Latest / Connor with Honor: AI, Real Estate and Real Life / Three E's of Traffic from a X motorcycle officer's point of view and how you can help yourself if you get a ticket

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Three E's of Traffic from a X motorcycle officer's point of view and how you can help yourself if you get a ticket · Connor with Honor: AI, Real Estate and Real Life

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: A little bit of anger.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry about that.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I know that uh some some of you are pretty emotional because you've gotten a ticket and you believe it's not justified.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: I get that.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a an account of perception.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: So as a cop when I was out there writing all those tickets, it there was a task.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was something that we were mandated to do.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now I don't know if that's changed so much, but you know, it wasn't my favorite thing.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: But you get the motorcycle, you work traffic enforcement, you do understand the philosophy that there are five major causes of traffic collisions.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: The fatal type.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: And whenever you get one cop out there in the street that's monitoring traffic out there just to educate, engineer, and enforce the traffic laws, then by engineering I mean if there is some issue, like, for example, if a stop sign doesn't exist and there's a danger out there for the world, then they should go to the engineering department and say, listen, I've been out in my travels when I've done I've done this before, South of Ventura Boulevard there in Los Angeles.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this should have a stop sign there.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: I believe there's enough traffic to necessitate the placement of a stop sign.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: So then they do a survey and they do studies and then they send somebody out from the city and they do their research, and then lo and behold, after a while, there is a stop sign put there.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the stop sign has particular uh a methodology that goes with it.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: For example, there's certain rules that apply to the violation of that particular stop sign.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, that can be fought in court.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: If somebody gets a citation for a stop sign that the city erects and they don't believe it's possible, they could go to court and fight it.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: But as far as perception goes, with the five major causes of traffic collisions, a lot of it's speed related.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Speed's kind of a top one.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: DUI, of course, is another one.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: DUI is a misdemeanor type crime.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: But if we're going to talk about traffic citations, the perception is as follows.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: The cop goes out there, he's been tasked with trying to control a particular problem.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: For every person that the police officer stops, there's another bazillion that drive by and they self-convict.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: They believe that, oh my gosh, there's a police officer out here, I'm going to slow down or I'm going to do the right things.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's how the mechanism is supposed to work.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: So the police officer pulling somebody over, writing them a ticket.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: That person then is going to go tell everybody, this prick cop wrote me a ticket for doing something I don't remember doing.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Perception.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Police officer is out there tasked with writing a citation on this particular street, or they want to, or whatever it may be.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're just, you know, one of those people that was beaten up when they were kids and they decided to get back at the world by becoming a police officer.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I've seen all types.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was doing that job for a very long time.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: LAPD retired.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: There you go.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Without the money.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so let me throw that out there.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe they got on the job for that reason.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, they're out there enforcing that particular vehicle code, whatever it is, speeding, red lights, stop size, pedestrian violation, turning violations, whatever.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: You are in your car, on your motorcycle, or on foot, whatever your violation of the day happens to be, and you are not thinking of getting stopped.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: You're not thinking about police.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: You're not thinking about anything else.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: You're in your own world.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're thinking of something other than being pulled over for a traffic citation and getting that citation written to you.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: You're not thinking about that.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: So most people, when police stop them, they ask that question, which I really I never was one to ask that question.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like it.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know why I stopped you today?
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was always I'm Officer McIver, Los Angeles Police Department Valley Traffic Division.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: The reason why I stopped you today was this.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have any legal justification for doing this?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever that is, whether it's speedy, stop, sign, red light.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that was it.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then if they were able to give me legal justification, which I've I've never heard legal justification.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: I guess cutting a finger off.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: I had this.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: He actually cut his finger off.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was in a napkin.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: He was running to the hospital, driving really fast to try to get the finger attached.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: We won't talk about whether or not I wrote him the citation.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't do it there.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: If I was going to write it, it would have been at the hospital at some later point.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: But again, that's kind of CS, right?
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Little chicken shit.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, do you have legal justification?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: If not, you just see your license, registration, insurance, and done, finished.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the videos that we see are people that are talking about they didn't know why they were stopped.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, of course.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because also the other thing is maybe it took a while for the cop to catch you.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you were driving 60 miles an hour in a 35 mile an hour zone, that cop has to go from zero where he was sitting on his police motorcycle, or even worse, in a police car, and try to catch you.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: So he's traveling a lot more than 65 miles an hour.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, violating the basic speed law, absolutely, to try to catch you.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: And there were some of those rides that were a lot more e-ticket related than others because you are going from zero miles an hour against a curb, you're clearing traffic, and then all of a sudden you get on that gas and you are going as fast as you can to catch the person that was violating the law.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Having said that, there are mistakes made.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: The vehicle should be guaranteed to be the one that was originally spotted by the police officer.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: In some cases, if there happens to be another vehicle that looks incredibly similar, that might be a reason why you have no idea what you were doing was wrong because really it wasn't you.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that is an argument that can be presented if in fact that applies to you.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: But in most cases, I believe people they completely forget where they were and they don't remember at that moment the law enforcement officer said that they were doing what they shouldn't have been doing.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: They just don't recall.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: So then when you get the cops stopping you and say, Do you know why I pulled you over?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I would often respond, if I got stopped, I would say, you tell me.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Or I wouldn't say anything.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Is there anything else I can help you with?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have any, I don't know why you stopped me.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: What do you need?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I stopped you because you were speeding.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: What do we do from here?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, do you have any reason why you're speeding?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what you're talking about.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't speeding.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: What do you need now?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, you don't have to be a prick, but you can be polite.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, if you're going to hold back your ID and not give it to you because you're a free inhabitant or whatever you believe your constitutional rights are against self-incrimination, or you don't have to give up, you know, your information.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: You're driving a car, that car requires you to have a license.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: The officer's going to need to see that.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: If not, they're going to take the car because you don't have a license.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a little bit of push-pull there.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know people say, well, cops lie.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure that's the case.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Personally, never have, because I didn't think there was honor in that.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I wasn't even one of those cops that got pissed off when somebody went to court and actually won a case where I had all the evidence, I had all the information, I had everything dialed in.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: I gave perfect testimony.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't miss a beat, and the person said something just odd that the judge deemed beyond a reasonable doubt, that's the judge's call or a pro Tim's call.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Not my call.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't get upset, I didn't lose sleep over, I didn't worry.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, if you do win in court, you don't have to be concerned about a cop sending out all their buddies against you, giving them the license number and your description, saying, Oh, we're gonna have to pull everybody over that lives at this particular residence around tickets.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's big sin stuff, folks.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's go-to-prison stuff.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: I can't imagine police officers doing it, at least at the bigger agencies, at the smaller ones.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know those games.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: We all hear stories.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: But as far as big police, no way.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then as far as there being some secretive conspiracy with police officers against one another, nobody's gonna lose their job for another one of us.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody's gonna hinge an entire career supporting a family and being able to pay their bills and live in a house and have a car and being able to make a living on what somebody else does.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: If that ever was the case in the past, that ship is sailed, folks.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: There is no brotherhood like that.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And if somebody goes out there and violates the law as a police officer, good luck on them keeping that a secret.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be their partners, it's going to be other people, it's going to be a lot of people bringing that to the front and basically reporting that cop.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when police officers are doing their job, understand that they have their entire shift to fix something.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're in your car refusing to give your driver's license or identification because you believe that you don't have to in this world, they have a long time to play this out.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, there are other people that might be in danger, have an emergency, these sorts of things.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: But that police officer is going to stand there until it is resolved.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you break down or whether they have to extract you out of the vehicle because they've formed some opinion that you now are more of a threat than you were before, because really in the big world of things, I don't know how many people do not get out of their vehicle or do not give up their driver's license identification.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: But if that's your choice, great.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: I love the playing field though.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: I love the game.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's wonderful when people go to court, fight the police, and win.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's honorable.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's something if you believe that you didn't commit the violation whenever the officer said you did, however, they said it happened, and they played all the word games, understanding they're building evidence from the very beginning of that violation to all the way through the traffic stop.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't believe you did it, then you need to go stand up for yourself.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Then it comes down to time and you have a job and it's expensive because you got to go to court.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Again, go talk to your boss.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they can give you a little bit of leeway with regard to employment so you can go and fulfill this.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: But do your research.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Understand the vehicle code section that was written.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Understand what the officer told you.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Take some notes.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you're gonna videotape and record it, great, just make sure that that's legal and wherever you are, and you're not gonna get in trouble for something in addition.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I wouldn't think that's a problem to be able to have your own record of the events as they took place.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Most police are gonna have video cameras.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: They might have even video cameras the actual violation.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that's a thing.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Back in my day, it wasn't, but video cameras, right before I got done with that whole line of work, they started to become implemented in a lot of cases.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: We had tape recordings.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: We recorded the entire traffic stop beginning to end.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: It went from tape and then it went digital.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Then they thought digital could be manipulated, so then that changed, and then finally digital was accepted, and they had mechanisms to be able to tell if the actual digital recording was manipulated, changed, or basically modified in any way.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: So that was used.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: I never used it in court usually just because it was just a mess, especially with a magnetic tape or the microcassette tapes.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: But there were cops that kept, you know, control of all of that in a very beautiful way.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was never, it was never that big of a deal to me.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: But I do know this, and I'll close with this.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And this isn't some excuse against the cop that wrote you the ticket or that, you know, you should feel better about it.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, whenever police officers are working on a street that has a high incidence of speed-related death crashes, and they're out there enforcing the law, and you're not speeding, usually you're not going to get stopped.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: But if you are getting stopped and it's not it, you didn't do it, you can follow that up in court.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: But for the most part, it does reduce the amount of death on that particular street.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And when one person has written a citation, everybody else that passes by is now convicted in some sort of way mentally that they bring to their awareness, not where they were, playing in their mind and on their little vacation or where they're going to be going in the future.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: But now all of a sudden, they're critical of themselves.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: They slow down and they pay attention for a little while until they go back into that world of fantasy or stress or whatever it is they are living their lives on.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Connor with Honor.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: I hope this helps you understand a little bit more of my method.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: And personally, that whole you know why I pulled you over thing, that just irritates me.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: I would never have asked that.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: When I stop people, I would tell them why I pulled them over, give them a chance to explain if they want to, and then we move on from there whether I'm gonna write the ticket or not write the ticket.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Be well, we'll see you in the next one.