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Apparently my car's license plates were supposed to be renewed last October. My parent's apparently documented that they paid the bill without actually doing it. Yesterday and today I got tickets. The police department in the area of my college preys on the students parked in the lot and patrols through with several different officers, they let each other know which cars are in violation and each officer writes a separate ticket for the same offense.

I cannot replace the plates because it requires going all the way into the city to go to the DMV and I'm not on the title so I couldn't do it anyways... I will get a minimum of one ticket every time I go to school until the problem is fixed and meanwhile my dad is calling me up to yell at me and blaming me for not paying the fee in October when it got mailed to his house and they will not accept payment from me (probably). I have no problem paying him back for it (in fact I already have) but I do not like getting tickets. I don't have a checkbook and the two places that have given me tickets so far either don't have online bill-pay or it isn't working. There is a number to call to renew the plates by phone that is open until 5 but we called at 3:30 and got a message saying they were closed. I'm really stressed out because I just went back to school and had to give up most of my paid hours and now I will only make around 300$ a month and I cant afford 25$ a ticket right now. I just paid 200 dollars for books and while I am no where near broke it scares me to waste money on BS when I am trying to cut back to keep my expenses inside of my monthly budget.

I've also been stressing myself socially trying to keep better contact with my friends, date etc and it is taking it's toll. My weight has been going up and down by 10lbs every week. I've been trying to work out twice a day and cross-country ski at least once if not twice but my mood is flip flopping and I've been stress eating and I left a mess on my work-out-space for over a week because I was too depressed to clean it. 2 weeks ago I weighed myself and I had lost 5lbs in one week and this week I was 223 which is worse than 5 months ago after I first decided to try and get back in shape and work out more /w only 1 month's progress.

My classes are not going to be easy... There is going to be so much work... All three are research/essay courses and just FUCKITY f**k f**k f**k!

I really want the girl I liked from okcupid to not have stopped talking to me... I felt that "spark" with her and it's been a really long time since I connected with someone.

I have decided I want to focus more on image but that will cost money and might not even get me results. I have always "done my own thing" where I tried to be able to be with the normal people or weird people without standing out too much from either and I think I need to choose if I want to be accepted by either.

I feel like my new coworker is hitting on me and I don't want her too.

I've been drinking like 10 cups of coffee in a thermos to keep from passing out in class like I normally do and it's making me all jittery. I'm worried I will become addicted. More importantly I'm worried I will still be unfocused and have poor retention. At least one class is full of jocks and I think I committed a social Faux pas. There were three tables with people at them and 2 of the tables had all sport-type guys and the third had only a few girls so I sat down with the girls and I made eye contact with one of them and she jerked her head away and looked disturbed.

I've been feeling suicidal and paranoid and anti-gov't (which is a feeling apparently). I was so stressed out by the tickets that I was imagining an officer pulling me over and me telling him to draw his weapon and then attacking him... and escalating from there... I imagined going to court and arguing that because the law allows for infinite tickets for the same offense it violates my 4rth amendment rights because each time they give a ticket they have probable cause to search the vehicle whether they actually search or not meaning they could, in theory, pull me over and give me a ticket and every time I think it's over they pull me over again and again and again in almost the same spot and each time they have probable cause and each time they write another ticket for the same thing.

I keep picturing the time a cop forced my epileptic friend to stare at the flashing irons/lights on his car and shot at us when we tried to stop him from feeling her breasts while she was seizing and when I called the 911 for help with a guy with three holes in him bleeding in front of me and they said "we will check it out in the morning" and when I called again they said "what are you doing there in the first place" so I hung up and ran away so I wouldn't get blamed and when I woke up in the passenger seat of my car after a party with a gun pointed at me and when I got pulled over and two officers with guns got me out of the car and pushed me to my knees and pressed the gun against my head and said they were going to kill me as I stared into the dash came growling god bless America with my phone in my pocket dialed 911 and the operator listening to them and when I was young with my new dog sitting on top of the slide reading Ender's game and the officer told me to get down and I said not till the end of the chapter and he pointed his gun at me and said he would kill my dog if I didn't...

Last edited by buffinator on 22 Jan 2014, 11:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Straight up, right at the beginning, I am going to disagree with you on something tactically. When a police officer has a gun on you, game over. All you can do is to try and stay calm and slow, and in measured fashion, try to slowly and predictably do what the officer asks. Something like trying to pocket dial a cell phone, just taking too big a risk. He or she might mistake it for a weapon. Or more likely, the fact that you aren't obeying ('comply' is the word they love!) might enrage them and then they lose their cool.

And the police can be first-class bullies, no question about that. And a lot of middle-class people just don't understand this, or they so badly want to believe in the just world theory that they make excuses for the police. When often, it's just flat out abuse of power. That's all the explanation there is.

And mayors don't have a clue. I mean, city council members say they want an ethical police department, but they do not have any kind of realistic clue on how to bring this about.

And you've got to pick your battles very strategically. And in most cases, trying to press formal charges against the police or trying to file a formal complaint without an organization backing you up or if you're rich, a lawyer or something, is not worth it. And I hate saying this in a democracy, but damn I think it's true.

If you think of how slow progress for equal rights for African-Americans since the 1950s has been, and there's been progress, still a long way to go. Well, I think progress on police reform is even slower.

Do you get stickers that go on the plates for the month and year like we do here? Down here you get your tag based on the first letter of your last name and the month. You have the whole month to do it. They usually mail you things but in my county they don't. You just hope you remember. It's not something I start thinking about for real until the first part of May, which is the month we have to get the tags. Then I have to get online and get insurance and all that and then call and find out how much the tag is going to be, etc.

It's no fun. Lots of people forget.

I could give you a little advice on how to avoid this if you have the stickers, etc that scream out the month, but if you have dealt with a particular cop before about it, he's going to be on you about it still. It sucks. Trust me. I know. It's also not advice I would want to give on a public forum, but it worked for us for two years when we couldn't afford insurance, licenses or a tag.

wow. you have quite an imagination. can you distract yourself from the horrible scenes you are dreaming up? you are upsetting yourself beyond what the situation calls for.

I specifically denoted what was my imagination and what was a memory thanks.

new paragraphs would have helped. the advice is still good. don't replay the bad memories and assume that something equally bad will happen again. just deal with the license update and tickets as best you can.

I do the same thing.

Typically in regards to a workplace injustice or dismissive treatment by a medical professional.

A current injustice, even a rather everyday injustice, will remind me of really bad stuff from the past.

And saying I 'should' not do this, doesn't exactly help.

Time to take a deep breath

Let's start

[quote]same offense it violates my 4rth amendment rights because each time they give a ticket they have probable cause to search the vehicle/quote]

Not true. Your license plates are on the outside of your car. Plain view doctrine has always been an exception to search and seizure laws.

You shouldn't need to replace the plates; you just need to renew the registration. You can do that online using the information from the renewal notice. You should be able to pay with a credit or debit/check card. You get a temp registration print out you tape in your window. They'll accept money from anyone.

https://www.ilsos.gov/LicenseRenewal/

As for the rest of that stuff, you need to work on not getting guns pointed at you.

whitrbbit, this might be where you don't really understand. If you're a teenage male with long hair, if you're a member of a minority, (and presumably other ways of being different including being aspie), it really is a different style of policing.

Now, like I said before, most of my own bad experiences have been with other authorities. But I've lived most of my life in Houston for crying out loud. I have heard enough from people whose judgment I respect and I have read enough from what I consider to be good sources.

They lost the form from last October so the online thing doesn't work.

"Not true. Your license plates are on the outside of your car. Plain view doctrine has always been an exception to search and seizure laws. "

this is true but the issue is that because there is no limit on how many times plain view can be re-applied they could continuously search, conclude search, write ticket, have probable cause, search etc etc. The first search is within reason but the potential to be searched every time an officer see's the expired plate does not stand the test of a reasonable search. If I have already been searched and nothing found then further searches only serve to demean and harass and do not serve a purpose of interest to the state or PD. Because officers are now equipped with computers to see that a citation has already been written and a search has or has not been completed when they come in full knowledge that the infraction has already been punished and re-apply punishment without a reasonable delay it serves no discernible purpose but to demean and harass the infractor.

In my hypothetical the driver could literally be subject to a 24-7 search receiving a fine and a new search every 5 or so minutes or however long the officer deems appropriate. The problem is not the search it is the lack of codified guidelines for what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable conduct. It similar to the situation in New Mexico where an officer decided that the man he was arresting had drugs in his anus and so he was subjected to three consecutive endoscopes and 2 enemas and an x-ray (at his expense) all of which failed to turn up non-existent drugs. The unrestricted power to enact a search and, barring positive results of the search, repeat the search ad infinitum constitutes an unreasonable search. The only reason the search in the example stopped was because the doctor refused to do a 4rth endoscopy because the tissues in the rectum had already been torn by the first 3 and he was bleeding. The doctor lost his medical license for this act of humanity.

Be aware I am arguing for the sake of arguing not because I am right but because I feel at risk of persecution and wish that it was not perfectly legal. I'm not a lawyer as much as I would like to think so and I understand that the police have every right under American law to enforce the law in whatever way amuses them the most without regard for the person on the other end so long as there are no reporters around to question their behavior. The recent case where, what was it, 6? officers killed a homeless man and were acquitted proves that. one of the officers was recorded saying, essentially that it was his intent to kill the man because he was angry and frustrated with his behavior and wanted the cathartic experience of using his brass knuckles to pulverize the bones and tissues on his face and neck. As long as you have a bit of blue on you and a gold star it is apparently perfectly fine to kill people who piss you off. I understand that he was violent and had been assaulting the officers and under the law they are permitted to defend themselves with lethal force. However what happened in that case, where the man was restrained by 5 officers while the 6th committed a premeditated killing is very telling of the state of the justice system and reflects poorly on the moral fiber of the republic at large. It constituted a summary execution and it was condoned by a jury.

Actually there can come a time when you are required to actually replace the plates, at least that how it worked in my state. it used to be something like every seven years if you still own the same car for that time span, you don't just renew registration like normal, instead they actually send you a thing saying time for whole new plates. You go and get them from the same place as you renew registration.

I did this once. A lady in my apartment management team asked with HUGE suspicion "Why are you changing your plates?....." and I explained to her. She had NO idea because she was one of those people who changes cars every couple of years, and never have one car long enough to find out that after a certain number of years they actually make you get new plates.


.

We've never had to replace actual plates.

Aardvarkswimmer; I was a teenage male driving a beat up POS car with wires hanging out of it and the drivers side door controls were hanging out like they had been forced open and the window on the driver ride didn't work. I got pulled over 3 times driving that car, once coming out one of the worst drug areas of western MA. I never had a gun pulled on me. I grew up with several black friends who also never had guns pulled on them. I'm not going to argue that there aren't cops who are racist, but how you conduct yourself during a traffic stop can influence the stop a lot.


buffinator; you could make a claim of double jeopardy, but the problem with MVA is it's so much administrative law. I don't know that an expired registration is probable cause to conduct a search of your vehicle. Some searching seems to indicate it generally isn't. If you get asked, you can say "I do not consent to any searches" and unless they see something in your car illegal, they would have to get a warrant and they aren't going to do that over an expired registration.

The New Mexico situation was an EXTREME example; and that guy is very rich and will only get richer. I think he was an idiot to settle with the police for 1 million.

The best advice for a traffic stop is to be polite and courteous, but if they ask to search your car, you have the right to say no sir, I do not consent to any searches. If they force it, you can sue, and you'll probably win, and police who knowingly violate the law loose their qualified immunity.

I think you should check out your local ACLU, learn what rights you do have. The police do not have unlimited power.

Well maybe it differs from state to state, and you happen to live in a state that doesn't have that policy.

I did live in a state that had that policy, but only people who hung onto the same car for almost a decade ever got to find out that after a certain number of years they send you something telling you you have to come in and get issued with new plates.

This link is six years old, but that's about the time I was there and was requested to do it anyway, so it's valid for the period I'm describing. Apparently their reason is because the reflective surface of licence plates wears off over time. I was in Texas and though they may have dropped the policy now, they had an "every seven years" policy last time I looked:

Texas seven years policy


Just because you've never had to doesn't mean it doesn't happen in other places. I actually got made to do this and it was the first time I found out about it.