You can see today’s Ask up there, and the obvious answer is “the one you’re doing crime in” or “the one with an APB.” But since you are all 100% law-abiding individuals, let’s go a little deeper and consider which cars are inherently more likely to get the attention of law enforcement, assuming you aren’t doing anything more nefarious than, say, going 65 in a 55.
In my experience, truly shitty shitboxes tend to be cop magnets. I don’t know why this is. It’s like the police are saying, “Everyone is going ten over, who do I nab? This guy looks poor, but he could be poorer” (Flips on blue lights). Fifteen minutes later, the $200 you were saving for school books is instead going to a baloney ticket. And you’re late for class. I do not miss those days.
Some of you might say the flashier and sportier your car is (or Corvettier, based on the topshot), the more likely you are to get pulled over. That feels true, and I can confirm that I got way more tickets driving my red Mustang GT than I did in any other car ever, by like a lot, but I was also speeding constantly, so fair.
I attempted to Google “What cars are more likely to get pulled over” and got an AI Overview because you can’t turn that shit off:
OK, so A. settle down, WRX drivers, and B. those are all cars that encourage and reward “spirited driving,” and cops hate that, but also C. the Mazda 3? Zoom-zoom, I guess. Gotta admit, I got a little hoony when I rented one.
My Google search also turned up this informative Reddit thread in r/AskLE: Are there certain vehicles you are more inclined to pull over?
Therein, an actual Deputy Sheriff commented,
I’m more inclined to pull vehicles over whose drivers are committing traffic violations than I am vehicles whose drivers are not committing traffic violations.
And if certain model/color cars get pulled over more often it’s not a cause/effect relationship. It’s more likely it’s because the people who drive certain types of cars with certain paint schemes are more likely to commit traffic violations than the person driving their kids around in a minivan.
… aaaand he’s probably right, but what comes first: the behavior, which lends one to a certain type of car, or does the car come first, and it warps the driver? I feel like having 400+ horsepower Mustang after owning cars with max outputs of less than 150 horsepower broke my brain a little, TBH.
You all figure it out. Which cars are most likely to catch police attention just by existing? Which cars encourage drivers to be a little fast (literally) and loose with the rules of the road? See you in the comments.
Top graphic image: DepositPhotos.com
Anything with an idiot behind the wheel.Unfortunately more often than not it doesn’t happen.
“In my experience, truly shitty shitboxes tend to be cop magnets. I don’t know why this is. It’s like the police are saying, “Everyone is going ten over, who do I nab? This guy looks poor, but he could be poorer” (Flips on blue lights). Fifteen minutes later, the $200 you were saving for school books is instead going to a baloney ticket.”
Oh, yes, absolutely. That’s been my experience as well. I drive the same regardless of what car I drive and the only times I’ve ever been pulled over were when driving “beater” cars & never nice cars. (And likewise as a passenger.)
Law enforcement is such a magnet for people with a strong if not indeed predominating penchant for bullying, either because they were bullies when growing up or because they were picked on when growing up so they become bullies themselves later in life to compensate, with the latter seeming to be especially common in the case of short cops.
My dad, who served in WWII in the Navy and in the Korean War in the Army and later would sometimes work with city government including the law enforcement agencies, always said that there was nothing meaner than a short sergeant or…a short cop. And my own experiences indeed bear that out, good grief.
So of course LEOs are going to go after people they perceive to be easy targets that they can bully with impunity. They know that rich people have lawyers and also friends in high places. After all, bullies tend to be cowards so they’re afraid of messing with the wrong people who can mete out actual consequences in the form of either successful lawsuits or the cops’ superiors (i.e., the aforementioned friends in high places) coming down hard on them.
Indeed, it’s one thing to issue tickets for speeding in fancy & expensive sports cars where the evidence is ostensibly irrefutable so the rich generally and blithely just pay up with nary a dent at all in their wallet & another thing to issue baloney tickets where they know the people don’t have the resources to fight the bogus charges and it still hurts the victims to pick the lesser battle of just paying the fines. For the cops cruelty borne of their bullying personae is the point in issuing those baloney tickets. Ugh…
That’s a pretty wide brush you’re painting with. Maybe talking ICE. I’ve met a few genuinely decent officers.
Hoonicus:
Eh, the decent ones know about the bad ones but choose not to go after them despite some of the bad ones engaging in blatantly illegal actions (such as baloney tickets and outright police brutality) so one would argue that makes the decent ones not so decent.
People will often say that it’s just a few bad apples; however, the full expression is “a few bad apples spoil the barrel” hence the need for the condemnation of cops as a whole.
In the mid 1980s (years before Rodney King, et al., and you know it’s only gotten worse since then) a college friend told me about her dad being the long-time police chief in her hometown and how he always told her not to ever trust *any* cops because cops were just the other side of the same coin as the criminals the cops ostensibly went after; he further cautioned her to *always* keep her mouth shut if she was ever questioned or, worse yet, arrested by the police and to *always* get a lawyer in the latter scenario (and possibly even the former scenario.)
Strong words, indeed, from someone who had spent many decades in law enforcement in several different towns with at least the last two decades or so as chief of the police department.
(Perhaps needless to say, my friend never dated anyone from the police department…)
My “few” was agreeing. Always assume they just came from some shitty situation, and it’s on you to keep things calm, and respectful. I once chatted with a chief at a bar, and I eventually got around to the lack of proper vetting. He agreed, but basically “it is what it is”.
Background doesn’t matter.
I don’t care whether the outlaw biker is from a loving home or a broken one. Either one of them is swinging the ball peen hammer at my hand and it makes no difference to the damage done. Both can f-off, whether wearing a cut or a uniform,
I am former LE, and have to say that you’re pretty dead-on.
There are exceptions, but they are the exceptions. I live in a state where LE jobs pay very well ($200k with details and overtime) and are sought after. The hiring process includes a test plus a pretty intense psych evaluation in addition to other screening.
Still, it attracts the exact people you reference. Things only got worse after gulf war veterans got hiring preference.
Almost all the training brings up the fact that citizens are a constant threat just waiting to shoot you at a traffic stop or at a domestic incident. I figured I’d get out before my first divorce and moved on.
Anoos:
Yeah, good to get out… I’ve met a few people in similar situations who expressed relief about getting out of LE despite the good pay and the power accorded them.
Yeah, the attitude about viewing all civilians as a potential threat is much like the expression about how when all you have is a hammer every single problem looks like a nail…
BTW, turned in the gun because it was theirs but kept the badges because I paid for them.
Oh, that’s interesting about ownership. Yeah, makes sense about the guns; hadn’t ever thought about the badges (I knew that at least some LE agencies own the uniforms because I’d read about a case many years ago where somebody was charged with damaging police property because the cop beat him so badly that he bled profusely and his blood got all over the cop’s uniform, hence the “damage” to police property. Good grief.)
Since the badges are personalized it makes sense that they’d become personal property, at least upon leaving the force, just hadn’t thought about who pays for them…
I’m sure it varies by department, but we got an annual clothing allowance.
You guys’ obsession with Altimas is weird. And not even vaguely in alignment with my experiences.
Fortunately my ride (2018 Fiesta ST) is the exact opposite of an attention-getter, and it somehow permits me to get away with, well, a lot. It’s in boring black with no flashy or loud mods and no window tints, so it just looks like any other relatively modern hatchback. Also being a 60 year-old white guy doesn’t hurt.
My ST is bright orange. It looks like I’m being obnoxious even at 5 under the limit in the right lane. There are several times when I probably should have been pulled over in that car but somehow it didn’t warrant attention.
You nailed it. Non-tinted widows offering a clear view of a middle-aged driver work towards keeping you off the side of the road.
You probably have the time and resources to fight a ticket, which moves you out of the ‘citizens I can freely fuck with’ category.
For me: in a 4Runner rolling through a right hand red with zero cross traffic and excellent visibility in all directions. But somehow not in a Lexus GS350 overtaking a semi at 100mph. Don’t know how I didn’t get zinged on that one.
In general, I see more lower end cars pulled over than I do the expensive goliath pickups that are frequently well over the limit and posing a greater safety hazard.
With that much visibility, how did you not notice the cop?
He was behind a slight rise in the highway, just enough to conceal until it’s too late.
With my luck, probably the homemade Jeep I bashed together from a bunch of disparate online sellers. At some point, any cut corners will turn around and cut you right back, you just know they will.
“Seat belts? Exempt, it didn’t come from the factory with them.”
“I’ve been watching you screw this thing together with friends on YouTube for four months and you had a long goofy discussion about seat belts while you were holding them in your hand and then rationalized them away. You are the factory. You have the belts. And this thing isn’t original, so it’s not like you’re ruining its historical value.
“Sign here.”
I say this having never gotten a ticket. I would likely be pretty traumatized if it happened now.
Homeade Jeep, online sellers….
Sounds suspiciouslu like David.
Elhigh (not his real name)
I’m not David, I’m just headcanoning how the conversation would go if I had been him, motoring across the American Southwest after a hard six months of ill-advised toil.
Because with the way I generally drive, it would certainly be something like leaving important bits off the car that got me pulled over, rather than anything to do with how I was driving it.
My Jeep became like yours because of seat belts. I have a 76 CJ-7. It came lap belts only from the factory. I wanted to put in a family roll bar and some shoulder belts. When I took the Jeep apart to bolt in the roll bar, I discoved so much rush the body was getting ready to calve like an iceberg.
I bought a fiberglass body, only to discover my body and frame didn’t have matching numbers. I’ve possessed this Jeep for a long time (like 30 years or so now.) I also decided a fiberglass body was too much of a pain to install. Now I have a YJ body on it, and I too slowly gather parts online and install them. I am somewhat nearing completion, its been a runner for about a year now.
Profiling. They figure the shitbox driver is of lower socioeconomic status and therefore more likely to be engaging in other crimes. The odds of pulling over someone who might have power is a lot lower, too.
And the more that you have drawing attention to your shitbox, the worse it gets. You have a car missing the grill and with the maximum legal tint? Better believe you’re getting pulled over, even if it’s just to check that tint (and look/smell for anything else they can get you for). I worked with a guy who couldn’t understand why he was always getting pulled over. He thought the cops were looking for him specifically (never really clear on why he thought they’d bother to harass him just to give him a couple warnings and one ticket that I heard about). Nope, he had heavy tint and no grill.
Based on personal experience, a 1985 VW Jetta 2dr in medium blue metallic. Of course, probably had more to do with the fact that I drove like an asshole back then. I got a half dozen or more tickets in that car in the four years I owned it, and exactly one in the red 1984 Jetta GLI that followed it over a dozen years. And one since that car, in a green rented Ford Taurus circa 2005. In the middle of nowhere Montana. For 88 in a 70.
Me? Tesla Roadster. There’s something about my Zero S that makes hitting the fast-forward waaay too easy, and I’d just be even worse in one of those little electrified Lotuses.
At least in the Roadster you wouldn’t have enough range for a chase.
The tire bill keeps me from hitting the juice pedal too hard in my AWD Model Y. The thin paint keeps me going a reasonable speed on the highway. Fastest car I’ve ever owned but hardly ever go fast in it.
I know a lot of cops and some people who data mine for certain things like this. And while it’s probably technically true for most they won’t go after certain types of cars. They tend to develop certain cars they go after more then others based on past experiences whether they realize it or not. I knew a cop that was always pulling over volvos. Ass far as I could tell this was because his ex wife and her new husband had volvos and he had pulled over various volvos and found the people unpleasant. I know one that goes after Subarus for similar reasons. I knew another that was obsessed with large Hyundai and Kia sedans because he had chased many and often found people who were part of larger conspiracies in them. But he was a very strange guy that found some crazy things that no one could really explain how he just had gut feelings. I knew another ther admitted he likes to go after the cars with a lot of bumper stickers. I would think the generalization would be some kind of Mopar. But Altimas have to be up there. You get regional bad behavior cars that are normally owned by decent people in most regions that has to come into play as well. Most of the time when you look at the data pickup trucks are at the top of the list just because there are so many of them.
Where I live the cars I see pulled over by police are the crapcans which are driven at 20 over the rest of traffic by Methheads, cutting in and out in between other drivers.
Kias, Jeeps, Nissans, old Civics and the like.
But for some reason, never Altimas.
I feel like those cars you listed are all Altimas.
Altima is a vibe as much as an actual model.
It’s weird, isn’t it? Altimas are the WORST driven cars, yet you very rarely see one pulled over. Maybe the cops feel sorry for them.
Which in turn probably provides even more big energy to the drivers.
I’ve heard it said that most of the time, Corvettes serve as rolling traffic chicanes that the rest of us have to maneuver around b/c of the ingrained perception that they’re going to be the ones pulled over. Maybe its the opposite with Altimas?
Could well be.
The drivers aren’t avoiding traffic stops.
The old fuckers are worried they may have a heart attack at high speeds and that any turn generating more than 0.4 lateral g’s may rattle their golf clubs.
Nissan has secretly perfected the SEP (Somebody Else’s Problem) Field but it only applies to Altimas.
I think it was the great Brock Yates who said that state troopers are big game hunters, so the flashier, the worst.
Lowriders with hydraulics. I got pulled over a lot, sometimes just so they could take a look.
$150k Range Rover with manufacturer plates, apparently
This is the correct answer.
Were you already on the side of the road awaiting a tow truck?
The JLR’s natural habitat.
Anything with a large displacement. I can be good with anything high-performance but as soon as you put anything bigger than a 5.0 in a vehicle, I’m going to be obnoxious.
I think a 392 Challenger would be my undoing although I’ve never been in a Viper.
EDIT: I misunderstood, I thought it was about ME specifically and what car would get me to make the most bad decisions.
The car most likely to get pulled over is a clapped-out Nissan Altima
Thing is – I never see them pulled over. Lots that SHOULD be.
They have to pull of the interstate to install yet another donut spare before the highway patrol catches up to them
ROFL! Maybe those are actually cloaking devices?
I’m not sure anymore, but I can tell you the yellow car got me a decent amount of attention, whilst I’m pretty sure a more upright riding position on my F900 XR has let me get away with speedmurder. I look like a responsible motorcyclist, geared up, sitting upright, not looking like a squid. (Also likely very important: apart from speed I don’t act like a jack hole on the bike or while driving in general.)
I just happen to be doing it all at some multiple of the speed limit >1.
My FJR1300 was the same way. Boots, pants, jacket, gloves, helmet, luggage, upright posture… and enough over the limit to make sure I was definitely the one doing the passing. 30K miles on that bike and I only got hit once by a photo-radar camera.
The last time I got pulled over, I was in a gray Ford Fusion. So for me, pretty much anything.
I got pulled over for dim taillights in my 69 Galaxie in 1985 but I took a few years to realize that the cop was harassing the car full of teenage boys.
Oh yes, I got pulled over for having a “tail light out” in the Old Man’s Oldsmobarge. A car that had a bulb out alerter (and absolutely did not have a bulb out). Car was full of my teenage male friends, of course. Got a warning.
Nice.
Honestly, you’d think shitbox with tint, at least for police of a certain stripe.
However, the most often pulled over cars I spot are either crossovers or pickups. Often across the wealth spectrum. Funny how the most common vehicles have turned out to be the most commonly pulled over one. Almost like it’s the squishy bit between the seat and steering wheel…
There’s a definite correlation between # of tinted windows and assholish driving.
Tinted side windows = base AH level
Tinted back +1 AH level
Tinted front +3 AH level
And at least in MN, the recently released blackout plate seems to add another +1 AH level.
And I’m talking about the absolute limo black tint on all windows, not the average actually legal tint levels.
Blackout plates might be the biggest tell. For many states it might be 75% terrible drivers. There was a time when maybe half the “don’t tread on me” tags alot to states released were terrible drivers. They don’t seem as popular nor bad when you run into them now.
Idaho, always behind the times, just got the Gadsden flag and black plates recently. They are currently neck and neck for worst drivers. We just changed the forestry plate, too, and they’ve been starting to go for it, too.
That’s interesting from what I’ve seen states that released the black plates at the same time of other colors and designs the worst go for the black. But I can see Idaho having external factors at play. That might be looking for 5 beds 4 baths on 7 acres with a 7 walk minutes from a Starbucks.
CA license plates were historically yellow on black in the 60’s. Recently the state has brought that color scheme back as an option so we can start a real-world experiment to see if there’s a correlation.
My Chroma Red Stinger is ticketproof where I live despite being red, fast, and loud.
Thanks, E-1 Charger owners!
In California, any late model Camaro. Unfortunately with good reason, as every single day the CHP posts the radar speed of a Camaro they busted. Generally 100+
Older cars.
My first car was a 1994 Audi 80 which at that time was 15+ years old. I was constantly getting stopped at police checks. With newer cars this dropped significantly.
Older shitty cars specifically. When I drove a 10 year old Elantra I got pulled over a lot for no reason at all. I switched to a 15 year old LS400 (now 26 years old) and have never been pulled over since.
This exactly. I have a 31 year old Toyota Celsior and have never been pulled over in it. Get the military service plates if you can. I’ve accidentally passed cops on the interstate and not been pulled over.
I’ve owned a bright red Viper for 11 years and never been as much as pulled over with a warning in it, so I don’t want to hear about your Mustangs and 350Zs.
I think the cops assume a Viper driver will pull themselves over (backwards, into a ditch) if they get a little too rowdy
Not YOU V10. Other guys. (Peace sign)
I’ve heard it can be a hazard (my car has a full suite of safety nannies though).
You’re just not trying hard enough. See, those other guys are out there doing burnouts at a cars & coffee, scraping mufflers on the asphalt, you get the idea. If you want a bad reputation, you have to earn it.
I was never pulled over in my Cramro, although I only had that for 3 years.
I’ve never had a cop magnet, but when I lived in the uk, I had a coworker with a 1st gen WRX STi wagon and he was pulled over about 1 time a month, always to verify he owned the car. Fast, spacious, good on dirt roads, and easy to steal with a filed down key made it a prime target for joy riders so he was always getting checked.
Have you ever tried driving with expired registration, a broken taillight, and no lights on at night? How about having a flashy blue light on your roof?