Here’s the third part of my series, “Thoughts on a Traffic Stop.” Here’s Part 1, which is the backstory to the stop. Here’s Part 2, on fighting bureaucracy.

Lesson 2: Drivers should rehearse in advance how they’ll handle a stop.

Cops stop people every day. The average driver never stops anyone, and is not stopped all that often. It takes practice to do a good job at stopping someone or being stopped.  Since cops have the opportunity to practice everyday, they tend on average to be pretty good at conducting traffic stops (relative to their aims in conducting one). By contrast, the average person tends to be flustered even by the most mundane stop. Since stops are an inherently adversarial event, one imposed involuntarily on you, you should want to prevail against your adversary. You can’t prevail without practicing the strategy and tactics you intend to use against that adversary (or worse, without having either strategy or tactics). So you ought to practice. Rehearsing for traffic stops may seem paranoid or weird, but it’s not. If stops are predictable, consequential, and adversarial, there’s no excuse for no practicing how you’d handle one (or a series of different ones). In my view, no one should drive without know exactly how they’d handle a stop within the next five minutes. Continue reading →

In my last post, on the backstory to my recent traffic stop, I mentioned that I didn’t think I’d get stopped for my not-suspended license and registration, but prepared for it anyway, and did get stopped. What happened next? In a certain sense, not much. I was stopped by Connor F. Gallagher of the Raritan Township Police Department. Gallagher asked for my license, registration, and proof of insurance, asked me whose car I was driving, and asked whether I had canceled my insurance policy recently.

I gave him the documents, answered that the car was validly registered, admitted that I had canceled my insurance policy, but told him that I’d worked the issue out with NJMVC, and had the documentation to prove it. I handed over the documentation, which he read aloud for his body cam; he then took the documents back to his car, processed the information for awhile, came back, gave me his card, and gave me a CAD incident number I could use if I was stopped in the future. By entering the number, the next officer could verify that I had cooperated with Officer Gallagher. After maybe fifteen minutes, I was on my way. Continue reading →