Woman Arrested for Warning People About Speed Trap!

Oh the injustice!

Speeding is a factor in third of all crashes and a cause of a third of car fatalities.

I am sure many of you would hold a driver responsible for hitting you if it was because they are speeding.

Speed limits are set according to the conditions of that particular road and what response times are needed to avoid collisions for that road.

but there are other factors considered as well as wear and tear on the road, road noise generated, and fuel consumption, and to keep traffic moving.

Yes tickets generate money, but the average collision involving the need for ambulance not only disrupts traffic. on average it can cost your local municipality $50k. How many times have you been late to work because of an accident?

If you want to talk about cost, do you have any idea how much the noise restriction walls cost that must be put up to buffer neighborhoods that are along high speed roads? A minimum of $30,000 per property.
Not to mention the aforementioned, wear and tear on the roads.

The woman was in violation of obstructing the police. But the police did perform an illegal search.

Originally posted by UltimateSkeptic1
Just one more example of police being screwed up.

Houston woman Natalie Plummer was arrested for obstruction of justice, and had her backpack searched illegally, all because she made a sign warning motorists of a speed trap in Houston.

Police are supposed to protect and serve, not harass, illegally search and arrest citizens.

A woman tried to save drivers from getting ticketed by police and instead ended up in jail herself. Now she claims she was wrongfully arrested.

After a few minutes, Plummer claims one of the officers drove up, jumped from his car and started pulling at her backpack. She says he searched it without consent, and then arrested her.


"He was telling me he was taking me to jail for obstructing justice, that was an automatic three to five years," Plummer recalled.

Source

Here's the email address of the Houston Police Department:

[email protected]

Here's their Media Relations (Public Affairs) phone number: 713 308-3200

Here's the phone number for the Chief of Police, Charles A. McClelland, Jr.: 713 308-1600

Let them know what you think.

Well what the heck can we do about it? Complain? From what I have seen nothing works, this whole thing is going to steam roll out of control and it will come to a point where we will all look back and see that we missed the opportunity to make a change.
This country is is no longer in our hands, nor has it been for some time. Ill be sure to send an email, however we are all viewed as below them, so anything will fall on deaf ears. We are the public, servants of the elite by means of forced control.

reply to post by nixie_nox


Explain how what the woman was doing was preventing the "safety" aspect of speed enforcement?

If anything she was helping keep the roads safe by getting the drivers to slow down.

What she wasnt helping with was revenue generation.

Originally posted by nixie_nox
Oh the injustice!

Speeding is a factor in third of all crashes and a cause of a third of car fatalities.

I am sure many of you would hold a driver responsible for hitting you if it was because they are speeding.

Speed limits are set according to the conditions of that particular road and what response times are needed to avoid collisions for that road.

but there are other factors considered as well as wear and tear on the road, road noise generated, and fuel consumption, and to keep traffic moving.

Yes tickets generate money, but the average collision involving the need for ambulance not only disrupts traffic. on average it can cost your local municipality $50k. How many times have you been late to work because of an accident?

If you want to talk about cost, do you have any idea how much the noise restriction walls cost that must be put up to buffer neighborhoods that are along high speed roads? A minimum of $30,000 per property.
Not to mention the aforementioned, wear and tear on the roads.

The woman was in violation of obstructing the police. But the police did perform an illegal search.

Dont miss the point of the violation of this womans rights, nothing can invalidate that in this situation. No matter what we are suppose to have rights and due process! Our opinions cannot and should never ammend those rights.

reply to post by nixie_nox
Hi nixie.

This lady caused drivers to slow down. Tell me how that is a bad thing.
If she had not been there, none of them would have slowed down. The police would have one driver pulled over at a time and the rest would continue speeding through.
She really is a hero, don't you think?

reply to post by thisguyrighthere


Do I really need to explain to you how teh law works?

You break a law, it goes on your record.

Depending on state laws, repeat offenders may end up taking driver improvement courses or lose their licenses. If they depend on their license for work, they can lose their job.

So instead of getting caught, going on probation and going before the court to get the points, they get away with it, to do it again.

Keeping aggressive drivers on the road.

If she was standing there with a sign with no speed trap, just telling people to slow down, it wouldn't of worked.

I wonder how many of you would have your panties in a bunch if she was warning of a dui trap, especially considering that speeding kills more people each year then alcohol.

Or if she was in a neighborhood, which she was, that might be full of kids.

reply to post by nixie_nox


You are still missing the point. Here you go folks "a case in point attitude" of what has enabled the conduct of police officers for so long!!

Go ahead and enable your own oppression Nixie.

reply to post by nixie_nox
On average 7 out of 10 drivers exceed the speed limit.
Source
So the system as it stands doesn't really seem to work. I think the lady did the locality a service by being more effective than the police are.

reply to post by Dreine


Yep. It was definitely wrong of them to do anything to her. I look forward to the day when people turn on the cops and everyone just goes on a protest of non cooperation. What is sad is the cops can just make up a b.s. story they will say they were looking for someone in particular and it was obstruction of justice or interfering with a police investigation.. something stupid.

reply to post by nixie_nox

Or if she was in a neighborhood, which she was, that might be full of kids.

thank you! You are finally coming around and giving us reasons that she should be slowing traffic down.

reply to post by nixie_nox


It is an injustice.
I don't think you are comprehending the situation.

It doesn't matter what you think about speeding. It doesn't matter if it kills anyone. This girl still has the right to hold up a sign that reads : "Speed trap ahead" on a public sidewalk if she wants.

What is even more entertaining about your inability to compute this is that she was doing the same thing that the police were doing. When people see that sign the message is sent and they slow down the only difference is that it saves the people from having to pay ridiculously high fines.

She was doing a public service and she was searched illegally and arrested for no reason. It's a pretty huge injustice. I can see how that's hard to understand though.

Ive actually had a similair thing happen, of course I didnt go to Jail, But I was pulled over for flashing my lights, at other cars, Really ticks me off, but now the Cops cant sit in that spot anymore, considered a Speeed Trap, which is in fact Illegal by the Police, She will win this case, if she fights it, I hope she does fight it

reply to post by nixie_nox


You can go on and on, but you are absolutely wrong here.
How many car crashes do people die in where no one was considered speeding. Is it the speeding that kills or the car crash? Can you tell me? Sure you can say it compounds it, but in reality the crash usually has little to do with the speeding (unless it is exceptional).

Do you know what determines speed limits? A speed trap is generally a piece of highway or road where the speed limit us unecessarily low and people are more inclined to speed. Many cities have these strips on purpose and cops patrol them more often because it is easier to make a bust there.

The best part is NONE OF THAT MATTERS. It doesn't matter at all because that girl had the right to stand there with any sign she wanted. She was on the public sidewalk. Are there laws about holding signs? If it was written in large words on her shirt and she held her shirt up so people would notice and read the message would it be ok? Why would they search her if her supposed crime was holding the sign? So they could try and hurt her and ruin her life with something unrelated because they had a poor (illegal) excuse that created a chance to "get her good."

No, it's complete bull# and if you think any part of it is ok you need to do some serious thinking.

reply to post by Glassbender777


Hmm I didn't know that.
I do the same thing, flashing my lights, because there is a spot where I live where a stretch of highway slows down to 35 miles an hour! I am talking a road that has 2 lanes for each direction. A road with a passing lane has a 35mph speed limit. The cops love that stretch man. It is several miles of nothing and you feel absurd traveling 35.

If you want to talk about cost, do you have any idea how much the noise restriction walls cost that must be put up to buffer neighborhoods that are along high speed roads? A minimum of $30,000 per property.

That's because 800 people have to add a cut to the final price.

From what I can find, It is not illegal in Texas to warn of a speed trap by flashing headlights.

Not sure why a sign would be any different, it is still a warning.

Originally posted by nixie_nox

The woman was in violation of obstructing the police.

Your logic is in violation of obstructing rational thinking.

If the people slow down before the speed trap then the police will have no reason to pull anybody over, and therefore the woman can't be obstructing them.

Her actions were causing drivers to NOT speed. Why aren't you happy about this?

reply to post by roadgravel


I think we got off track here. She was detained and threatened with obstruction but in the end only received a fine for being a pedestrian out in the street when a sidewalk was available. That is what she has officially on her record. Now the argument to be made is, was she detained because of her being a pedestrian out in the street or because she was obstructing justice? It almost would be better if they actually did charge her with obstruction; then she would have a case to go before a judge and get the whole thing looked at. As it stands now she really can't even make a good complaint.

Originally posted by MrJohnSmith
reply to post by UltimateSkeptic1

 

Respectfully, I will have to disagree, I'm afraid.. I would say they acted correctly, in respect of interfering with speed enforcement, at least.

Though I'm not sure what searching her back pack had to do with the matter.

I agree. Sentiment doesn't usurp the law of obstructing law enforcing speed - - via a trap or other legal means.

As far as I know in the USA - - if you arrest someone you now have the right of search and seizure. If you detain someone - - you can request to search.

I'm not swearing to that.

Originally posted by yourmaker
here in Vancouver our news station 1130AM takes calls for people to warn where the speedtraps are.
every 10 minutes we get a good solid warning on the whereabouts, pinpoint locales.
they tell us where like 4-5 of them are throughout the metropolitan area.

And then it still serves the purpose of slowing people down and driving like maniacs.

Why, in this case, is it a speed trap? Are there signs with the speed limit on them? If there are signs it is not a speed trap?