“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” Sigmund Freud
As a police officer, you have to make judgments and assessments about people with only what you have in front of you. To be fair, whenever someone is contacted by a police officer, that person will make judgments about the officer based on what they have in front them.
My last assignment in law enforcement was riding a motorcycle in our traffic unit. What a great job! In most of the Bay Area, you can ride a motorcycle comfortably eleven months a year… maybe more during a drought season. I rode and I issued lots of citations,
I took my job in traffic enforcement seriously and I made sure that I took extra time preparing the tools of my trade. Are citations a source of revenue for cities? Yes. Do citations change traffic patterns and make streets safer? Most emphatically… yes.
I attended the radar instructor school operated by the state. You know the old joke about how someone says their hands are registered as deadly weapons? Well, that’s not true… there is no such registry. However, when I completed the radar instructor’s course, I was authorized to make visual estimates of a vehicle’s speed, and my estimate… without the corroboration of any speed measuring equipment like radar or lidar… was admissible in court. So, I guess I could say my eyeballs were “registered” as an independent way of validating a vehicle’s speed. I kept that ace card close to my tactical vest but never used it in court.
Every day, before leaving the station on my motorcycle… a BMW 1150RT… I would thoroughly check my radar equipment. I would test the internal circuitry, and I would use a tuning fork to verify the radar device’s lab calibration. Finally, I would conduct a field test in the police department back lot. I completed this routine, without fail, every time I intended to use a radar device that particular day. I wanted to be 100% certain the device I used to assist me in issuing citations was working properly. I felt I owed that to any motorist I stopped for speeding. There was one more precaution… I locked the radar device assigned to me in my locker at the end of my shift. That meant I was the only officer who had access to that particular radar device. No one else on the traffic enforcement team used it. I wanted to be able to say with total certainty in court that the device was in perfect working order and had not been damaged.
Back to the business of traffic enforcement… writing tickets is a “grievance breeder.” Motorists sometimes feel that it is their word against the officer’s word, and that if they complain to the officer’s supervisor, their citation will get tossed. That ploy did not work at our agency, but people tried. I made it my practice to never stop anyone for speeding unless I was absolutely positive a violation had occurred and the equipment I was using was working properly. My precautions paid off in court and other officers began copying the techniques explained by me during my testimony at traffic trials. Defense attorneys would take notes on my methodology and use that information at other traffic trials when questioning officers about their traffic stops. Even a couple of traffic judges pulled me aside to ask about the mechanics involved in making traffic stops.
My tour riding a police motorcycle started and ended before cops wearing body cameras became fashionable. Oh, how I wish I had a record of motorists swearing at me, calling me names, and just being generally surly when I approached them during a traffic stop. Which leads me to describe how I conducted my stops. I had a script, and I delivered it each and every time I made a stop. I would give the motorist my name, tell them why they had been stopped, then I would ask for their driver’s license, vehicle registration and proof of insurance. Once I had the documents, before walking back to my Beamer, I would advise the motorist that I would be issuing a citation for the offense. Every time… not some of the time or most of the time… every time.
Who gets stopped? Drivers who are operating their vehicles unsafely or in violation of a Vehicle Code section, e.g., failing to stop at a stop sign. A traffic enforcement officer may notice that a vehicle is being maneuvered in a manner that does not conform to the rules of the road… that officer may stop such a vehicle. While working radar, an officer typically does not know who is driving a particular vehicle. However, there are times when an officer can see who is driving. There were some officers in our department who did not stop black drivers. They freely admitted they did not want to be accused of stopping someone due to the driver’s race and deal with a complaint that the traffic stop was racially motivated. I understand not wanting to be falsely accused of racism… no one wants to be placed in that position. However, if folks who belong to one specific race get a pass because of their race… how is that fair to drivers with other skin colors?
Then, it happened to me.
While working radar on a stretch of state highway, I stopped a black motorist for speeding. The posted limit on this roadway was 35 mph, but I made it my practice to stop vehicles traveling 50 mph or faster. I approached the driver and delivered my script. The driver gave me the requested documents and said, “I know the real reason you stopped me… because I’m black.” I was taken aback. How am I going to convince this driver that race is not the reason he was stopped?
I asked him to step out of the vehicle. Immediately, he became tense and responded that he would rather remain seated in his car. Opps… I realized he thought only bad things can happen if he gets out of his vehicle. I also recognized his past experience with any white cops had probably been negative. I goofed. I took a breath before explaining I simply wanted to show him how the radar equipment worked. His expression changed from one of concern to curiosity. He said, “OK.”
I demonstrated how the radar device captures the speed of an approaching vehicle. I asked him if he would visually estimate the speed of a vehicle traveling down the highway and coming in our direction. He agreed to try. I asked him how fast he thought the red car coming at us was moving. He said, “46.” I locked the vehicle’s speed at 47 mph on my radar device. I asked him if he could see the race and sex of the driver in the red car. He leaned forward and squinted… he could not answer those questions until the vehicle had nearly reached where we were standing on the side of the road. That’s when I turned to him and said, “Sir, I stopped your vehicle because you were speeding. I could not tell who was driving the vehicle.” Nothing else was said as we walked back to his vehicle. I issued a citation.
This was the first time I had encountered this type of situation, but it wasn’t the last. It happened a couple of other times with the same outcome. I treated everyone the same on traffic stops regardless of race, gender or any other characteristics. I wrote thousands of citations… more than anyone else on our team during my time riding a police motorcycle. I also gave more warnings. During my three year assignment to traffic enforcement: zero complaints filed.
Sometimes a car stop is just a car stop.
Copyright © 2025 by Ray Fowler
