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Comment by stcredzero | Hacker News Reader

A friend of mine once spotted a policeman down the road, turning on his lights. Since he was on a limited-access highway, he decided to pull over very quickly and just wait the policeman out. (They were on opposite shoulders, and the left shoulder didn't extend back to where my friend was.) The policeman got out of his car and ordered him to proceed with hand gestures. My friend decided he could be in worse trouble if he didn't.

(Yes, it was really my friend and not me.)

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My story of weird police interaction:

My wife was driving my pickup on the freeway late at night; I'm in the passenger seat dozing, sleeping off a party we went to.

Anyhow, she's pulling over and I see the red and blues flashing around us, and I'm wondering what's going on. She's asking me where I keep my registration. We stop, and the cop stops behind us.

Then a second pulls in behind him. I'm sitting there wondering WTF because the worst thing I can think is wrong is a burned out tail light...

Cops come up on both sides; we roll down our windows, cops shine flashlights around within the vehicle - my head is pounding, thanks guy...

Cop asks my wife: "Why did you pull over?"

My wife replies: "Because you had your lights on, blipped the siren, and pulled us over...?"

Cop then says: "...Go on, get outta here."

We're both looking at each other like "WTF was that about?" - but my wife pulls out, gets up to speed, stays at the speed limit, then gets off at the nearest exit. We take surface streets home.

To this day, I have no idea what it was about.

If I had to guess, driving slow. Her pulling over instead of speeding up was smart, but mildly suspicious to a cop without an active call.

Just a random guess, but they may have been hunting for a self-incriminating admission of drunk driving. I got pulled over for speeding once, and the first thing the cop asked was "Why do you think I pulled you over?". I shrugged, and said I had no idea. He claimed I was speeding, but let me off with a warning. In another instance where I got pulled over for speeding[1], the cop told me as much, but then asked how fast I thought I was going. I told him 65 (which was 10 over the limit of 55). He claimed that I was going 70 (15 over 55), but wrote me a ticket for 65 in a 60 zone (5 over, notice that he went with the speed that I claimed, but changed the speed limit in my favor). Apparently the fine varies based on the amount over the speed limit, so he basically gave me a lower fine. My hunch, is in both cases, they were just looking for admission of guilt.

[1] Just so people don't get the wrong idea, I am generally a very cautious driver, there were the only two speeding related encounters in 15+ years.

> "Why do you think I pulled you over?"

That's pretty standard; nearly every traffic stop I've witnessed or heard about contains that line.

I believe they do it because -- assuming you give a truthful/correct answer -- it makes it less likely you'll contest the ticket, and if you do, they can tell the judge, "when I asked why they thought I'd pulled them over, they told me it was because they were speeding". If you admit to the infraction, you don't really have much of a leg to stand on in court.

And the de jure standard answer is "because you had a reasonable suspicion I was committing a crime," or "I don't answer questions without legal counsel present."

Of course, since many cops will retaliate against smartasses, the de facto standard answer is "I don't know. Why did you pull me over?" This is always truthful, correct, and non-incriminating, because you can't be expected to read the cop's mind.

Yep, totally. I usually use the wording "I'm not sure", or, better, "I can't be sure", since "I don't know" is often not entirely truthful.

Never say a number. If you want to give the option to the cop to give you a ticket with a lower fine attached, just say "my speedometer said I was okay." And that will probably result in a citation for an equipment violation instead of for speeding.

You can't say "I don't know," either, because that sets you up for some variation on negligent driving.

The safest response for the court record is "I don't answer questions without legal counsel present," but that is likely to provoke the cop into ensuring that there will be a court record.

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