Overland Park Police Department Pulled over and ticketed on false accusations ripoff Overland Park Kansas

I was coming home from my parent's house at about 10:30 at night. I was in my truck with my wife and we were carrying a headboard to a bedroom set in the bed of our truck. We were driving in the left lane going the speedlimit (40 mph) and there were cars in the right lane going about 30-35. We approached a car in the left lane going about 30 mph.

As they were not speeding up, we moved into the right lane clear ahead of all the cars going 30-35 mph. When I attempted to go around this car blocking the left lane, they sped up fast enough so that I couldn't get past them. When I slowed down to get behind them again, they slowed down slow enough so that I couldn't get back behind them.

Since I needed to turn left soon, I slowed down to probably 25-30 mph and got behind them in the left lane. Had we been going the speed limit, I would have probably been too close, but seeing that we were going 10-15 mph under the speed limit, the distance between me and this person in front of me was about two seconds - the legal distance.

I am a stickler for signaling as well. My friends and family give me a hard time sometimes when I get mad at people who don't use their turn signals. I use mine even when there is nowhere else to turn - like on roads with very sharp turns - it's just habit. I'm turning right, I signal. I'm changing lanes, I signal.

Back to the story, I turn left and I'm about to pull into my driveway and I see the police lights behind me. So I'm pulled over right in front of my house. The officer asks me why I think he pulled me over. I responded honestly that I didn't know because I thought that the person in front of me was the one who was breaking traffic laws by left lane blocking and being an inconsiderate driver.

He then responded "that was some eratic driving back there going from one lane to the other" and asked me how much I'd had to drink. As I'm strongly against drinking, I told him that I hadn't had anything and that I hadn't even had dinner that night. He walked away to check my information.

About 5 minutes later, a back-up car pulls up. This cop basically saw what happened, assumed that I was the problem and that I was drunk because I had to switch lanes so much (due to the driver ahead of me causing problems) and called backup. When he realized that I wasn't drunk, he gave me a ticket for "following too close" and "failure to signal movement" This was unbelievable. No mention of speeding on the ticket because I was going 25 - 30 mph in a 40 speed zone - in the LEFT LANE at that. The ticket came to $180.

I asked my friends and people at work what I should do and if I should fight it. They said "don't bother - the Johnson county traffic court system is all about money. If you try to fight it, you will lose and end up wasting your time and losing more money due to lost wages. You can't win in the Johnson County Traffic Court." So I ended up just paying the ticket and getting two points on my license all because some idiot blocking the left lane and a cop not wanting to feel stupid for pulling over somebody who was sober and trying to keep from obstructing traffic.

I will never donate to the Overland Park Police Department - as far as I'm concerned they already got their donation.

Gwaters
Overland Park, Kansas
U.S.A.