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I once was driving down Nostrand Ave and there were two unmarked cars stopped side-by-side blocking both lanes in the middle of the street. I slowed, stopped, sat there for 5 seconds waiting and then leaned on the horn. The car in the outer lane went and I continued forward. He then ran up behind me and turned on lights. He immediately came over annoyed that I had the nerve to honk at him and told me he was writing me a ticket because my passenger wasn't wearing her seat belt (she was -- he didn't even look in the car). I was able to diffuse the situation but it is tiny little abuses of power like this that lead to bigger ones.

And that's exactly what I'm talking about, this kind of bullshit would stop if they had body cameras. Plainclothes detectives in NYC are even worse than regular cops, they're arrogant dickheads that think they're above the law.

It's common practice to have dash cameras in many "police abuse" and fraud prone areas Ex: Russia. It may be time for us all to invest in similar technology.

You don't know what you're talking about. The dash cams in Russia are there for fraud alone, not police abuse.

How many dash cam videos have you seen of Russian cops asking for bribes? Not that many I bet. How many have you seen of someone trying to pull off an insurance scam? More than a few.

It isn't because police aren't asking for bribes - it's because people are probably afraid to publicize the bad things the police do, whereas they are okay publicizing the bad things a random poor scammer/druggie does.

Since I've never been to Russia, I have to base my information on those who presumably do know what they're talking about.

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-russian-drivers-have-dash...

  In a post on Animal, Russian ex-pat and journalist Marina Galperina offers 
  a few reasons, which boil down to dangerous driving conditions and the 
  unreliability of Russian traffic police.

http://www.wired.com/2013/02/russian-dash-cams/

  The sheer size of the country, combined with lax — and often corrupt — 
  law enforcement, and a legal system that rarely favors first-hand accounts 
  of traffic collisions has made dash cams all but a requirement for motorists.

http://mashable.com/2013/02/15/why-russians-have-dash-cams-c...

  The Russian Highway Patrol is known throughout their land for brutality, corruption, 
  extortion and making an income on bribes. Dash-cams won’t protect you from being 
  extorted for cash, because your ass shouldn’t have been speeding. It will however 
  keep you safer from drunks in uniform, false accusations and unreasonable bribe 
  hikes

http://www.rferl.org/content/dash-cams-russia-fighting-corru...

  Motorists use these dash cams as a tool to help fight their corner 
  against Russia's notoriously corrupt traffic police as well as 
  against scammers trying to extort money out of drivers.

And.

  Dozorov recounts one incident involving an inspector, which occurred 
  months ago when police officers stopped his car. "He'd accused me of
  going through a red light," Dozorov says. "It was enough for me to say: 'I'm 
  not going to argue. Let's have a look at the dash cam.' At that point the 
  inspector said he’d probably made a mistake. He didn't even bother looking. 
  He said sorry and left."

To be honest, I'm sure that in those cases the camera view would be 'obscured' for a moment so that in a court case it cannot be proved that your boss did indeed use his turn signal.

Yes, but innocent until proven guilty and all that.

Too many of these and a pattern emergees for that officer

The way to handle that is to stop automatically giving the police officer's statements more weight than the accused. If there was a camera present at the scene and for whatever reason there's no footage to back up the officer's statement, then there should be dismissal due to lack of evidence.

As a Brooklynite who has been written up for an open-container which was in fact a cup of coffee[0], this is also my first thought. But.. the stats in Rialto are encouraging. It seems as though the presence of the camera has a general effect beyond its use as reference material.[1]

[0] I threw it in a trash can on the corner, officer pulled up 10 feet later, said it was beer, found a beer can in the trash.. Refused to look at the bodega security footage from the place 5 blocks up where I had just bought it)

[1] http://online.wsj.com/articles/what-happens-when-police-offi...

Many police cars have dash cams that would have captured the signal. Were you able to press the issue and get a copy of that recording?

Dash cams are historically "broken" and footage goes "missing". I expect the same to happen here.

Friend in high school got pulled over with me in the car for speeding. The officer said he was doing 79km/hr in a 50 zone. (He was going a little fast but not that fast). My friend, having been pulled over before, asked to see the radar gun reading and the cop told him "I deleted it."

Fortunately, my friend contested it in court and won because the police are supposed to show you the evidence if you ask for it.

This is where body cams change things - the police can lose footage all they want. The fact they did will be hugely prejudicial to court case outcomes. It means good cops get the results, and to boot some immunity to complaints from people just looking to avoid a legitimate ticket.

Its a net gain for everyone.

Yeah this - unless an officer can prove he was right by showing the camera footage, unfair cases can go right out the window. A lot of evidence in smaller cases (like speeding tickets) are based on 'because the officer saw it', which IMO is no longer valid - since a lot of police officers are falsely handing out tickets and whatnot.

"He was going a little fast but not that fast"

Ok, so he was only a "little" bit selfishly endangering everyone else on the road.

Your friend is an asshole, and the cop is doing me a favour by doing whatever he can to your friend. Good on him.

The legal system in the United States (and most first world nations) is built around the idea that it is far better to let an illegal act go unpunished than it is to take away the rights of an innocent person. Is it really worth throwing away that fundamental principle for something as petty as a speeding ticket?

Speeding isn't petty. It's entirely grotesquely selfish and arrogant. Our democratic system of elected representatives of our society has made it clear to you that you are expected to drive no faster than a limit. You have decided you're better than that and you can drive faster, and fuck everyone else, no matter what the consequences. I say ban for life anyone who speeds.

I think pretty much 100% of drivers have broken some speed limit at some time. So you are suggesting banning all drivers for ever?

I always wonder why the traffic lights in Germany (and other countries I guess) are operated in a way that you have green all the way when you drive 10-15km/h above the speed limit. Depending on the time of day.

You can get a ticket for being 1km/h above the limit but you only get (permanent record) points in Flensburg if you're 21km/h above the limit within city limits. I guess everybody is fine if drivers go above the limit up to 20km/h. It seems to me the speed limit in Germany are always set with that buffer (10%) in mind.

This is the problem. People know the law, but they justify their ignoring it with some vague ideas of "seems to me".

"Our democratic system of elected representatives of our society has made it clear to you that you are expected to drive no faster than a limit. "

Actually, society has made clear exactly the opposite. Speeding is the classic example of illegal but not abhorrent behavior.

You don't think it's weird that recklessly operating a motor vehicle on public streets isn't abhorrent? I agree with you: it obviously isn't. But...

Recklessly doing so is probably abhorrent, but people don't think speeding is reckless. Society as a whole (in the US at least) believes it can safely traverse roads at higher rates than the speed limit. Society as a whole is likely wrong, but that's irrelevant :)

Society also thinks it can safely multitask, and is good at being on a cell phone and driving at the same time. It is wrong about that too, but it still makes the behavior not abhorrent :)

At the same time, the same Society seems happy to excoriate anyone who causes a problem (death, accident, whatever) while doing either of the above. Go figure.

If you hit somebody while on your phone, that's proof you're doing it wrong. But see, when I drive with a phone, I do it right and don't hit people. It's those other morons we need to worry about, not me.

A little bit over the limit also gets you a ticket. Cops aren't judges, they don't get to choose the punishment, only enforce the law.

They don't expect people to stay under a limit. They set limits based on what they expect 15% of people to break, actually. At least, that's how it works when they put any thought into it at all. Sometimes they just assign an arbitrary default based on the type of road it is.

Congress designated a national speed limit of 55 mph in the 70s to conserve energy. Now many states are looking to raise it (several have already).

Ah yes, and you have never exceeded the speed limit yourself. We all believe that. Add yourself to your list of assholes.

You're joking right? Anyone who's watched the lowering of speed limits knows they're set 10MPH too slow so that the cops can say you were definitively speeding.

So, no, his friend isn't "an asshole". He was merely approaching the speed he should be driving.

The US has far too many laws. Many exist to simply ensure a consistent stream of income and people for the growing police/court/incarceration complex and their public employee unions. The laws are enforced inequitably - on some portions of the population far more than others (what happened to "EQUAL JUSTICE"?) We could remove 80% of them tomorrow and see no change.

It was undercover plainclothes detectives, so no dashcam. It would have been his word against mine, and the worst that would have happened if I pursued it would have been a notice stashed away somewhere that would have accomplished nothing.

That does suggest that you think, that the video camera evidence won't be tampered with. Coming from a country with no confidence in our police force, I would not have that confidence.

For a minor misuse of police power it'll likely be more effort than it's worth. They'd not only need to get rid of the offending footage, but also explain the absence of footage from that time (or replace it with something else).

Arguing with a police officer is a surefire way to get arrested. Assert your rights in court, not on the street.

Sometimes the need to be asserted on the street in order for them to be violated and hold up in court.

Never [politely] arguing with police officers is a surefire way to reinforce their belief that they can get away with anything. I wish more people had that courage, but I understand why most people don't most of the time.

It's not like it's much better in court. In court it's often your word against theirs (and they have much more sympathy from the judges, prosecutors etc, because, essentially, they are working all together).

Plus, this notion leads to a servant mindset. Why should "arguing with a police officer" be a "surefire way to get arrested" (and worse, tasered, beaten up, etc).

Arguing should be totally normal and accepted -- and it is that way in most western countries -- cops don't just bark orders and except mindless obedience "or else". Of course I'm talking about plain arguing (as in talking, proposing arguments, etc, related to what they tell you). Not swearing, or fighting them (which could justifiable get you arrested).

Heck, even the "don't try to get out of the car when you are stopped by a traffic cop or you'll get shot" is a complete BS, that only happens in the US.

No cop in Germany, Sweden, Holland, Britain, Italy etc would even think to shot you for getting out of your car to check why you were stopped. That's what they do at bank robbers in hot pursuit, not traffic offenders...

> Germany, Sweden, Holland, Britain, Italy etc would even think to shot you for getting out of your car to check why you were stopped.

Neither would most cops in the U.S. The cops in my town (Wilmington, DE) might, but then again the murder rate here is 30-40 times higher than in Munich and above that of such safe places as Kingston, Jamaica.

> That's what they do at bank robbers in hot pursuit

No, they wouldn't. That would be putting civilians at risk. I don't know about the UK, but for the rest of the mentioned countries it wouldn't happen unless there is anything else to it.

It is not a servant mindset when police are also held accountable for patterns in their behavior. They are public servants but at the same time they have authority to arrest you until people try to figure out what happened. This will waste a lot of time out of your day but it's the "security protocol" that society has established. Humans don't have perfect knowledge and the best thing you can do is cooperate without causing extra drama for everybody. You are more likely to avoid arrest and furthermore even if arrested you are more likely to win later.

As a side note: consider that having very little money saved is like operating without a safety net when you get into a car accident or something gets stolen or breaks or whatnot. Similarly when you cannot afford to lose any time, I think you'll react much more badly to being arrested etc. and cops don't care about that.

http://www.flexyourrights.org/

Not every cop is a lawyer and you stand to gain from asserting your rights while recording yourself on a voice recorder. There are so many different ones you can buy, or use the car's dashcam, or both.

Germany, Sweden etc also have very low rates of gun ownership by civilians. If USA insists on gun ownership, then these are the consequences.

Disclosure: I am a white male living in NYC and I have never been even close to arrested for anything.

That's precisely why I let it go. Had there been evidence I could have used, I would have later pursued it.

Assert you rights, on and off the street. If you give them up on the street you may find you don't have them in the court room.

Verbally asserting your rights or non-cooperation, while being physically non-threatening and compliant, is the right solution, generally.

"No, officer, I do not consent to a search of my vehicle.", said repeatedly, makes it much more clear in court later that the search, which may have been conducted without reasonable suspicion, was also done without consent, and thus the evidence is inadmissible. You're still probably going to jail if they find a suitcase of contraband while searching the car, but jail > conviction.