Just got a call that my brother got a ticket for careless driving (4 points, essentially reckless driving without intent). He’s been driving for less than two years and is very cautious, never uses his phone and whatnot, so I wondered what the hell happened. A bunch of bullshit and a cop with a power complex, as it turns out.
The map below is the exit from out neighborhood, with the green line being the path my brother took. Apparently there was a crash in the northbound lanes (red “X”/white box), and the police had both directions closed off further down. My brother came out from an unobstructed side street and turned right, heading southbound in the rightmost lane. There was a cop car stopped in the left lane with emergency lights on, but nothing else in the southbound lanes, so he drove past the cop car. As he passed it, the cop in the car jumped out, ran after his car, and once he stopped, proceeded to berate him at some length. According to my brother and his friend who was with him, it was bad enough that a second cop from the crash scene had to come over to calm him down. He slapped my brother with a careless driving ticket, which is $100 and 4 points. My brother was scared about going to court (both what would happen if he lost and facing the RageCop again) so he’s currently enrolled in an eight hour defensive driving course (hopefully taught by someone more intelligent than the guy who taught mine) to get rid of the ticket. All because some cop had more spite than sense and couldn’t effectively close a road, or bring himself to tell an obviously confused kid, “Hey buddy, turn around!”
Seriously, if I can accidentally wander onto a massive military base and get politely rerouted, this should not have been A Thing.