ntt@dciem.UUCP (Mark Brader) (05/15/84)
> I was once stopped by a squad car for no reason while driving, > as far as I can tell. The circumstances: I was in the only car on > the road at the time. It was broad daylight. I was driving at exactly > the speed limit. I was not doing anything unusual. Yes you were, you admitted it yourself. You were *driving a car on a public road*. This is a privilege, for which you need a licence, and as far as I am concerned, the police are perfectly within their rights in stopping you to see if you have one. Of course, if they aren't too busy to spend much time doing that, something is wrong. Here, the provincial police sometimes set up safety checks where they pull over cars more or less at random and test your brakes and the like, and if your car fails badly enough, you leave it there. The city police do the same thing each Christmas to see whether you are intoxicated. Apparently the first practice is explicitly legal here, and the second one is squeaked in under the same law amid some controversy. Statistics have showed that lives are being saved. I approve. Flames to /dev/null (or net.flame), please. Rational comments to net.legal (or to me, but I don't have a lot of time to answer mail now.) Mark Brader, {decvax|linus|ihnp4|allegra|...}!utzoo!dciem!ntt
ron@brl-vgr.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (05/15/84)
Unfortunately, stopping people without resonable cause is one of the freedoms we are supposed to have here which I guess you don't have in Canada. -Ron
ntt@dciem.UUCP (Mark Brader) (05/15/84)
In my item posted yesterday, I referred several times to conditions "here" (e.g., "Here, the provincial police sometimes set up safety checks...") but I neglected to say where "here" is. Some of you will see that datum in the news header. To the rest of you, sorry, I meant to sign it: Mark Brader, Toronto, Ont., Canada
seifert@ihuxl.UUCP (D.A. Seifert) (05/16/84)
> Unfortunately, stopping people without resonable cause is one of the > freedoms we are supposed to have here "supposed to" is certainly the key phrase here. Grrr! -- _____ /_____\ That auto-crossing beagle, /_______\ Snoopy |___| BMWCCA, Windy City Chapter ____|___|_____ ihnp4!ihuxl!seifert