[Dr Winston O Boogie jr]

Originally Posted by perrjojo

:

:: I think we all sometimes do rolling stops , exceed the speed limit, etc..... but here is the point... When we do these things ( no matter our logic or reasoning) IT IS AGAINST THE LAW. If we get CAUGHT we must pay the penalty because we were wrong. We broke the law. A police officer is not there to judge whether what you did might have worked out ok due to circumstances. The officer can only judge if what you did was within or without the perimeters of the law. It is not really a subjective call for that officer.

Officers make judgement calls all the time. I've been stopped for speeding about a half a dozen times in my life and I only got on ticket. I think that mainly it was because I didn't have any prior violations and I was very nice about the whole thing. I always admitted that I was going a bit too fast and that I lost my concentration for a bit and I apologized. In almost every case, the officer let me off.
Where I come from the law states that if you are the second or third car in line at a stop sign, you only have to stop once. You may proceed without stopping if there are no other cars in the intersection. I did that down here once right in front of an officer. I was surprised when he pulled me over. I explained the Massachusetts law and that I had just moved down here. He just said to me, "Well, that's not the law down here. Don't do it again." I thank him and was on my way. The officer made a reasonable judgement call.