This post is to help you learn how to avoid being stopped and or being ticketed or other situations that may be dangerous to you and the officer.

From the beginning,

Speed Traps

Speed traps are police departments number one source of income from citations.
Certain police departments use Radar which can only read your vehicles speed up to a certain distance, while this is outdated and very few departments still use this. It's the best method for a small town or patrol department.

Most departments and states use LIDAR, which is a forum of Laser detection and radar.
You ever notice while you traveling down the highway and see a state trooper out in the open? Don't you think they would hide so you cannot see them? No, that's not the case.
LIDAR can detect your vehicle from up to 2 miles away depending on the weather and road.

While traveling on the highway, always stay in the right two lanes. LIDAR has a width of about 1 meter at 300 meters. Police will focus on the left two lanes as most speeders are using those lanes. So whether you are speeding or just cruising, chances are you will not be detected. HOWEVER, if you are speeding to the point of where the officer will notice you are clearly well above the legal limit, he will stop you.

Most highways in America have a speed limit from 65-75MPH. Now no one ever travels that speed, you should always maintain a decent speed. Police Officers will focus on vehicles that stand out, so if you are traveling with the flow of traffic at 80MPH. Chances are you will not be stopped.

Police look for vehicles/people who stand out. If the flow of traffic is 75MPH and you are traveling at 90MPH, you will be stopped. It's about blending in.

Line of sight.
Line of sight plays a huge key on LIDAR/RADAR systems which can get you out of a ticket in court.

Referring back to the paragraph above, when traveling on the highway, the police officer will have their vehicles towards traffic, this provides them with an accurate detection of the vehicle.

When police officer are in certain areas, they cannot accurately detect your speed.
For example,

In this poorly drawn diagram i made. You can see the vehicle in white which would be you in this situation. If you traveling at a high rate of speed past an officer located in an area like the one shown. His LIDAR/RADAR will not properly pick your vehicle's speed up as the line of sight was not clear for an accurate detection. You could be traveling at 55MPH and it will show on his system that you were traveling at 85MPH.

Situations like this can be fought in court and the citation can be overturned.
It has happened to me a few times. I wrote a citation and it was overturned.

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Traffic stops.
This is the biggest danger to police as we do not know what will happen once we stop your vehicle.

We can run your plate number to see if the vehicle is stolen or wanted in connection with any crimes and who it is registered to.

With our LED on our side mirror, we will direct this towards your mirror, this is so if you decide to start engaging us, we can return to cover. The light makes it so you cannot see us in your mirrors due to the brightness.

During every stop as we approach the vehicle, we will always have our hand rested on our weapon for our safety. This is standard practice as we do not know you or your intentions.

What to do.

• Automatically turn your overhead lights on.
  
  
• Get all of your paperwork out and ready, including your wallet and license.
  Once i stop your vehicle, it will take me about 1-2 minutes to run your vehicle and contact our dispatch to inform them on where the stop takes place and your plate numbers and the make and model of your vehicle and then wait for a response, so in that 1-2 minutes you should get all of your paperwork out and ready, including your wallet and license.
  
  
• Keep your hands on the steering wheel.
  
• Roll down your windows.
  
• Turn your vehicle off
  
• TURN DOWN YOUR MUSIC, this is a number one annoyance for officers, including me. I don't want to approach your vehicle and hear "mask off" on 100 volume.
  
• Always be polite, whether you were in the right or wrong, if you believe you were not in the wrong, accept the ticket and fight it in court. If you argue with an officer, he will cite you for other violations you cannot fight in court.
  

WHAT NOT TO DO.

• Keep your vehicle in drive, this will show us you are thinking/looking to drive off.
  
• Move around a lot, reaching in your seats or other locations. This will make us think you are hiding a weapon or grabbing a weapon and will end with us drawing our weapons.
  
• Not have your documentation ready.
  I don't want to approach your vehicle and wait for you to dig around for 5 minutes for your documents.
  
  
• Have music playing loud
  
• Have an attitude,
  This is a big thing with traffic stops. If you have an attitude, this can change the entire stop to a different situation. I have stop vehicles for minor traffic violations and the person has gotten an attitude with me and was rude. In situations like this i will now cite you for more violations, some of which are dumb. For example, if you have head phones hanging from your mirror.
  
  Respect is key in this situations and can result in you not even getting a ticket at all.

This post is NOT to show you how to break the law, you should obey all laws at all times. This is simply to make you understand how it works.

Any questions, feel free to message or comment.