There's a saying to the effect that a good cop can find a reason to pull any car over if he follows it for just a couple minutes.
There is no remedy available in real-time. The law says that you must always follow police instructions. So if the police pull you over for no reason, and handcuff you on the side of the road, you must submit to the handcuffing. If they demand to search your car, you must submit to that. It is only later that you can move to have evidence dismissed, or file a complaint.
I know this goes counter to how we [1] think the law works. But this is how things work in reality. If an officer acts illegally during a traffic stop, and you physically resist it (e.g. grab them to keep them out of your car after refusing a search), you have committed at least one crime and possibly several. Now you can really be arrested, or if the officer is afraid for their life, shot dead. Even though there was nothing behind the initial pull-over.
[1] Edit to add:
By "we" I mean people to whom the police usually show deference and respect; a group to which I belong, and with which I'm assuming there's a big overlap with HN readership. BTW this deference is part of what is covered by the term "privilege."
There is certainly another group of people who have direct experience with getting pulled over for no reason. Consider the stories told by the former police chief of Detroit:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/06/11/floyd-kill...
> When I was chief, a white DPD officer pulled me over one night. He approached my unmarked vehicle and without looking at me, asked for my license and registration. Wanting to see how far this would go, I said, "Yes officer." At some point, he recognized who he had stopped and immediately apologized. My question to him was, “Why did you stop me?” He said, "I thought it was a stolen car." The officer was reprimanded for his actions.
out of curiosity, which law is this or where does it say that?
> If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
- Cardinal Richlieu
Explore the entire RCW yourself on driving rules here: https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=46.61. I encourage you to read the entire section and ask yourself if you ever have a driving trip longer than 3 blocks where you don't violate one of these laws:
- Speeding (even 1 mph over the limit for only 1 second). 46.61.400 (2)
- Speeding (even if at/under the speed limit if the officer things the roadway is unsafe for that speed, subjective to the officer making the stop) 46.41.400 (1)
- Speeding (failure to slow down at an intersection, hill crest, bend in the road, or when pedestrians are nearby, subjective to the officer making the stop) 46.41.400 (3)
- Passing on the right (except in specific situations) 46.61.110 & 46.61.115
- Driving too slowly (driving too slowly such that you impair the normal and reasonable flow of traffic; note for extra fun that the normal flow of traffic is often above the speed limit and this particular law doesn't provide an exception for driving at the speed limit; subjective to the officer making the stop) 46.61.425
- Failure to signal (both turns and lane changes, even into your own driveway) 46.61.305 (1)
- Failure to properly signal (not signaling a full 100 feet of travel before turning or changing lanes) 46.61.305 (2)
- Illegal wide turn. 46.61.290
- Reckless driving (subjective to the officer making the stop) 46.61.500
- Failure to come to a complete halt at a stop sign. 46.61.190
- Failure to stop between 15-50 feet of the rail from a mandatory stop rail cross (note, the distance measured is from the nearest rail, not the stop sign) 46.61.345
- Expired tabs (even by a day). 46.16A.030
- Anything not street legal about your vehicle (headlight out, taillight out, cracked windshield, window tint).
> Cops don't follow a single individual around waiting for them to go 5 over the speed limit.
This is a preposterous statement and absolutely false. This happens all the time when an officer becomes suspicious of a vehicle. It's literally routine policing that you would learn at the academy if you took officer training.
>Putting someone under watch
That does not mean following a single individual a cop may encounter on the road that looks sketchy and wait for them to speed. It means staking out outside "Joe Blow who lives as 12345 Address St."'s house because Joe Blow is part of a demographic that is predicted to be more likely to be involved with gang activity, and waiting for him to get in his car and speed. The difference is an "unknown" or "random" individual vs. a "known" or "pre-planned" individual, because that is what the parent comment was discussing. I apologize if my original comment was unclear! I say this respectfully, it may be beneficial to more carefully examine the context of comments so that discussions may be more productive in the future.