Every time he gets pulled over for a selfie it's an abuse of power. If he can't ignore it, they shouldn't be doing it. Wait for a random encounter in a parking lot or gas station like the rest of us.
Same with the "pulled over to give you an ice cream" feel-good ops they do. https://abc7ny.com/post/video-police-hand-out-ice-cream-inst...
An illegal detention is still an illegal detention if it's being done nicely.
No? You could also pull the public tax dollars spent card, or other crimes not being pursued while you're at it but it won't help sour the mood!
This is not a nice story about cops.
> "'The reason I pulled you over, that light back there, you peeled out.'"
> For a moment, Braithwaite didn't know if he was being serious or not.
> "He said it so straight-faced," Braithwaite recalled. "And I'm like, 'Oh yeah.'"
> The banana jokes, he said, are "never-ending."
> Fortunately, so are the laughs.
..Are we discussing the same article?
> Braithwaite recently drove the banana into Mexico, where he was pulled over five times in three days.
> Every encounter was friendly, he says.
This is a great international story about cops!
> Now he's thinking much bigger.
> His goal is to drive the Big Banana Car through Central America; somehow get it shipped across oceans and eventually circle the globe.
> "I just want to keep going," he said.
> He's calling the adventure "The World Needs More Whimsy Grand Tour."
> A sign mounted to the back of the vehicle carries the slogan.
> "The world is dangerously low on whimsy," says the man hoping to make a difference.
That last paragraph hits it out of the park.
This is not a good story about cops. This is a good story about a guy, that includes cops as part of its plot.
It's like those "kid sells his toys to fund parents' cancer treatment" stories local news does as a feel-good segment. Great kid! Shitty system!
I'm still inclined to think that an /s is coming up in later replies. A bad story about cops and a banana motorist is that the motorist is dead, incarcerated or has a bounty on his head and is traveling around the world to ..evade.. his notoriety.
Cops on the road, who drive alone in their car, are entitled to a bit of fun.. or as Braithwaite put it, "more whimsy"!
Don't they? Help me understand..
No, cops are not entitled to Fourth Amendment violations as fun. Turn on the radio or something.
I am entitled to fun, too. That doesn't mean I get to pick kicking you in the shin as my fun.
You and that other op dude need better arguments.
Exactly the right word.
It certainly isn’t, the police have no right to pull him over, they’re violating his 4th amendment rights. Unless he has committed a moving violation or they suspect him of committing a crime, there’s no cause to stop a motorist.
It’s a good story about a man who hasn’t let police acting illegally prevent him from driving his banana car.
You and that other op dude need better arguments.
Banana cars getting pulled over for selfies is a massive improvement.
And the “I pulled you over because you peeled out” - I mean it’s fun. Anyway, if it’s harmless I don’t really see the problem.
If you mop floors and you have fun by twirling your broom and humming a tune, you're not affecting anyone.
If we give you a gun and the right to shoot people in the head and go home to sleep in your own bed, then we can ask you to lock in a little more than that and not pull over people because it's funny.
You want police to have a positive presence in the community. Innocent engagement with a banana car helps with that, doesn't hurt.
And if that sounds hackneyed and like a ridiculous standard, you're damn right it is: we let them have outsized influence in our existence as otherwise free people. Their standard has to be a double standard.
Are you under the impression all cops are known for is harassing banana cars?
Can they not pull up alongside and wave? Give a thumbs-up? Roll down the window?
Over here in reality, when a man with a badge and a gun pulls people over for a bit of fun: Refusing to play along with whatever game it is that they have in mind is a criminal offense.
I appreciate your anger, but it’s misplaced here.
The cop comfortable with pulling over the funny looking car (that looks like a banana) is the same cop with unreasonable understanding of the responsibility they're given.
It wouldn't matter if the banana car man has a sign that says "I love cops free donuts in the back"
What's really crazy to me is that someone is working over time to try to police (literally) other people's negative feelings about cop misconduct.
What inadequacy leads someone to see others upset at an obvious misuse of power and think "I need to stand up for the guys misuing it!"
It’s crazy to me that you view it as “policing” your opinions rather than simply seeing my viewpoint as just that, and opposing viewpoint.
I’m not policing you. Just offering a different perspective.
I apologize for speaking up. So much for free speech :)
But I’ll say it once more: it’s a freaking banana car. Lighten up bro! Very confused why you’re more upset than the driver of the banana is (who seems to want the attention and is getting it, the desired effect)!
> "I appreciate your anger, but it’s misplaced here."
Weird mix of narcissism to think anyone cares if you appreciate their anger, and arrogance to think you know where it belongs.
You're definitely confused. We can leave it at that.
Police have plenty of ways to have fun that aren't Fourth Amendment violations.
If you wanna give out free ice cream cones, station a cruiser with a sign saying so. People can come to you just fine, without the "what the fuck, why am I getting pulled over?!" worries. The banana guy at least has an inkling of why there are flashing police lights in his rearview, but that doesn't make it OK.
(And, yes, I realise that this is exactly the same shape of argument that turns into victim blaming when it's about cat calling or worse. No, I don't have a principled way to distinguish the two cases.)
For example, your average cop in the UK, traffic or otherwise, doesn't carry a gun. Bobbies can get guns, but it's enough of a bureaucratic hassle that they seldom bother. The absence of guns makes a lot of the tension disappear that I read about in American encounters with low enforcement.
In Germany, police routinely carry guns, but also approximately no one is afraid they might get shot as a result of making the wrong move at a routine traffic stop. (Partially that's because every shot fired comes with lots and lots of red tape. Even warning shots. If the police officer actually hits a person, they get the police equivalent of a court martial. And that's mandatory, even when it's obvious they were doing the Right Thing. Just like a captain in the Royal Navy got a court martial, when their ship sank for any reason.
I say 'partially', because I suspect culture has a lot to do with it.)
Two times pissed me off: one time a cop had just pulled me over on the highway for a pic, okay cool, I pull back onto the highway and went maybe a mile before I was pulled over a second time by his buddy.
Other time I was just rolling into LA for a comic con, it was 3am and I'd been driving for about 14 hours. I was minutes from my hotel and of course here come the cops. I had to make a big detour to find somewhere safe to stop. The next day someone said "Oh, I think my buddy stopped you last night!" so I had him call his cop friend and was able to safely cuss him out from a distance :)
On the other hand I had one awesome experience with the cops in Oxnard when we put my car on the train tracks and accidentally set off the barriers and caused an enormous tailback in each direction at the railroad crossing. I thought the cops would be mad, but they were hilarious and promised to figure out the traffic snafu for us.
https://imgur.com/a/pBcLKqz (we didn't realize the barriers automatically detect stuff on the tracks)
Then an hour later when I was driving the car down the tracks again another cop walked up on me all mad and told me he was writing me a ticket for driving on the tracks, but when I read the ticket he'd written it out to Marty McFly and had a great laugh about it. Here's a pic of him booking Marty haha
In the world as it is, with laws interpreted by humans along notions of what society generally finds acceptable: if you drive a funny car or where an especially funny hat, expect to get a lot of attention from all kinds of people, including cops.