Teresa, cops don't pull people over randomly. There must be probable cause, which must stand up in court, or the case would be thrown out. Take a look at the California Vehicle code. There are over 40,000 reasons why a cop can pull a car over, but the simple ones like expired registration, improper registration tabs, and broken lights, are often the easiest to spot and make up the most common traffic offenses. Once there's a legal reason to pull a car over, the officer can start other investigations - like a DUI investigation - even though that was not the initial reason for the stop. Most people who believe they were pulled over for no reason, have never looked at the California Vehicle code.

Here's the truth:  "Probable cause," is not required.  A lower standard of "reasonable suspicion" is all that's needed for a cop to pull over a car.  

This is often stated as "articulable reasonable suspicion."   And, all a cop needs to do is  say that he believed the driver was swerving or driving too slowly or too fast--even if that's not the case.  

We believe that some cops are simply lurking near bars and restaurants at certain times of night and are stopping as many cars as they can in the expectation that they'll probably stumble across someone who has been drinking and driving.

In order to catch as many impaired drivers as possible, we believe they are engaged in quick catch and release procedures.

As we previously reported, the CM PRESSMOBILE has been stopped twice by cops in Costa Mesa even though we don't drink or do drugs and we weren't coming from bars or restaurants.  

Both stops were bogus--the first stop was for "impeding" even though our car and the cop car were the only two cars on the road and the cop was even going in the opposite direction (!), and we were going the speed limit.  We didn't get a ticket for anything, because, again, the excuse for stopping us was bogus. 

The second bogus stop was because we supposedly "didn't stop before turning right on a red light (we did stop)." We didn't get a ticket once the cop realized we hadn't been drinking or doing drugs. 

We figure the cops in both bogus stops didn't want to waste time writing up bogus tickets and just wanted to get back on the road to stop others who came along into their net.
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WE DISAGREE WITH MAYOR RIGHEIMER