I hate when people ignore to check and don't accelerate when merging, no matter if on a freeway or else where. Unfortunately no matter how good or careful you are of a drivers, you are always sharing the roads with others that can be completely unreliable.

It's not a freeway (motorway), it's an A road; they're laid out differently. Laybys like that are really common.

That rest stop is very poorly designed. An on-ramp onto a freeway should be long enough to give merging traffic enough distance to accelerate to the speed of traffic on the freeway. Also, there should be signage to indicate there might be merging traffic.

To me, this looks very much a case of poor driving all around. The truck driver obviously wasn't paying attention to the on-ramp. He had six seconds to react and did nothing to avoid a collision for five of them. I imagine the letter of the law says that it's the merging car's responsibility to merge safely, but if you're driving in the outside lane past an on-ramp, you ought to be watching for merging traffic. Just having the right-of-way doesn't excuse you from being vigilant about avoiding accidents.

In a perfect world, yes, but in reality, no.
Police do not have to tell the truth, and if a lie gets them the upper hand, they'll often lie. Asking them to explain your rights, especially after annoying them by being obstinate and repeating to them that you know your rights, is just dumb imo. They have no obligation to teach you or to be honest about them and every incentive not to.....although it would be nice if they did.

Edit: asking for a lengthy explanation after being told 'any answer besides"yes" is considered refusal' is a point where you will be penalized for asking what your rights are....white, black, or purple.

Explain how it's ok to administer a test at any time but this time is harassment because he failed them, please, because that's contradictory.

He parked on the freeway causing suspicion,
admitted to drinking and driving requiring a field test,
didn't follow directions so failed the field test,
then obstinately repeated that with the breathalyzer by not answering yes and taking it. (After being told anything but yes legally means no).
Please, what's harassment there?....because there's definitely something more imo.

Remove race from the equation, and it's a good arrest. Adding race in does nothing to negate that imo.


Edit: I was a white punk with a long Mohawk. I got harassed far worse than this repeatedly, including being thrown to the ground at gunpoint because an officer read my plate wrong and accused me of being a car thief. Attitude usually has far more to do with the outcome than anything else in my experience. When I was polite and followed instructions I almost always walked, even when in the wrong. When I argued, I got slapped hard, like a vandalism charge for a 4" chalk line on a sidewalk or 2 hours of having my car searched in front of my friends house.

If I'm misunderstanding and you aren't claiming this was a dwb arrest, apologies. That's the part I'm debating, because it seems wrong.

No...he admitted to drinking at the dinner he was coming from, a legal reason to field test by itself. There's no question they can field test you for any suspicion, even no reason at all, and fail you for any tiny missteps they determine indicate impairment, then verify with a breathalyzer. Failure to submit to that impartial test is considered admission of guilt in most places.
He was let off most likely because he denied 'refusing' the test and they couldn't prove otherwise without recordings is my guess.

Why not intentionally waste their time and annoy them? Because defending yourself against charges that could be easily avoided is a pain, as he describes. The officers involved won't care if the charges stick, their point is made, they'll show you who can waste who's time and money more effectively, with little fear of consequences.
Edit: there's also the possibility that the police didn't show at the final trial appearance, which could also end up causing a dismissal of the case.

When you're illegally parked/stopped on a freeway shoulder you should expect to be looked at with suspicion, imo.

Jesus fucking Christ....What bullshit.
He failed the field test after illegally parking on the freeway with dealer plates and admitting to drinking and driving, argued and stalled rather than complied, and then played games with the field test, failing it, and didn't submit to the breathalyzer as required by law (you can't delay the test by arguing about your rights as he did, by law, they clearly warned him so). That's automatic conviction in most places....white or black.

Totally cuffed for cause, then eventually had the charges dropped because they "lost" the footage, but by his own words he's guilty of the charge of refusing the test.
Every bad experience had by a person of color is not institutional racism, especially when they're actually breaking the law and being belligerent....which he was by parking on the shoulder and arguing instead of complying with lawful commands. Had they not "lost" the video, he should have been convicted and had his licence revoked....white or black.

Thanks @C-note, you've single handedly turned me from someone who exposed racism to someone who now actively debunks it. Congratulations.

My pops had a motorcycle and got into an accident getting onto the freeway - supposedly wasn't even going that fast but took off all of the skin on his side. Can't believe this guy didn't get massively wrecked somewhere in there (and in good spirits directly afterwards)!

That's insane...NOBODY pulled over to watch, they all just kept driving while staring at the sky....on the freeway. Idiots.

Yeah, in Japan both people would have been at fault. They're really strict about that stuff. Even if you have the right of way, if an accident could have been avoided just by you being a more cautious driver, you'll wind up getting ticketed too.

Happened to my boss a month ago--he got hit at a light while making a turn during a green turn arrow (driver coming from opposite direction gunned it on the yellow but didn't beat the red). The police ruled that even though my boss had the right of way, a cautious driver should anticipate people trying to beat the light and check to make sure traffic coming from the opposite direction is fully stopped before initiating a turn, so both parties were at fault (though not equally of course).

Basically as a driver in Japan you are supposed to assume that everyone around you is an unsafe driver and take any necessary precautions to avoid accidents. The only time you'll 100% not be at fault for an accident is if you're rear-ended while fully stopped or if the car experiences a catastrophic mechanical failure (i.e. blowing a tire on the freeway causing you to temporarily lose control of the vehicle).

Wait...your take there is that Muslims are <1/4 as violent as Christians? Did you get whiplash turning around that fast?
What would I propose?
First, more assistance for the indigent, as economic status is far more important than race when determining a person's likelihood to use a gun on others. Remove the desperation, I expect you stop well over 1/2 of gun violence.
Second, recognizing that fighting the advanced military with semi auto rifles is futile, I would ban all full auto and mods, and extended mags with a buy back at market value (granted, a ban doesn't remove them, but stops more from being legally sold).
Don't pretend that, because that wouldn't stop all gun crime, it's useless. There is no silver bullet, that's no reason to take a moonlit walk on the moors during werewolf season. You can't stop all auto deaths, but we still stop people from jogging on the freeway

Edit: I agree with better mental health reporting/testing and better background checks (not necessarily longer, but remove the congressional roadblocks to making it near instant, nation wide, computerized, and more thorough)
Gun free zones are a failed experiment...ask DC. Unless you search everyone and everything entering the zone, it's worse than useless.

I don't think saying "hello, how are you?" and "no, I don't know why you pulled me over." are going to incriminate you... but it will make you look like a normal person with nothing to hide. Someone that sits there staring forward ignoring the cop like this lady just looks like they've come straight from robbing a bank.

This behavior reminds me of some friends when I was a teenager that would act suspicious in a dept store and then walk quickly for the exit so that security would chase them, and if caught they WOULD be innocent (and get to act like the victim), if not they get an adrenaline rush and a story.

If these cops had arrested this woman right away, THEN sure don't talk to them. But she jumped the gun and created the situation where she was being arrested from what looked like a routine traffic stop.(whether that was justified or not.)

I was stopped by a cop once on a freeway leaving a city and he said a car with the same description of mine had been stolen in the area. I showed my registration and he let me go on my way... If I had refused to say a word and just sat there, I would have looked very guilty and would probably have been arrested.

I like it.

In the situations where I would use my horn to avoid an accident, I'm usually too busy driving to take a hand off the wheel and sound the horn. If someone on the freeway is merging into my lane and about to collide with me, it seems I'm much better of braking and actively avoiding the collision myself rather than blowing my horn and counting on the other car to stop merging.

In my experience, aside from "excuse me the light is green", all horns actually communicate is "fuck you." For many those two are also the same thing. Personally, I don't have enough emotional investment in other drivers to want to swear at them with my horn.

I am surprised he just went right back up to high speed, many years ago while on a motorcycle on a freeway a car in front of me didn't respect the lane being closed and went through a bunch of cones which scattered all throughout the lane: this was basically a couple of seconds in front so nothing I could do but hope that 1) I would hit no cones and 2) that if I did I wouldn't fall down and be run over by the rest of the traffic. Luckily I missed all the cones but I had to stop in the emergency lane afterwards to calm down from the adrenaline...

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