What's the deal with motor vehicle violations?

From the CNN article Video of Sandra Bland's arrest ignites firestorm of reactions:

quote:

---

Technically, a driver can get arrested in Texas for simply failing to use a turn signal.
...
"The fact is an officer can make an arrest anytime ... you run a red light, parking ticket, anything like that," Houck said. "What he did was he notices she was agitated."

---

I don't know anything about the actual details of motor vehicle laws, nor about the differences between states, but I've always believed they were different from other laws. Am I correct in believing that a motor vehicle violation is not a misdemeanor, and certainly not a felony? What is it? And how is that, at least in Texas, the officer has the right to arrest you for motor vehicle violations as minor as "failure to signal"?I was pulled over for going 90 in a 55 mph zone a couple years ago. The officer was polite and professional but seemed intent on impressing upon me how heinous my violation was. I was only keeping up with traffic during rush hour and was just unlucky enough to be the first car that went by after he readied his speed gun. When he gave me the ticket he told me the speed limit was 55 and that I couldn't exceed that. I replied that no one goes 55, and he asked if that's what I would tell the judge. I replied, "I would tell him what is true," and the officer left it at that and returned to his car, but I suppose he could have escalated. He could have continued, "Are you saying anything I've said is untrue?" and what would I have said then? Had I replied, "You're implying that traffic goes 55, and it doesn't, not even in the slow lane," where would it have gone from there?I of course didn't go to court and challenge the ticket because I *was* going 90 in a 55 mph zone. I've been driving the same road to work for 30 years and got caught only once, so though it was a costly ticket I decided to think of it as just part of the cost of commuting.--Percy

Note the thread title: What's the deal with motor vehicle violations?. This isn't about the Sandra Bland arrest, and I never mentioned it.What I was reacting to was this excerpt from the CNN article Video of Sandra Bland's arrest ignites firestorm of reactions:

quote:

---

Technically, a driver can get arrested in Texas for simply failing to use a turn signal.
...
"The fact is an officer can make an arrest anytime ... you run a red light, parking ticket, anything like that," Houck said. "What he did was he notices she was agitated."

---

What I then asked was, "Am I correct in believing that a motor vehicle violation is not a misdemeanor, and certainly not a felony? What is it? And how is that, at least in Texas, the officer has the right to arrest you for motor vehicle violations as minor as 'failure to signal'?" Okay, a motor vehicle violation is not a misdemeanor, not a felony, but something else. But you can still be arrested for a minor motor vehicle offense, at least in Texas. If true, my reaction is dismay and concern.Now that you bring it up, a question does occur to me now about the Sandra Bland arrest. Texas is a "stand your ground" state. I think it's safe to say that the officer's behavior could be interpreted as provocative and then threatening, and his subsequent words ("I will light you up!") and actions (slammed her head, broke her arm) argue that that interpretation was right on the mark. I wonder if Bland had a "stand your ground" defense, or if the law specifically excludes standing your ground in all cases involving police officers.--Percy

Where is the boundary drawn between "almost anything" and the few things that aren't "almost anything"? What are the category of things that constitute "wrongful arrest"? Apparently, according to the law in Texas, someone pulled over for, say, a tail light out and who is perfectly polite can still be arrested. Relying on the police to use proper discretion is not having a great record of success for black people these days. Almost weekly in national headlines the police in this country demonstrate they cannot reliably wield this kind of power. "Put out the cigarette" is a lawful order? I can see why he may object to cigarette smoke, but he was already being provocative and trying to push her buttons. First he starts probing why she's irritated, a warning sign sure to cause anxiety, then he gives an irrelevant command when all he has to do is hand her the ticket and tell her he's letting her off with a warning, there's no fine, she doesn't have to do anything, and to please be sure to signal lane changes in the future. He was purposefully prolonging the encounter. His own department has put him on desk duty because he violated protocols.--Percy

Not sure why you put crimes in quotes, so I'll ignore that. You just explained that a motor vehicle offense is neither a misdemeanor nor a felony but is in a category by itself. Certainly a motor vehicle offense is not a crime, right? Yet one can apparently be arrested for it. Thus the category of things one can be arrested for apparently extends beyond crimes, since it includes motor vehicle offenses. Earlier you said, "A cop can simply arrest you for almost anything," which goes way beyond crimes, even to not liking your looks. You also said, "Being under arrest isn't a big deal, its a technicality." But it's not a technicality, and it is a big deal. Bland couldn't make bail and was in her third day of incarceration when she committed suicide. Something that is the beginning of the end of your life is not a technicality. He only told her to get out of the car when she refused to put out her cigarette. Seems to me, and it apparently seemed to Sandra, too, that he had begun a process of hassling her trying to get her to give him an excuse for escalating things beyond a mere traffic stop. But she became outraged and ended up taking the bait. Yeah, well, as I said, I'm dismayed and concerned. Pardon my naivet, but it should be possible to train our policemen well enough that they can hand out a ticket to someone who's upset about it without arresting them. I'm not demanding perfection, but the police across the country can't even get through a week without hitting the headlines. Of course, if you're right that they're really just "dirty rotten scoundrels" then we have to conclude that this has always been a problem and that it's only beginning to come to light now as more and more video cameras dot the landscape in the form of cell phones, security cameras and the like.--Percy

That does help put things in perspective, but I'm more focused on the low end of motor vehicle violations. Take the hypothetical situation of a driver on his way home at night when his dashboard indicator for the right rear taillight comes on. He makes a mental note to replace the taillight, but a few miles later he is pulled over. The officer says, "Sir, your right rear taillight is out. You are under arrest. Please step out of the car."The officer is apparently operating within his legal authority to carry out this arrest, and this is what concerns me.I was about to click "Submit Reply" when I just remembered something that happened to me a decade or so back. I had a headlight that had gone out earlier that day and was pulled over. I hadn't been pulled over in years for having a light out, and on those occasions the officer just informed me that I had a light out and to have it fixed, but in this case the officer gave me a ticket (no fine, maybe it was just a warning, don't recall). I recall being incredulous, and I expressed it vocally and clearly. I wonder how close to the line did I step in expressing myself. (I found out later that I was woefully behind the times. Towns had begun handing out tickets for lights years before because then they can track it, and if you don't fix it and get a second ticket then they know.)Another occasion just occurred to me. This is decades and decades ago. Me and a girlfriend were driving around the boonies of central Mass around 1 AM when suddenly we were confronted by a maze of signs for an interstate. I'm driving real slow and we're both trying to read and understand all the signs and figure out how we stay on the back road and not get on the highway, but we nonetheless fail to notice some jug handle offshoot for the back road and end up at an intersection with our back road, but the signs say we can only go straight onto the interstate, no left turn. I turn left anyway and am pulled over. When the officer hands me the ticket he informs me that turning left at a "no left turn" sign is illegal, and of course I know that and feel I was only forced to do so to avoid being forced onto the interstate by their unintelligible signage, and I just snapped. I literally begin yelling at him, telling him that they know how confusing their signs are, and so they just lurk somewhere out of sight waiting for all the drivers who don't figure it out in time, that it has nothing to do with safety at one in the morning, that there's not another car in sight and hasn't been in the entire time we've been sitting here while he wrote this ticket, that he saw how slow we were going and knew we were confused by the signs. In other words, it was entrapment (the town didn't control the signage, the state probably did, but the town was taking full advantage of it), my reaction of outrage was (at least to me) fully understandable, but again, I wonder how close to the line I came.I don't want to draw the thread off-topic with these stories, so to reiterate my main point, if you're pulled over for some minor traffic offense, and assuming no non-motor vehicle offenses are involved (like an open container or drugs in plain sight), it should be next to impossible to get arrested, no matter how much irritation or outrage you show.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.

You've generalized it, but yes, this is what I'm dismayed and concerned about.If anything good is coming out of all these recent cases coming to light via video recording it's how obviously apparent it is becoming to nearly everyone that the front lines of law enforcement have feet of clay, and maybe this is the beginning of change. Yes, law enforcement is a difficult, dangerous and extremely important job, but while it somewhat explains the behavior, it doesn't justify it. Perhaps we should ask if it makes sense that those officers who one day are getting their adrenalin all pumped up as they respond to a "crime in progress with shots fired" should also be the same officers who the next day are pulling people over for taillights out. Do we really need guys with guns and tasers and handcuffs making traffic stops?--Percy

Isn't the record much more mixed than that (especially for minorities), to the point where calling it "productive" is easily arguable?AbE: I didn't verbally abuse the officers on either of the occasions I described. "You're taking improper advantage of your poor signage," even if expressed angrily and loudly, is not verbal abuse.--PercyEdited by Percy, : AbE.

Sorry for the second reply to this message, but a response to this occurred to me later: Hypothetical instructions to a department's traffic patrol staff: "We want this guy off the streets, so the unmarked cars should organize a tail, and if he so much as rolls through a stop sign, arrest him."Different hypothetical situation: A black man from New York City with rough looks, dreadlocks and a disdainful demeanor is pulled over for a taillight out in Georgia while smoking. The officer doesn't like his looks or attitude and arrests him.The concern isn't that officers will arrest people for minor traffic offenses. The concern is that they have the right. Give someone a right and they will use it. We're only now beginning to gain hard evidence of just how much questionable police behavior is out there. I don't think we should view Sandra Bland's arrest as a rare occurrence. It only made national headlines because she committed suicide. We never hear of all the similar arrests where nothing attention-getting happened.--Percy

To echo what you said earlier, cops are just people, and people have a conscience. I like to think that he heard what I said and gave some thought about the fairness of handing out tickets caused by confusing traffic signage.Or maybe, being completely familiar with the area he'd never taken a careful look at the signs, i.e., maybe he wasn't aware it was actually entrapment. Having never read what the signs actually said maybe he never realized that it wasn't possible for a person unfamiliar with the intersection to stay on the back road and avoid entering the interstate. And maybe once he realized this he would stop handing out tickets there, maybe even suggest they fix the signs. (I never happened to drive that road again, but checking Google Maps I see the intersection has been completely redesigned and reconstructed.)In other words, communication of information is important, and it could affect how the officer handled future traffic stops.I'm hearing the same message from you and NoNukes, that verbal interaction with officers of the law is to be kept to a minimum if one wants to avoid trouble. Call me naive (again), but at least in my own mind I don't live in a country where the police can intimidate me into silence.If in high school civics classes they taught that in interactions with police one must keep verbal interaction to a minimum and never express one's opinion or reveal how one is feeling, I think the objections would be pretty severe. I think the advice would more likely be to be polite and respectful, to answer all reasonable questions ("What's in your trunk?" is not a reasonable question), and to carry out all reasonable orders ("Get out of the car," is not a reasonable order, I don't believe. An officer following proper procedures I think has to inform you why he needs you to exit the vehicle, e.g., "I see papers on the front seat, I have reason to believe there are drugs in this vehicle, please exit the vehicle.")I just remembered another occasion. I was just arriving at my son's elementary school with my son in the car when I was pulled over by a town policeman (we had 3 at the time), and I stopped in the elementary school parking lot that I was just pulling into anyway. This guy was new, I didn't recognize him, but I knew why he pulled me over: I had an expired inspection sticker. But I also had a sheet of paper on my front seat giving me a two-week extension (parts had to be ordered). So I grabbed the piece of paper and walked over to the police car with it. And then, in an elementary school parking lot with buses and children and parents and teachers walking all over, he ordered me back to my vehicle. I said, "Sure," and returned to my vehicle. Meanwhile a couple teachers and parents walked up to his car window to say hello. He was blindly following a protocol that made no sense.AbE: Upon further reflection about the above about being pulled over in an elementary school parking lot, since from a law enforcement perspective any police/civilian interaction should be considered potentially dangerous, it must be part of police protocol to avoid pulling anyone over in a school zone. I would think that officers would be advised that they should instead wait until they're out of the school zone before turning on the lights.Abe 2: How I perhaps could have been arrested: When I walk up to the officer's vehicle, what if he had decided I represented a threat and tried to detain me and put me in the back of his vehicle. With my son still fastened in his car seat I would have objected. Strenuously. He would have had to take me by force.--PercyEdited by Percy, : AbE.Edited by Percy, : AbE 2.

Wasn't there nothing questionable about Carl Moyle's arrest? Wasn't his definitely not a case of someone who shouldn't have been in jail in the first place? And even if he shouldn't have been in jail, doesn't his death predate by quite a bit the current "video everywhere" era, making the likelihood of a video of his arrest very unlikely? So there would be nothing for the news media to go on anyway?I guess I'm saying I don't see the relevance.--Percy

Not even the arresting officer's department agrees with you, since they've already stated that he didn't follow procedure and have put him on desk duty pending the outcome of an investigation. From TwinCities.com: "When Moyle failed to show proof of insurance a possible gross misdemeanor because he had been convicted of the insurance charge twice before authorities booked him..." Certainly the police can show discretion, as they did when you couldn't prove insurance, but you were only stopped once for this. Moyle was stopped twice earlier for not having insurance and was *convicted* both times. Not arresting him after a third offense seems much more strange than just giving him a ticket. He was actually arrested on suspicion of a "gross misdemeanor," while Bland was arrested for refusing to obey a very questionable order to put her cigarette out. You can't reasonably compare the two. The video was kind of central to my point, one I've made several times in this thread, that the widespread prevalence of video today is bringing to light police misconduct that would have gone undetected in the past. You complained that Moyle's death didn't get the same attention as Bland's, but his death predates the current video era. We couldn't know what would have happened had there been a dashcam video of Moyle's arrest. For all anyone knows he was insulting, belligerent and oppositional when stopped, and the insurance issue was just what they decided to put down on the arresting report because it reads better than, "He hurt my feelings." Again, not even the arresting officer's own department agrees with you, and many questions have been raised by others. Christopher C. Cooper, "a recognized expert in police conflict resolution, ...said that the video showed that the trooper’s decision to stop Ms. Bland for a minor infraction was legal but questionable, and that the officer’s angry, forceful response to Ms. Bland’s refusal to put out a cigarette seemed excessive." (Dispute Over Sandra Bland’s Mental State Follows Death in a Texas Jail). Or take a look at Assessing the Legality of Sandra Bland’s Arrest. By just blindly declaring that Bland was "belligerent" and "arrestable" and "needed to be arrested" you make clear your unfamiliarity with the concerns about the officers behavior and other details of the debate.AbE: Or read this comment from Rebecca L. Robertson, legal & policy director, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas:

quote:

---

The video of Sandra Bland’s interaction with the DPS officer who pulled her over in Waller County raises serious concerns about whether her Fourth Amendment rights were violated. Of course, an officer has the legal authority to use force, if necessary, and to arrest someone who has broken the law, but that authority is not unlimited. Force must be proportional to the circumstances. Arrest is only justified if the officer has probable cause to believe that a crime is being committed. The video doesn’t show every aspect of the interaction, but it certainly raises questions about whether that level of force and Ms. Bland’s arrest were constitutionally permissible.

---

Easily possible, but no one's playing a game of "who's the worst victim." I was only making a point about why Moyle's death might not have made the headlines the way Bland's did. He was arrested in a different time.--PercyEdited by Percy, : AbE:Edited by Percy, : No reason given.

That's one opinion.I asked a friend who used to be cop what he used to do when people registered their objections, and he said he would just become very polite, but that there was another officer in the department who was a real jerk (his word) who would do everything he could to escalate a situation so he could make an arrest. If everyone just meekly obeyed every police instruction and answered every police question then how is this different from a police state? That seems a bit strong. I think you have to answer reasonable questions, just not all questions. Really? How about, "Open the trunk." Choking, tazing or shooting a parent in front of his child and many other children, parents and teachers on elementary school property over an expired inspection sticker while the parent holds the extension form in his hand? Sounds like a career ender to me. I never did get to meet this officer under normal circumstances. I knew the other two, but this guy was new, and a few weeks later he was already gone. I have no idea why he left, but we're more Andy of Mayberry out here than New York City. That's an odd interpretation. That requires you to believe that had she put out the cigarette he would have told her to get out of the car anyway. The reality is that he only told her to get out of the car after she refused to put out the cigarette, and arguing that she wasn't arrested for refusing to put out the cigarette isn't even consistent with what you just said earlier that refusing a police order is an arrestable offense.The cop was clearly working himself up into a state, and I think Bland very reasonably believed that if she got out of her car that she would be subjected to violence. And she was right.--Percy

How do you know many bad guys it takes to counterbalance the other side of the ledger? And the police relationship with minority communities completely breaks down and begins resembling situations in third world countries, which is part of the other side of the ledger. I was reacting to what you and Cat Sci have been saying about keeping interactions with police as short and sweet as possible to avoid risking arrest. I have no idea where the line is, which is why I was *wondering* whether I crossed the line. You tell me.--Percy

People who won't stand up for their rights don't deserve them, though I'll grant they might live longer. You are very black and white about a lot of things. Poor signage is an extenuating circumstance.It was only a warning, so I didn't go to court. But if it had been a ticket I probably would have gone to court, and I likely would have won because I would have brought a picture of the signage. The signage wasn't as bad as a dead end street marked one way, but it was almost that bad.--Percy

Besides not signalling lane changes,* there are also people who don't signal their turns.* Or who speed up to close the gap when someone signals a lane change. Or who roll through stop signs, blinking red lights, and right-turn-on-red.* Or who think "Yield" means "Merge". Or who do not slow down in a school zone. Or who tailgate.*I put asterisks on those driving offenses I've seen police commit.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.