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I think an LEO can and does do both a public service stop and a little fishing. I've been stopped for a taillight or a headlight out before, and it seemed fairly obvious to me that the LEOs were looking for drunk drivers. They were polite and informed me of the light problem, but lost interest in me fairly quickly when I showed no signs of inebriation.

Robert*PPS wrote:I think an LEO can and does do both a public service stop and a little fishing. I've been stopped for a taillight or a headlight out before, and it seemed fairly obvious to me that the LEOs were looking for drunk drivers. They were polite and informed me of the light problem, but lost interest in me fairly quickly when I showed no signs of inebriation.

THIS ^

I believe to be common... stopped to say Hey, ya know you have a light out? But observant as well for anything in plain view or otherwise suspicious. No bad guy stuff often results in no ticket..

OldCurlyWolf wrote:

PSTL*PAKR wrote:NOT AIMED AT THE OP. JUST IN GENERAL....Why do CHL holders feel like they shouldnt be ticketed when pulled over? Get upset when they do receive a citation. We are not above the law or even equal to the law. Police officers do not consider us "one of them"or "like them." But a lot of CHL holders feel like LEO's shouldnt write us up if we break the law. My twin brother is a police officer. (H.P.D) He says there are a lot of cops that would even ticket their OWN MOMS for speeding. I feel like if you do the crime, you got to do the time!

I was accused of a similar position. Another officer said I would give my own Grandmother a ticket. I answered that if she messed up bad enough I would.

Just can't resist telling about a local DPS patrolman (now retired) who was notorious for writing a ticket...if you got stopped you WERE going to get a citation...you just knew it up front. He once stopped his WIFE, and wrote her a ticket for speeding in town. After that, I never heard anyone complain about him not letting THEM off again.

PSTL*PAKR wrote:NOT AIMED AT THE OP. JUST IN GENERAL....Why do CHL holders feel like they shouldnt be ticketed when pulled over? Get upset when they do receive a citation. We are not above the law or even equal to the law. Police officers do not consider us "one of them"or "like them." But a lot of CHL holders feel like LEO's shouldnt write us up if we break the law. My twin brother is a police officer. (H.P.D) He says there are a lot of cops that would even ticket their OWN MOMS for speeding. I feel like if you do the crime, you got to do the time!

I know this wasn't aimed at me but I wanted to mention that the prevailing attitude seems to be more of a gratitude that we (CHL's) seem to get out of some tickets that we think we would/should have gotten otherwise. I haven't seen the entitlement attitude you are referencing. (at least not in the threads I've read)

talltex wrote:Just can't resist telling about a local DPS patrolman (now retired) who was notorious for writing a ticket...if you got stopped you WERE going to get a citation...you just knew it up front. He once stopped his WIFE, and wrote her a ticket for speeding in town. After that, I never heard anyone complain about him not letting THEM off again.

Lordy, would I have liked to have a fly on the wall in that home that night.

baldeagle wrote:

talltex wrote:Just can't resist telling about a local DPS patrolman (now retired) who was notorious for writing a ticket...if you got stopped you WERE going to get a citation...you just knew it up front. He once stopped his WIFE, and wrote her a ticket for speeding in town. After that, I never heard anyone complain about him not letting THEM off again.

Lordy, would I have liked to have a fly on the wall in that home that night.

Yep, and the tickest was for a pretty minor infraction...something like going 40mph in a 30mph zone... I expect the cold front we have right now is nothing compared to the frosty atmosphere he found in his house for at least a week...

flechero wrote:Granted he could have been fishing for dope smell or whatever. But the fact is that I DIDN'T know I had a brake light out and the IS ticketworthy. I was surprised to not get a ticket.

So you guys are saying that ANY stop that doesn't end with a predetermined ticket, with no explanation or context involved, is a fishing expedition? I think that is a real negative statement about our law enforcement. I hope I missed some context in your posts. And if that is really what the job is these days, I give the Deputy credit, he's doing his job better than any other LEO I have contacted.

Call it what you want, I call it a good contact because compared to all other stops I remember, this one was a pleasant, and involved true public service. (many others also didn't involve a ticket)

He did a fine job. Not all of us are ticket crazy. I never saw this kind of enforcement until I moved to TX. Budgets are solved on ticket revenue. Warnings are part of police work, and IMO TCSO is a great dept.

Nobody signed up to work "equipment light enforcement"

It's a way to get into bigger things.

edited so it wouldn't be mistaken as a personal confrontation.

flechero wrote: Really? We are presumed guilty?

The stop was legitimate. Brake light out, owner probably didn't know. However, there is a clear statistical trend between people not maintaining their vehicle and various issues of offenses that come into consideration. Brake light out isn't a big deal. The problem, and if my daughter (also an LEO) was on here, she would confirm, is that there's a "chain-of-irresponsibility" that tends to be discovered. Registration expired, inspection out of date, no insurance, etc. You'd be surprised at how the small things lead to big things. I wouldn't call it fishing though, it's all based on observable evidence. The whole scenario seemed perfectly fine to me.

OldCannon wrote:

flechero wrote: Really? We are presumed guilty?

The stop was legitimate. Brake light out, owner probably didn't know. However, there is a clear statistical trend between people not maintaining their vehicle and various issues of offenses that come into consideration. Brake light out isn't a big deal. The problem, and if my daughter (also an LEO) was on here, she would confirm, is that there's a "chain-of-irresponsibility" that tends to be discovered. Registration expired, inspection out of date, no insurance, etc. You'd be surprised at how the small things lead to big things. I wouldn't call it fishing though, it's all based on observable evidence. The whole scenario seemed perfectly fine to me.

And that is what I thought I was reading as well.. stated as such several posts upo.

It was a reason to stop and inform, if nothing bad was observed, a reminder to fix the light and off he went.

Call it fishing, call it being observant and aware. A good service was done by the LEO for the driver.. the LEO was doing his job, and used his discretion to not cite the infraction, likely because it was not needed to accomplish the task.. Inform and influence the decision to get the light fixed, and yes while there be observant to anything suspicious.

The stop was fine, as acknowledged by my initial post and praise.



edited to bail out of this discussion.

Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't a light out fall in the non-moving violations like expired tags or inspection? Yeah it was ticketable but as evidenced by the OP, the good public relations went a lot further than the potential revenue.

And GigAg, I see what your saying, call it two birds with one stone.

Added in edit: My wife got stopped for no taillights, but she could see the headlights were on. When the cop told her what was up, she had no idea what was wrong to cause the outage, so he offered and followed her home since she was close so she wouldn't get run over. It was a 2002 Prius and what had happened is the headlights were actually turned off by the oil change people (she keeps them on all of the time to prevent this kind of thing) and the safety lights (low beams) were still on. Both the digital speedometer and the monitor were brightly lit. She was simply too tired to notice the accessory lights on the console were off or the headlight symbol wasn't illuminated.

He was a young Flower Mound cop that my wife fully believes was "watching out" for the two beauties she had with her. It's now part of the checklist whenever we have the car serviced to make sure the lights are really on.