Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Meddle Zone...

In general, when I do a traffic stop I offset my car about a third of the way left of the driver's side of the vehicle I'm stopping. Something like this:



This gives me sort of a safety corridor to protect me from approaching traffic.

I cleared a traffic stop this afternoon, and the vehicle I stopped pulled away. I stayed where I was, with my rear lights on, and filled out my notes on the back of the cite. My car was probably four feet from the curb.

A minute or two later, some dude walked up to the front of my car and paced of the distance from my right front wheel to the curb. Then he leaned down to my passenger window and said "I hate to tell you this, but you're parked more than 18 inches from the curb."

My reply, "I hate to tell you this, but I'm not parked. I'm finishing a traffic stop."

He said "I was just checking. Just trying to keep you guys honest."

The worst part is that this guy was dead friggin' serious! He was not kidding.

This is the type of meddling, loopy individual we deal with in my town on an almost daily basis...

8 comments:

Berserk said...

Sounds like someone needs a transport for a mental eval.

Jen and Ryan said...

Some people will try anything to have a reason to point a finger at our men (and women) in blue!

Scottish not English said...

These kind of people are always looking to cry foul until they need help themselves. Check out this vid and commentary for a good example.
http://chicagocopwatch.org/2009/02/cta-bus-incident-02-13-09-1014pm/#comments

anon said...

Hi, just lurking by again. hope you don't mind.

I'm sorry, but I laughed right out loud at that.
I absolutely cannot imagine walking up to a police car, getting out my tape measure, and then confronting the officer about his parking. How do you manage to restrain yourself ?
Sorry again, but that's sooo funny, from a distance.

Officer "Smith" said...

It's perfectly okay powdergirl, lurk away!

As for how I restrain myself... I'd guess it's probably because this type of thing happens regularly and I've just gotten used to it.

TheBronze said...

Some people are alive simply because killing them is illegal...

Jeff said...

Have to agree with TheBronze on this one. People like that are a walking waste of oxygen.

TheBronze said...

Or as I like to call them: "Oxygen Thief's".

Or "Oxygen Bandit" if you will.