Cops of Reddit were asked: “What’s the best story you have about pulling someone over?” These are some of the best stories.
I had this funny little pun I always wanted to crack when someone was speeding.
So, there I am, shooting with my laser and pulling over this guy in a Volvo. “That was a bit fast, may I see your pilot license?”
So, the guy in the Volvo responds, “Sure thing”, and provides a pilot license.
At that moment, I decided to stop making that joke, but I let him go with a warning. “Everything seems to be in order, drive a bit more careful from now on, will you?”
Anonymous
Late on a weeknight, I found a van sitting on the side of a county road. The driver’s side door was open, and the driver was in the seat with his legs propped up sticking out of the window. I turned around and stopped behind him. The guy in the driver’s seat was very drunk and passed completely out. He wasn’t even aware I had shown up. I had to shake him to wake him up. When he came to, he looked at me for a second, straightened up in the seat, fixed his clothes a bit, closed the door, put on his seat belt, leaned out the window and said, “Is there a problem, officer?”
FartingtonFartsworth
Whilst on patrol, the automatic number plate recognition camera detected a registration plate with no valid insurance.
Sure enough, we looked for a vehicle, and I immediately began chuckling. It was an on road mobility scooter. We pulled him over to make inquiries as to why it does not have an insurance. Learning a delightful lesson that it doesn’t need any, quite embarrassing, but the gent was in good spirit.
ThrowawayUK92
I was sitting at a red light at the end of my shift. The light turned green, and I released the brake and started rolling. I saw a car on the cross street that wasn’t slowing down for the red light. The guy blew the red light right in front of my marked unit. I made eye contact with the driver who appeared terrified and was frantically stomping the brake as if there was a live poisonous snake under him. Apparently, his brakes completely failed at that moment. Luckily, he didn’t hit anyone and was able to make it over some railroad tracks past the intersection. I hit the lights and stopped him as his two passengers helped him come to a halt Fred Flintstone style. We all had a relief laugh when it was over. I cut him a warning for defective equipment and reminded him that his car had a mechanical parking brake. In the panic, he completely forgot about it.
FartingtonFartsworth
While working as a flagman on a busy intersection, a cop pulled up in the turn lane and seemingly sat there without his blinker on. He waited, I looked at him curiously, he waited some more. So, unsure of his intentions, I didn’t flag in through. After allowing numerous other cars through, he pulled up to me slowly, rolled down his window, and asked me if I was going to wave him through, clearly agitated.
I told him he didn’t have his blinker on, so I wasn’t sure of his intentions. He protested. I insisted. So, he got out of his squad car to look.
His blinker was out. Ha!
bobdelany
I came up with something to say when women showed skin, “Ma’am, you would be completely embarrassed by trying that if you had any idea of what my wife looks like.” They would usually make a pouty face.
FartingtonFartsworth
Just two nights ago, I stopped a car that I thought could be a drunk driver at 3 am. They were going 15 under in the fast lane and swerving. I hit my lights, and they didn’t notice. I hit the siren, and they slammed on the brakes (all signs of DUI), and all of a sudden, the two people in the car start making frantic movements like they are hiding things. When I get out, they are still moving around, and I pull my gun on them and command them to put their hands in the air (I work in a pretty dangerous city), and I approached the vehicle. Turns out, they were both half naked pleasuring each other, and they were frantically trying to get their clothes on when I stopped them. I still wrote them a ticket for careless driving since they were all over the road.
lookatthemonkeys
During a code run (lights and sirens) to an alarm call, I pass a car that’s hovering among the lane divider lines. It was a white Toyota SUV. I thought, “They’re drunk” as I passed. I was canceled before I went on site, thanks to my swift backup, so I backtrack to find the SUV. It was now sitting amongst a ditch bank with the lights on. As I casually pull up and shine my million candle watt spot lamp in its direction, out jumps a woman in a night gown. She disregards me and runs for a bridge on the river. I didn’t notice at first, but as I gave chase and quickly caught up with her on the bridge, I see that she’s holding a rope. Among the rope is a poorly fashioned noose. In her feeble attempts to tie this rope to the bridge, I begin talking to her. I realize that she is completely sober, but during the course of our brief conversation, she has shed enough tears to fill a beer mug. Her gown is now drenched in tears. I politely take the rope from her and throw it aside. Her only words to me before I hugged her tight were, “My husband is not coming home from Afghanistan…” That was not a fun night, but I made a friend. I met Ashleigh in 2006, during a warm summer night. She’s an amazing person.
Kawpthrowaway
A rookie officer called out over the radio that he was going to check out a parked vehicle that had the alarm going off. As I went to back him up, he says over the radio that there are two naked women sleeping in the vehicle. We couldn’t get them to wake up, but I quickly realized that the woman who had her [butt] up in the air, and her face buried under the seat was actually a man. My Sgt. could not contain his laughter and kept asking the rookie if he knew the differences between a man and a woman. We called EMS and gained entry into the vehicle by breaking the window. The two people in the vehicle were naked, drunk, and covered in urine. I was also new at the time, so I tried really hard to keep it professional in front of my Sgt, but when the two people asked us to shine our flashlights into the car so that they could find their underwear, I couldn’t contain my laughter.
Streetcop
I was on a stop in a pretty rural area, just off the freeway off-ramp. My partner rolls up to back me up while I’m finishing up the ticket for my contestant. So, to visualize it, we are both stopped on the shoulder with both our car’s rear lights on. We notice a motorcyclist coming towards us on the shoulder, meandering straight toward the back of my partner’s car. Just before the guy runs into the back of the patrol car, he barely comes to a stop, then in slow motion, falls to his left, then rolls into the traffic lane like a big 300-pound roly poly. My partner and I run over to him, and he blurts out in the most slurred voice imaginable, “What are you guys doing stopped there?!”
Mr144
I pulled over Chewbacca on his way to a convention. It’s illegal to drive with masks on, as it interferes with your perception of the road. It was funny seeing him drive opposite while I sat at the longest red light ever. I looked at him in awe, then turned to see if anyone else had witnessed this. My eyes were met by those of a middle aged man in a Corvette next to me. We laughed real hard before I tracked him down harder than Boba Fett does. Chewie did not get a citation.
Kawpthrowaway
I was running radar and stopped this lady in a convertible for speeding. As soon as I walked up to her door, she apologized for speeding and said that her period had started, and she was rushing to the store to buy some tampons. I was skeptical until she pulled up her skirt, and I saw the blood stain. She was immediately sent on her way.
isdlt
I was a park ranger for the county metro parks. In our county, rangers are fully-sworn officers, so we were a police force, not just security guards.
One fall night, I was sitting in a parking lot, just listening to the radio, when a car pulls in. As usually happens, as soon as the headlights hit my cruiser, they slam on the brakes and three-point turn out of there. (No…. not at all suspicious)
So, I watch the headlights go down the road, and through the trees, I see them pull into another lot and park. I wait about 15 minutes, then without turning my headlights on, go after them.
I pull in the lot, then hit the car with my high beams and spotlight. All of the sudden, a head pops up and the car wiggles. Okay, no big deal, just some kids. I approach the car and get their IDs and all that, but while I’m talking to them, I can see a wet spot start spreading on top of this kid’s thigh. Seems that he put his junk away a little soon and popped while I was talking to them. It was all I could do to keep a straight face and told them to get out of there.
felisrufus
About 3 or 4 AM, I see a car going South at a very slow rate of speed, about 10 in a 45, inside lane. I get behind him and follow for a while. Other cars are zooming by, so I light him up for impeding traffic. The guy takes FOREVER to stop, but he finally does in a parking lot. I walk up, and he and his passenger are nervous. Will not make eye contact and won’t turn his head one bit. The smell of weed is permeating the night air, and the smoke is still lingering in the car like a cliche Cheech and Chong scene. I ask for his license, and he slooooowly gets it for me.
Meanwhile, my Sarge walks up on the passenger side, unbeknownst to the passenger. Sarge pierces the nighttime with his lightsaber of a flashlight into the passengers lap, and the glove box miraculously pops open without being touched and a rather LARGE sack of weed tumbles out into the passengers lap. I look over the car at my Sarge, and we just start laughing. The two guys in the car just tried to act like it wasn’t there. Needless to say, they both spent time in the pokey that night.
dlowe402
The scariest story was when I was parked in front of a troublesome night club that was getting out at 2 AM. I got behind this reckless car leaving, and when I got behind him, he started fleeing. It was my first pursuit, so I chased him around for about 10 minutes before we came to the freeway on ramp. The ramp curved right and a 4-foot concrete barrier separating the lanes of the freeway. When I came around the corner, the car had crashed in the turn and a giant cloud of smoke blocked my vision. I tried to avoid the crash, but in the process, my patrol car hit the concrete barrier, and I blacked out for a second.
When I opened my eyes, my car had somehow jumped up on top of the concrete barrier and was grinding it like a skateboard. All I could focus on was the drop off on the other side of the freeway. I thought I was going to fall down there. Luckily, my car just landed on the other side of the barrier on the wrong side of the road. Somehow I was fine, and when I stopped, I saw that a bunch of people from the suspect’S car were fleeing. I got out and started chasing them. Luckily, we caught most of them, and I didn’t get hurt- seeing how I could have killed myself.
After that, I told myself I’m never going to put myself in danger like that for something so stupid like a possible drunk driver. I always tell that story to new officers because you get so excited and caught up in your first pursuit that it can go bad so fast. I will still pursuit cars, but if they get away, they get away.
lookatthemonkeys
It was a cool, crisp weekend night. I work the graveyard shift in a large city, so I am usually kept very busy. Except this night was different and so it was calm, I was just cruising around not expecting much. Then I see it. The small brown pickup swerving from left to right like a cheesy nerf gun bullet. I stop the truck and approach the driver. He’s frightened looking and statuesque. His knuckles are white from squeezing the steering wheel. His gaze is straight and unrelentingly forward. As I pursue a battery of questions relating to his sobriety, I realize he is not sober, nor is he aware I exist.
I politely request that he remove himself from the vehicle, in which his no response was a refusal. I then demand it and get no response. His Nissan b-model truck’s door rattles when I open it, and the man doesn’t stir. When I reached for his wrists to pull him ajar, he struggled briefly. All my strength was focused on his left hand, just as his right hand went down to the seat. His dirty skinned arm returned into my sight too quick for me to retreat, and I stared for a millisecond down at a syringe jammed into my forearm and dangling in the breeze.
This was a long millisecond, as it took me that long to divert all of my strength and adrenaline to removing him from his vehicle and proceeding to shatter his jaw with my fists, during one of the shortest but craziest fights of my career. He had Hepatitis C and HIV. Today, he is eating blended foods as his jaw lost 95% range of motion. I am disease free 8 years after my rookie mistake if not checking his surrounding area visually. He managed, by my luck, to grab the only unused syringe among 5 sitting next to him. Yeah. Lucky me. Unlucky for him I am an MMA trainee and had been for years previously.
Kawpthrowaway
My brother recently became an officer and is currently going through the field training. He went to a call where a lady flew up and caught some air on an embankment in a construction site before wrecking her vehicle (nobody was hurt). His FTO asked him what he was going to cite her for and he replied, “Flying without a pilot’s license?” They had a good laugh at that.
Anonymous
My dad has a friend who is California Highway Patrolman. He says that during a traffic stop, it’s fairly common for other motorists to pull over behind the CHP cruiser and ask for directions or something along those lines. So one night, this guy has a car stopped and another car pulls over behind him. He heads over to the second car, after he finishes ticketing the first car, and the conversation goes like this:
Cop, “Something I can help you with tonight?”
Dude,”No thanks officer, just waiting for the light to change.”
It becomes quite apparent that this dude is drunk as hell and thought the multi-colored lights on the police cruiser was some sort of stop light.
rever3nd
I got pulled over in full dress uniform with my girlfriend in the passenger seat on our way to a wedding.
Long story short, we’re in a pack of cars going about 80 in a 55. The speed limit had recently dropped from 65 (and we’re on I-95, so everyone drives around 80 regardless), and we pass a cop. It had been a long day, and she says, “The last thing we need is to get pulled over.”
So, of course, we get pulled over. Trooper marches up to the car, looks in at me being fully dressed, looks at the girl in a formal dress, looks back at me, and just sighs and says, “Yeah, you’re good” and marches back to his car.
DolphinSixFive
Not a cop. I’m a dispatcher. One of my units pulled up to an apparently disabled motor vehicle. Just as he gots out of the car, one of the subjects exits the vehicle and runs across a busy interstate. A foot pursuit begins, and the driver of the “disabled vehicle” drives away. Madness ensued with officers from all of the departments in the bordering towns showing up, as well as, tracking dogs and multiple helicopters. The guy gets surrounded in the woods 10 minutes later and is arrested. The driver drives right up to the gaggle of police cars looking for the other party and is arrested as well. Turns out, the running subject thought there was a warrant out for his arrest. There were none…
c0ntrol_
I didn’t get pulled over, but when I was in high school, I was driving to a place that was 45 minutes away, and I only knew one way to get there. One of the streets was torn up due to construction, but there was a small narrow paved area through the construction that a cop was blocking. I pulled up to the copy and told him that I needed to get to a house down this street, so he said, “Follow me.” So, he starts driving down this strip, and I get behind and follow him. After we get past the construction, he pulls off to the side and rolls down his window so I pull up next to him. “What the hell are you doing you can’t drive down there!” “You told me to follow you.” “I didn’t mean to literally follow me!” I didn’t get a ticket or anything, but what did he mean if not literally to follow him? Spiritually? Emotionally? It still confuses me to this day.
jeff409
My favorite is from my home state dashcam video of a stop. This girl in a whiny voice says something like, “But I thought cops didn’t give pretty girls tickets.” Cop responds, “You’re absolutely right… Here’s your ticket.”
meco03211
My dad pulled over a guy on a bike for riding around a park naked during the pouring rain. His response, “I was just enjoying nature.”
gettindemdownvotes
My grandpa was a highway patrolman for years. One day, he pulled over a girl for speeding and gave her a ticket and so on. That night, he was at a dinner with his family and overhears a conversation of a girl complaining to her friends, “Some cop gave me a ticket. I was only going 15 over!” He then turned around and goes, “Sorry honey, you were going 70 in a 45. Don’t lie.” She then stopped talking and left.
Sgerrard08
My law teacher told our class about one of her good friends who was an officer. One night, he was working the graveyard shift, and he was making his way back to the station to end his shift when he saw a van that had a tail light out. He pulled the van over with the intention of giving him a warning. As he approached the van, the driver stuck a gun out the window and shot at him several times, hitting him once in the vest. He called it in, and they detained the guy soon after. Turns out, he two little girls tied up in the back of his van. I always thought that was the most incredible cop story I have ever heard.
htimSronnoC
Some women expose their breasts to get out of tickets. That’s what this hot, dirty blonde did one day in her Mercedes.
She asked if I was gay when I didn’t react. I said, “Ma’am, not only am I not gay, but you are bribing a police officer through sexual means. If I accept this bribe and do not write you a citation, I would have broken my oath as a law enforcer to hold everyone as equally accountable to another. I could very likely lose my job. You will also go to prison for bribing a law enforcement officer. So, I will instead, save us both the time, and write you a citation as your actions have guaranteed you to earn. Also, my wife means much more to me than your much older breasts. You have court on…”
She was pissed, complained about me to my sergeant. Told her, “Shut up.” Sometimes, you don’t want to talk to the sergeants.
Kawpthrowaway