I had a car that was pulled over dozens of times so the cops could take pics with it. Most of the time it was cool.
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.
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
The city actually gave us permission for this and promised us there "probably" wasn't any trains using the track that day.
This was actually the first time we'd ever tried to fit the train wheels, we didn't realise they wouldn't fit over the brakes, so we had to do some disassembly to make them fit :p
Not saying I enjoy it. Not saying that I’d drive a giant banana either. But if I saw a police car, pull over a giant banana, I would think it was hilarious. That’s the definition of whimsy.
Being pulled over is a command under threat of violence, by an agent of the state empowered to use deadly force, who is mostly insulated from the consequences of poor judgement or abuses of power. Being pulled over by cops cannot be whimsical.
I had a car that was pulled over dozens of times so the cops could take pics with it. Most of the time it was cool. 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
https://imgur.com/a/vm0ud5y
That's an awesome story! deserves to be more than a hacker news comment with imgur links
Here's where the barriers came down and we panicked a little bit as we couldn't figure out how to get them back up :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBo1DvKzRJ4
The city actually gave us permission for this and promised us there "probably" wasn't any trains using the track that day.
This was actually the first time we'd ever tried to fit the train wheels, we didn't realise they wouldn't fit over the brakes, so we had to do some disassembly to make them fit :p
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLU4RPWjTY8
Not saying I enjoy it. Not saying that I’d drive a giant banana either. But if I saw a police car, pull over a giant banana, I would think it was hilarious. That’s the definition of whimsy.
Being pulled over is a command under threat of violence, by an agent of the state empowered to use deadly force, who is mostly insulated from the consequences of poor judgement or abuses of power. Being pulled over by cops cannot be whimsical.
Thankfully, not everyone thinks like you do. I have zero problems with police and never have. I trust you’ve heard of different opinions?
We can hold differing opinions about whether state sanctioned threats of deadly force are whimsical, but that is unarguably what being pulled over is.
The use of deadly force on unarmed civilians is a fact in the US, not an opinion.
Please tell me which "differing opinion" excuses rampant theft through Civil Asset Forfeiture which cops don't seem to have a problem with?
Whimsy should be consensual and not involve the threat of violence.