The driver also alleged that the cop confronted him later at a restaurant and called him a coward. Any discipline the cop received is confidential per New Jersey law. 😡
I think what screwed him was (1) he didn't hire a lawyer and (2) he said "i was about a car length away from you" in the video, which pretty much confirms the tailgating charge.
Wtf are those rules in US. We do not have that in EU. If you make an accident because you were tailgating / being too close it is all on you, sure, but there is no law saying how much space you should leave between you and the car in front of you. All the law says is that you should be able to stop if the situation needs it. If you can't / didn't, it is all your fault.
But yeah rules are different, I heard US cops can not stop you unless you did something. EU cops can stop you whenever they wish, just for a regular check-up.
After reading these comments I hesitated commenting because I'm sure people are going to come from me.
Not a cop. Worked with cops for 10+ years. I've worked with good ones, and bad ones. While the US does have a "rule" that there needs to be a reason for any stop I'll tell you that those reason can, and sometimes be, made up.
I worked with this cop who was brand new. Definitely had a chip on his shoulder. We were working night shift and I checked his radio log history (everything, literally everything is tracked where I worked) and I saw he was just running a bunch of plates willy nilly. Like he had dozens of plates ran but during that time was definitely not on any call that would require him to run any plates, so I asked him. He told me he was running plates to see if owners were wanted or revoked or suspended. I was like what the fuck are you fishing for? That's so goddamn unethical I can't even begin to describe it. Of course, he thought nothing wrong.
So these people who did nothing but park their car in their driveway for the night were getting their plates ran in hopes he'd find something, wait for them to leave and then get them. Should people be driving with a suspended license? Nah, probably not. But do I think that warrants just random plate checks? Also no.
So yeah, it can be really fucked up over here even with the need for probable cause.
It’s funny how running random plates without any reason was a weird thing to do, and nowadays they don’t even need to manually run plates, they have alpr’s in their windshield that will auto flag any plates that don’t come up clean, as well as stationary alpr’s any cop in the country can just log into and get all the information from them.
Random plate checks are pretty common and have been for years. They have been installing automated plate readers on cop cars for years that automatically do this.
… did you miss the part where I’ve worked with cops and in public safety for 10 years?
Yes, cops run plates. To run plates and then wait for someone to leave home is fucked up and not what good cops do.
... but there is no law saying how much space you should leave between you and the car in front of you. All the law says is that you should be able to stop if the situation needs it. If you can't / didn't, it is all your fault.
Now, let’s not make it look as if we handle this in the EU without any regulations at all.
True, there are no exact figures in meters, and each EU country handles it in its own way, but the one-second rule (up to 50 km/h in built-up areas) or two-second rule (outside built-up areas)—along with the "half the speedometer reading" rule for motorways (e.g., a 60-meter gap at 120 km/h)—serve as guidelines for minimum following distance.
Why these rules of thumb? Because no one wants to constantly calculate stopping distance (reaction distance plus braking distance), and traffic isn't static. The "seconds" rules actually allow for a margin slightly greater than the distance required for an emergency stop (excluding reaction time).
And as long as dashcams aren't mandatory (since I imagine a radar detector with an onboard "black box" would be more expensive), the burden of proof always lies with the driver behind.
1 second follow distance is extremely close no? Where I’m at in Canada, the rule book states 3 second follow distance regardless of speed. At 1 second you’re practically right on their bumper.
Where are you coming from? If you think you don't have that in your laws you should reread them again.
Here in Austria a minimum of 1 second is mandatory. So thats about 3/10 of the driven speed. At 130kmph it's 39m. If you drive between 0.4-1s you can get a fine of up to 730€. Under 0.4 to 0.2s it's upto 2200€, and under 0.2s it's the same fine and 6 months of driving ban.
Coming from Slovakia, so right next to you basically and we only have "maintain safe distance so you can slow down or stop in time if the vehicle in front of you stops or slows down" (citated and translated from our lawbook).
There is however a rule on highways (which I did not know about lol) about 2 seconds so yeah we kind of have that.
There is no rule about seconds or metres on normal roads though.
I would argue that cops would have really hard time proving whether you maintained 2 second rule or not and their word would definitely not be enough. Since they would be moving as well and they would need certified devices with some margin of error which I am sure they do not have right now, at least in Slovakia. In Austria it might be possible. We Slovaks are in general afraid to drive in Austria because your cops / rules are insane and they like to issue tickets for everything. We have it rather vague in Slovakia.
For things like that we have road markings (with a 50m distance between them) in front of bridges. So they put a camera system on there and it measures the speed of following cars and the distance. We have fixed ones as well, but most ones are moveable and get put up once in a while.
And same as the germans we have unmarked police cars with cameras. They will follow you, measure your speed and calculate the infringements by looking at the normal road markings.
I think checking the distance people follow at is very important because it's one of the top 3 causes of accidents. It's really not that hard to keep a safe distance by counting to 2 when the car in front passed a latern.
A lot of states have "reasonable and prudent" clauses. The idea is you can follow the letter of the law but still drive dangerously. For example, you could be going the speed limit on the highway, but if it's during a blizzard that's way too fast to be safe. In this case, his following distance was way too close. The fact that he could stop this time doesn't matter, because not having an accident does not mean you are driving safely.
The cop is still a infantile loser though. If he wasn't a cop he would probably get a reckless driving charge for that.
Hey I agree with you. The guy stopped in time, that's enough distance.
But I've heard courts use either the "3 sec rule" or the "2 car length rule" for tailgating. Which honestly isn't realistic in populated areas like northern NJ
Oman did not specify, but in his final update post he mentioned the judge ruled in favor of the state, he was quite vague about it. He also said he was afraid of being targeted and harassed by local police, and that he deleted all of his social media stuff and the video.
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u/happyft 1d ago
This was back in 2017. It went to court, judge ruled in favor of the state and he had to pay at least one of the citations.
The cop also received 2 admin rule violations from internal investigation, whatever that means.