Originally Posted By: dishdude
Why do cops feel the need to give law abiding citizens a hard time?
It's a power thing. Did you ever see the Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fudd cartoon where a truck full of hats breaks open and the characters become the personality of the hat? That's exactly what happens to some cops when they put on the hat, strap on the gun and hide behind their badge.
A few years ago, I went to a movie theater across the state line with my wife and kids. When we got out of the theater, it was dark and when I turned my headlights on, I instantly saw one of them came on and a few seconds later burned out. Immediately I went to a WalMart and purchased a replacement headlight, but when I popped the hood, the air cleaner box was in the way and I couldn't change it in the parking lot. I headed home, and sure enough, a cop pulled me over on the way out of town because of a bad headlight. I told him that it had just happened a few minutes ago and I offered to show him the replacement headlight and receipt for the headlight that was just printed up a few minutes earlier. He didn't want to see either and wrote me a "fix-it" ticket and told me that the ticket had to be signed by a cop from my state (remember that I live in a different state as where the ticket was issued) and it had to be returned to the police station within 48 hours.
Luckily my niece, a state trooper, was visiting my family the next morning and I replaced the headlight, had her sign the ticket, and I drove back to the police station to the city where the ticket was issued. I walked in with the signed ticket (that had my niece's signature and police number on it) and turned it in. Despite not mentioning anything of the sort the previous night, they wanted to see for themselves that the headlight was fixed. I had driven a different vehicle to the police station the next morning and they almost made me drive home and bring back the vehicle that had the headlight replaced. I repeated pointed out that the ticket was signed and had the state trooper's badge number and work phone number behind the signature. I finally got them to admit that I showed them everything that was demanded the previous night and I left only after they admitted that everything was clear. They were very reluctant to let me leave and they tried hard to look for a loop hole.
Pr**ks.
