Teens to be pulled over for good driving (4th amendment??)

[Vernal45]

AKA - OPERATION "FISHING EXPEDITION"

Can they legally do this?

Seems to me like this totally spits in the face of the 4th amendment.
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Teens to be pulled over for good driving


OLDSMAR, Fla. - Beginning this fall Pinellas County Sheriff's Deputies will be pulling over teen drivers who haven't broken any traffic laws.

As part of a new program, deputies will be pulling over teens for safe driving and rewarding them with free movie theater and movie rental certificates.

Uniformed deputies driving unmarked cars will follow the drivers and give out the certificates.

"Deputies will follow them for a short distance, down a thoroughfare and we will watch their driving," said Sgt. Glenn Luben, Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. "Once we identify a good safe driver, we attempt to follow them to their house or open shopping area."

Some parents think it's a great idea to reward teens for safe, responsible driving. However, while most agree the reward is nice, some parents are concerned about this method of identifying safe drivers.

"I'd be concerned whether they'd think it's a real police officer pulling them over," says Jennifer Zeitler, parent of a teen driver. "It's scary for parents too. There's so many kidnappings and other things going on; I'd be concerned for my child."

The program was started by an Oldsmar, Fla. man whose son was killed in an accident involving a teen driver. After the program begins this fall, there is a possibility it will spread to other communities.

http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME=KUSA&IKOBJECTID=61ef8ca4-0abe-421a-0077-b2e41167b823&TEMPLATEID=0c76dce6-ac1f-02d8-0047-c589c01ca7bf

 

[Solo]

This makes absolutely no sense...

 

[beerslurpy]

It seems like an excuse for cops to follow teens around to find something to bust them for. Living in close proximity to pinellas county (and working there), this is only one of many turdy things they do in regards to traffic enforcement.

Pinellas sometimes seems like it is just a mess of old folks and cops running speed traps. Glad I moved up north.

 

[Zundfolge]

Sounds like a good excuse to pull people over without probably cause.

Officer Friendly: "Uh yeah, I pulled Johnny over here because his driving was so good ... yeah that's it ... but then I noticed this coffee can in the back seat so..."

 

[Risasi]

Oh you guys. Nanny Officer is just handing out spoons full of sugar to make the medicine go down...speaking of which you did take your Prozium dose right?

 

[Vernal45]

Officer Friendly: "Uh yeah, I pulled Johnny over here because his driving was so good ... yeah that's it ... but then I noticed this coffee can in the back seat so...

Zundfolge,

You owe me a keyboard. Do you have any idea how hard Dr. Pepper is to remove from a laptop.

 

[jefnvk]

Yeah, zund, that was pretty good.

My question is, why? Teens are rewarded for good driving by not losing their license.

And how do they know it is a teen driving? Not too many have the car registered in their name.

 

[beerslurpy]

Its about pulling over people who arent driving in such a way as to give them probable cause. Sort of like a roving random search.

Zund made me send beer down teh wrong hole.

 

[Sir Aardvark]

You gotta be kidding, Right?!?

Appropriate use of scarce resources I see.

 

[c_yeager]

It seems ALMOST like somone is trying to train people to be compliant and not to worry when a cop pulls them over.

i think the reality of this situation is that is well-intentioned, if not a little misguided. I for one have a problem with pulling over for unmarked cars in the first place. I can order a set of grill lights from just about any police supplier in the country without any kind of verification of wether or not I am actually a LEO, and so can anyone else.

 

[Jeff]

Hey, the fuzz can do whatever they want. Didn't you know driving is a privilege, not a right.

We should be thankful and gracious with every opportunity of getting pulled over and harassed. It's a privilege, you know.

 

[zahc]

I think, the police have too much time on their hands, no?

 

[Croyance]

Can they do this? Yes, since SCOTUS has approved police checkpoints to fish for drugs and other crimes.

Still, given our low rates of crime and tremendous overemployment of police in our country, what else would you have law enforcement personel do with all that quiet time? Not like there is crime to thwart, neighborhoods to patrol, or crime to solve.

 

[peacefuljeffrey]

If they weren't just abusing police power and attempting to do an end-run around probable cause -- if all they wanted to do really was reward responsible driving -- they could just search the DMV database periodically and mail movie tickets to those teen drivers who had no infractions on their licenses.

This is a sickening unconstitutional power-grab on the part of the police. Nothing more.

Besides, why just teens??
For one thing, anyone over teen-aged should bring suit against the police under an equal-protection argument. "Why do teens get given free movie tickets?! That's discrimination based on age!"

Oh, and what happens when they pull over a person who may "look like a teen" but who is not? If they look and see a crack pipe on the floor of the car, is that admissable, given that they pulled the person over with no more probable cause than, "He looked like a teen, and was driving perfectly fine, and so we wanted to give him some free movie tickets"?

This is a perfectly fu*#ed up situation, friends.


-Jeffrey

 

[romulus]

This country is getting stranger and stranger...

 

[lunaslide]

"We are living in dangerously weird times now." - Hunter S. Thompson

All I gotta say about this is...

 

[fjolnirsson]

And all I have to say is this...

 

[Sindawe]

As an aside: I have to wonder....

are we witness to the birth of a new metaphor in our language?

"Custer, at Little Big Horn"

"Shaka, when the walls fell"

"Coffee cans and dryer sheets, in the back seat"

 

[Hawk]

Well, after spending way too much time tracking down that coffee can reference, only to find the thread locked (not like I was gonna post anything anyway)...

May I suggest the Coffee Can be entered in the THR FAQ section?

Note to Vernal45: It hurts even more when it comes out one's nose. Zund owes me now...

 

[TarpleyG]

I was going to suggest what peacefuljeffrey did--why not simply mail these rewards to these teens? This is definitely a fishing expedition. Serious room for abuse.

Also, I keep hearing these references to coffee cans. Can someone post a link to the original thread about that so I am not in the dark anymore.

Greg

 

[griz]

I wonder how long it will be before somebody runs away from one of these free movie stops? What happens then? Pop him with a tazer and tuck the tickets in his pocket? (sarcasm off)

 

[walking arsenal]

They did this up here once or twice and it was pretty well received.

 

[CAS700850]

Call me crazy, and I'm sure may of you will, but why is this so awful? I mean, we harp on LEO's on this board all the time for being abusive, power weilding, a**holes, and here they are actually doing something that is not an abuse of power, friendly, and promoting better relations between the public and LEO's, and all I see is more abuse. I guess using this train of thought, when the local school resource officers went to a local boys home to reward him for saving a drowing child's life, the mother should refuse to let them in, because they didn't have a warrant, right?

As an aside, let me run this train of thought through here. LEO approaches teen driver, and compliments good driving. Hands the reward over, and sees a coffee can in the back seat. Immediately becomes the a**hole talked about so often around here, jerks the kid out, cuffs him for officer safety, and searches the vehicle. Say he finds teh remains of a joint somewhere. Get in court, and any defense attorney worth a darn is going to beat the charge with a Motion to Suppress the evidence. Why? To stop a vehicle, you must have reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. In this instance, the vehicle was stopped for exactly the opposite reason, due to the utter lack of any criminal activity. Any judge with working brain cells is going to throw that one out. Any prosecutor with a damn is going to reject the case before it gets that far.

Not all cops are evil folks.

Rant off. Flame away.

 

[dave3006]

USA = Police state.

 

[M109A6 Paladin]

Hey, if you can't bust a criminal in the act why not make one up by following someone around waiting for them to make a correctable non-violent infraction and blow it out of proportion.

Whenever my dad would notice a police car behind him he would pull over to let them pass. Every once in a while they would stop and ask why he did that. He'd tell them that he didn't liked being followed by the police who are out fishing to make a citizen a criminal for something minor like speeding 1 mile over the limit or stopping too close to a corner, etc.

Most of the time the cops were buttheads and said stuff like that's no way to drive. I told my dad that if he didn't like them back there that he should pull into the nearest driveway or store (be sure to use his turn signal naturally) and wait for them to pass. This worked out much better for him.