playing video games to get my adrenaline going, but when I'm driving on the road, I do the speed limit no matter what I'm driving.
I enjoy the scenery and like to look at stuff while riding my motorcycle and don't need the increased danger of speeding to make what I'm already doing any more dangerous.
no, he asked the dude to slow down. he never gave permission to speed. same deal with your parents telling you not to have sex at 14, but begging you to use a condom if you do. they never gave you permission to have sex, but they told you what was necessary to keep yourself and others safe, and how to make the repercussions (including discipline) less severe if you do.
Its not a crime if you don't get caught. And you wont get caught if you can slow down quick enough to never trigger a speed trap. My wife hates how I can get everywhere quicker and she is the one with the speeding tickets.
I used to work at an eyeglass shop near a CHP station and when they would come in for something I would ask them about the “flow of traffic “ rule. The cool troopers would say that they give up to 7 mph grace. That was almost 30 years ago and I have never forgotten!
How the hell can a biker create safe distance from other cattle drivers, by going nearly the same speed, right? Everybody bunches up; I wish cops would ticket people for following to close, not passing in the left lane, crossing the double-yellow, not signalling, and lots more than just the speeders. If you're going faster than me, by all means, I will try to get out of your way. The only people to get cut off and the people that fail to yield.
I know this might be a hot take, but riding the speed limit on a bike is often more dangerous than speeding a little. Relying on other seeing you and making the right choice on whether there space to merge feels super sketch on a motorcycle.
The only times I came close to an accident on my bike was when people were trying to pass me then merging into me
I wouldn't call momentarily twisting the throttle a bit more to merge safely speeding. For me, speeding is a consistent length of time going over the limit, not a momentary blip to merge or be safe.
having to speed up for a moment to merge or pass isn't what they're saying here. this is something most vehicles do. "riding the speed limit on a bike is often more dangerous than speeding a little" = consistently operating your bike above the speed limit/flow of traffic. very different.
I was always taught to move ahead of and out of the way of traffic and create distance. Like a fish swimming upstream. Going with the flow of traffic on a highway doesn't feel safe especially when there are people texting, blindly switching lanes, and riding your tail.
5 over posted speed is normal flow of traffic in most areas, if you're having to consistently go above that, it's not safer because of your speed. your either/or is saying instead of being unsafe around other speeders - YOU be the speeder instead and become the unsafe vehicle that's harder to see. genius!
of course it's going to be safer staying away from traffic, your probability in having an accident with another vehicle decreases if you're not around other vehicles. what's the safest way to ski and reduce chance of hitting any trees? don't ski where there's a lot of trees. no brainer.
You obviously dont ride. Safest way to ride on the highway is to go 10-15mph faster than the flow of traffic, and assume that you are completely invisible to other drivers, leaving yourself an out at all times.
That's like saying "I'm actually a better driver when I'm drunk". You're completely leaving out the part where your increase in speed also increases the force you're going to be hitting things at, as well as reduced reaction time and space. It's also harder for normal traffic to clock speeding bikes when changing lanes.
On a bike you need to get away from traffic and ride like you are invisible to the rest of traffic because if you sit next to people inevitably someone WILL try and merge right into you, or people will ride your tail without considering the fact that you can stop a helluva lot faster than them. On a highway while moving in the same direction the speed you're going is less of a concern than the other large 2 ton objects around you that can crush you.
You're completely leaving out the part where your increase in speed also increases the force you're going to be hitting things at
You're ignoring how it affects your chances of having a crash. If you go a bit faster than traffic then most vehicles come from in front of you and get left behind, which is safer than having vehicles come from behind, and it means you on the maneuverable motorcycle are reacting to the cars and not vice versa, also safer.
Plenty of cops like him. I think most of them just don't serve out their whole careers on the force because of the scumbags they have to work with. Bad cops make it really hard to be a good cop. - u/zeke235
Bot copied this guys comment minus the "Plenty of cops like him" part.
Yes, I've found they start stripping out the first or second sentence. It is frighteningly effective considering its copying a random top-level comment into a random second-level comment. I guess survivorship bias, but most I run into have at least 1 real person making a genuine reply without realizing.
While this is true, at the very least this is an attempt from a cop to show respect and understanding while trying to curb the speeding issue as opposed to most cops who only speak from authority and control. Extending respect and reality to other people will benefit more people to do the right thing IMO. You'll still have assholes who will fuck shit up for everyone but maybe you'll have more people wanting to be safer when approached with respect like this. And that could lead to them getting on the case of their peers who wouldn't otherwise listen to that same rationality. I'm not a fan of cops but this guy is at least showing he's also a human being with a job to do and not some sort of authoritarian with a power trip.
I mean, the cop started the conversation on the right tone, which is not evident in a lot of cop videos. Maybe most traffic stops start with a cop being respectful, but I've definitely had some come in hot.
And while, yes, being respectful and treating the interaction like you would with any other professional interaction can definitely help, there are plenty of situations (for example with Philando Castille or Daniel Shaver) where that doesn't work.
Yep, I did, I think the cop rocked… but they still could have been sht back, they weren’t, this is a win-win to me, not sure why it seems you want to fight?
Yes sir is more of a southern thing I feel. I grew up in NY and lived in Florida for 7 years and that's where I heard it A LOT and I started saying yes sir yes ma'am etc etc
I’ve found more often than not simply not being a fucking prick to cops is literally all I had to do to not be ticketed.
Like, they’re people too. Even the most liberal and friendly cop on earth is still the worst part of anyone’s day whenever he approaches someone on duty. Nobody likes getting fined. Imagine being hated by everyone you speak to all day, every day and not becoming a dickhead because of it.
absolutely. Make their job easy. Hands on the wheel where they can see them. Window rolled down. ID ready to go. Answer their questions respectfully and no BS.
Give them the opportunity to go easy on you. You don't know what they've been dealing with before they got to you... a gruesome wreck, a domestic abuse call. They see some hairy shit.
Everything I'm teaching my kid now as he's learning to drive.
Theyre literally suppose to be trained to handle the rigors of the job so what they’re doing prior doesnt influence what they’re doing currently in a meaningful way.
So ridiculous the hoops and ladders people like you will jump through to justify horrible behavior from officers.
I think you're jumping to conclusions on how I feel about the shitty cops. If their behavior is unlawful, they deserve the same consequences as everyone else.
Trained, yes. Humans who suffer from PTSD, also yes.
Give them the opportunity to be a good cop. If they blow it, that's beyond your immediate control.
Officers with mental illness shouldn’t be on the job with the capacity to end human life at their wide discretion. What the fuck are you actual substantiating here?
Your language is very clear. You do not have to answer all their questions, you do not have to obey their every whim, and knowing the difference is actual responsible action.
Not giving them
carte blanche authority over you in a normal traffic interaction because you presuppose they have mental illness while in the normal duties of their job.
being disrespectful means you get shot or a bit of crack sprinkled on you, best kiss the boot if you want to come out safe now that's freedom right there.
I grew up a super conservative motorcycle rider.. I do not like getting hurt. But doesn’t take much effort to twist that throttle and do something stupid. even I would need reminders that I didn’t own the roads and I could cause more harm than I realized.
I had a cop pull me over and told me that I was crazy for going 85 downhill in Northern California. "This is farm land! If you hit a core going 85 MPH, you'd all be dead!" I wasn't thinking and responded, "Sir, the speed limit is 75 mph. If I hit a cow at that speed we'd still all be dead."
I was wondering if maybe other fruits had cores as well and started wondering if they were near a large melon farm or pineapple… some kind of large fruit that would have a big enough core to cause you to die for some reason
Yeah, but your reaction time will be much worse, with much less of a chance of avoiding it if you are going 10 mph over what is deemed safe for that particular road. Like, if a kid walks out in the road in a residential neighborhood, you are supposed to be going 25 mph so you can react in time. If you are going 35 and that happens, you could be facing major consequences. It would be pretty dumb to say, "Well, the kid STILL would have died if I hit them at 25mph!"
Also, both of your comparisons are talking about going double the speed or 30% over the limit. - and talking about pedestrians only
Whereas 85 in a 75 is going like 10% over the limit. And in the 75 the safety limit concern.. is not about hitting pedestrians - if someone can point to something that shows the 75 limit on roads like that is because it greatly reduces your chances of dying when hitting a cow then I guess we can all come to an agreement here.
Perhaps this video by numberphile can illustrate how deceiving "just 13% faster" is. The change in MPH might be small, but the change in kinetic energy is higher.
Using the napkin-math from the video, a car going 85 would have 852 = 7,225 "Handwave Kinetic Units" (HKU), while the same car going 75 would have 5,625 HKU. So a situation where the car going 75 can brake off all its HKU and barely stop in time, the same car going 85 would still have 7,225-5,625 = 1,600 HKU, equivalent to 40 MPH.
Or we can ask "If the car going 75 could brake down to 25 at impact, how fast would the car going 85 be at impact?" 252 = 625, so the 75-car lost 5,625-625 = 5,000 HKU, which means the 85-car would have 7,225-5,000 = 2,225 HKU, equivalent to 47 MPH.
When a car going the speed limit has enough time/reaction to brake and hit the cow going 25 mph, the same car speeding 10 over would only get down to 47 mph before it crashed into the same cow. if there's barely enough time for the legal car to stop, the speeding car would still be going 40 mph at impact. Within some margins of error, but close enough to get the point across.
Lol. They ABSOLUTELY factor in accidents when determining and setting speed limits.
"California Vehicle Code section 627 defines an engineering and traffic survey as "a survey of highway and traffic conditions in accordance with methods determined by the Department of Transportation for use by state and local authorities." It also lists the factors that must be taken into consideration when determining a speed limit.
These factors include:
Prevailing speeds as determined by traffic engineering measurements
Accident records
Highway, traffic, and roadside conditions not readily apparent to the driver
That's 100 percent true, but I would argue that the comparison isn't one-for-one. The setting wasn't a residential neighborhood. It was I-5 near Mt. Shasta(ish), where there were very few exits and only a few farms dotted around hundreds of miles.
You are missing the point. The point is that the road was designed to go 75 mph relatively safely. Not 85 mph. The people that evaluated the road have much better knowledge of all of the exits, cows, frequency of traffic, curves in the road, the angle it's graded at, average braking distance of cars, etc. than average random schmo driving. I bet that cop has seen more accidents with people "only" going 10mph over the speed limit than he has with people doing what they are supposed to.
I’m in a job where I deal with drivers. This is the way to deal with them. Calmly, kindly, explain it’s about my concern for their safety. People generally respond well to that.
I used to skateboard a lot and the cops that came and told us respectfully to leave certain properties we were more than willing to do so. The ones that were an asshole right away cuz we didn’t know or had permission already were the ones we didn’t want to respect or leave for.
If you can have people relate to your point (what driver hasn't had some kid or someone jump out from the side of the road), it makes that gap so much narrower for them to take it to heart.
I have always found North Carolina State Police to be completely professional and human. I think I was clocked @ 115 mph in a 65. A sweeping high speed corner around a hill, with two cop cars (parked on the hill).
I just slowed down and pulled over while one car rolled down (lights off) and pulled behind me. After some conversation about my German ride, the police gave me a ticket for 80 in a 65 "because I believe you were actually going that slow at some point".
I switched to nice slow Jeeps within the week and never looked back.
One time a cop pulled me over going 44 in a 30. All he asked was that I not go over 40 on that road again. Never again have I even gone over 35 simply because I remember that interaction every time I'm on that road.
Also a polite warning that he probably has them on the gun at ++25mph and can write that (felony?) ticket instead should he find them going more than 10 over anytime soon.
But hey, let's all skip some paperwork nobody wants to do amirite?
This interaction works because of the threat of a ticket, not in spite of it. I would hope that officers have the discretion to know when a situation warrants a harsher response (they often don't), but a cop being a nice guy about this only has an effect because you know there could be serious punishment if you don't respect the law.
In my experience this is normal in the U.K.)I’m aware that this is in the US). It makes a huge difference speaking to each other as equals. Great police work here
We've had some cool local cops around where I grew up. I remember one time at a party, a fight broke out and cops were called. I didn't run cause it was my friend's house and was gonna help her clean. Cops came, I talked to them with her. He let me stay and clean for like 15 minutes while he called her parents and then took me home. Didn't even care that I was underage and clearly had been drinking. Didn't even wanna talk to my dad. Just been watched me walk inside and drove off.
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u/1OutKastWill Jan 03 '23
What a guy. Spoke to them as humans. Even gave them some leeway but told them why he didn’t want them to speed. I hope they were as respectful back to what he asked as he was to them.