If you’re speeding and you get pulled over, that’s on you. But sometimes it isn’t always your fault. Cops are people, too, and occasionally they pull you over for reasons that, uh, aren’t always 100 percent legitimate.
Now, it’s not lost on me that for many people in America, race plays a part in this. Overall, black drivers get pulled over more frequently than drivers of other races, according to some 2011 figures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. It found:
A higher percentage of black drivers (13%) than white (10%) and Hispanic (10%) drivers were stopped by police during 2011.
Approximately 80% of drivers pulled over by police in 2011 felt they had been stopped for a legitimate reason. In 2011, about 68% of black drivers believed police had a legitimate reason for stopping them compared to 84% of white and 74% of Hispanic drivers.
A lower percentage of white drivers stopped by police in 2011 were searched (2%) than black (6%) or Hispanic (7%) drivers.
So some of your stories, we suspect, won’t be funny, but rather sad reflections on how our system treats people differently for no good reason.
But that might not be the case for you. Maybe the cop was jealous of your car and was just looking for a reason to give you grief. Maybe you got caught jaywalking, which everyone knows is technically illegal, but, like, come on.
What was the most bullshit reason that you’ve gotten pulled over for?