Help with buying a Radar detector….Bad cop story

[AMMZING]

Originally Posted by Kev

I SAID YOU CAN TICKET THE INDIVIDUAL LATER. No one is trying to avoid responsibility here.

I'm just speaking the way I see it here in Seattle. We have attendings, fellows, and residents who cover multiple hospitals at night. It is not uncommon that people will be shuttling back and forth the VA / UWMC / Children's / Harborview. Our interventional radiologists cover both UWMC and HMC at night. If there is a bleed requiring embolization, they'll be the one driving their own car between the hospitals. If you think that hypothetical situation doesn't exist in real life, think again. Even a lowly intern like me had the pleasure of finishing a helping out a surgical case at Harborview and have to rush back to UWMC so that I can be on time for morning rounds. I speak from experience, my own experience. There are jerks that pull the badge or pager out to avoid responsibility, but there are true emergencies that got ruined by obvious power trip. Without further information, it would be tough to determine the situation.

As far as escorting goes, I don't know which jurisdiction you work for, but here in Seattle, UWPD, WSP and SPD have been instructed to in case in medical emergencies provide transport for the medical personnel to the hospital, especially if they were stuck in Husky game traffic.

You are more than welcomed to sit on your moral high horse.



If you think this doesn't happen, think again. Not every hospital has attending staff or even housestaff on call at night. If someone presented with a case like that, attending surgeons or radiologists will have to be called in from home for the case.

Let's use a less extreme sample. Instead of an aneurysm, your loved one developed sub-sternal chest pain. He / she was taken to the nearest ER, and ECG showed an STEMI (heart attack in lay people's terms). He / she needs to be taken to the cath lab to get an angiogram done and possible balloon / stent placement. National standard for door-to-ballon time is less than 90 minutes. This has been shown to improve survival rate. By the time the attending cardiologist is paged, he / she usually only have less than an hour to get into the hospital for the catheterization. How do you feel if you loved one did not get the balloon / stent in the 90 minutes and suffered permanent damage to heart? The officer has the discretion to do what he thinks is the best in that situation, but simply calling every MD claiming that they have an emergency as being irresponsible is stupid

My dad is an MD, and im soon to been one..and i think he's only gotten pulled over a couple times on the way to his office to do a procedure or the hospital. In either case he wasnt given a ticket. Hehe, at first i didnt get what STEMI was but now i do .

[immiketoo]

Originally Posted by cjava

Hey immiketoo,

How many times have you got off a ticket because you're a cop?

Be honest.

All of them. But, I tell them right away that if they need to write me a ticket, thats cool, I earned it. And that is my point. Responsibility, NOT professional courtesy.

And, I learned a long time ago to just slow down. I started racing motorcycles about ten years ago, and cars more recently. If I need a fix of high speed driving, I go to the track. Racing, experience and age have cured me of the need or desire to drive like a tool on the street.

[linsm3]

PLEASE STOP PICKING ON THE DOCS. Their job is hard enough and I think for the most part they deserve a break. They are not going to be reckless and drive like maniacs just for the hell of it. They witness first hand what can happen. If they are given a break even when they aren't necessarily headed to an emergency so what. I know a lot of cops out there who abuse the system themselves. Back to the detectors, thanks for all the info.

[novablackm3]

v1 hands down 8+ years and it still saves my butt. during the summer if u leave it mounted it can get scorching hot

[gr8000]

V1 and Laser Interceptor are the best choices

[leeor]

radar suck barley even help

[Kev]

Originally Posted by gr8000

V1 and Laser Interceptor are the best choices

+1 what he said. If you have the money, do the LI with V1 integration.

[mphatic]

Originally Posted by leeor

radar suck barley even help

Well that's well said and helpful. Why bother posting at all

[Epacy2]

Originally Posted by gr8000

V1 and Laser Interceptor are the best choices

+1

[immiketoo]

Originally Posted by linsm3

PLEASE STOP PICKING ON THE DOCS. Their job is hard enough and I think for the most part they deserve a break. They are not going to be reckless and drive like maniacs just for the hell of it. They witness first hand what can happen. If they are given a break even when they aren't necessarily headed to an emergency so what. I know a lot of cops out there who abuse the system themselves. Back to the detectors, thanks for all the info.

Why should Docs get a break? Cops get picked on all the time. Isn't my job hard enough? I see what happens before the docs do, and it's usually me covered in blood saving someone's life before they get to the hospital.

[Kev]

Originally Posted by immiketoo

Why should Docs get a break? Cops get picked on all the time. Isn't my job hard enough? I see what happens before the docs do, and it's usually me covered in blood saving someone's life before they get to the hospital.

I think you should stop coz your God complex is rearing its ugly head. Save yourself some embarrassment. It's not like your badge haven't help you in certain instances.

And you still have not responded to my questions posed previously yet.

[Jaypod]

Originally Posted by Kev

If you think this doesn't happen, think again. Not every hospital has attending staff or even housestaff on call at night. If someone presented with a case like that, attending surgeons or radiologists will have to be called in from home for the case.

Let's use a less extreme sample. Instead of an aneurysm, your loved one developed sub-sternal chest pain. He / she was taken to the nearest ER, and ECG showed an STEMI (heart attack in lay people's terms). He / she needs to be taken to the cath lab to get an angiogram done and possible balloon / stent placement. National standard for door-to-ballon time is less than 90 minutes. This has been shown to improve survival rate. By the time the attending cardiologist is paged, he / she usually only have less than an hour to get into the hospital for the catheterization. How do you feel if you loved one did not get the balloon / stent in the 90 minutes and suffered permanent damage to heart? The officer has the discretion to do what he thinks is the best in that situation, but simply calling every MD claiming that they have an emergency as being irresponsible is stupid

Hey I am not saying I dont believe it happens - I am sure it happens. And I dont need a sample, emergencies are emergencies. Like I said in my original post - Hope he fights it and the courts see it his way. However if you think getting out of a ticket because you are a doctor responding to an emergency is some right of passage - good luck to you. I am sure there are many cops that may let you off but the reality is speeding is speeding and unless you have the training and a lightbar and siren to announce your presence its dangerous to others as well as yourself. If you drive your car into another car or go off the road - how are you going to save lives?

My suggestion is you may want to keep the attitude to yourself as my experience in being pulled over a few times has been if I keep my cool (after all I was speeding, how can I argue?) an be courteous, you never know, they may let you go with a warning and be understanding of your circumstance - acting and talking like an arrogant pr*ck is likely to get me nowhere.

[immiketoo]

Originally Posted by Kev

I think you should stop coz your God complex is rearing its ugly head. Save yourself some embarrassment. It's not like your badge haven't help you in certain instances.

And you still have not responded to my questions posed previously yet.

Sorry, you are the embarrassment here, both to this forum and to your chosen profession. You haven't even got the job yet and you already expect that professional courtesy be extended to you. :

Its obvious you haven't even read the entire thread. I answered your "questions" and Jaypod is right. A little humility goes a long way. So does honesty. I apologize to EVERYBODY for the threadjack and for expressing my displeasure with cops getting the blame for other people's actions. Kev, grow up.

[Kev]

Originally Posted by immiketoo

Sorry, you are the embarrassment here, both to this forum and to your chosen profession. You haven't even got the job yet and you already expect that professional courtesy be extended to you. :

Its obvious you haven't even read the entire thread. I answered your "questions" and Jaypod is right. A little humility goes a long way. So does honesty. I apologize to EVERYBODY for the threadjack and for expressing my displeasure with cops getting the blame for other people's actions. Kev, grow up.

Haha, your true color is coming out when you are taking cheap shots like this at other people who you don't even know. I really appreciate your concern about my job security. I already graduated and have a professional degree and a graduate degree after my name. So, I already have my training position lined up for the next 5 years at least and may be more if I decided to do an additional cardiac anesthesiology fellowship. With the way the Joint Commission is going to recommend 24 hour ICU coverage, I don't think I have to worry about a job after finishing fellowship (I'm being trained to become a Critical Care Anesthesiologist in case you are wondering).

You are making judgments based on an online persona that you perceived on the Internet, based on your own deep rooted prejudice. You are the one who need to be more mature. If you look back, I have not blamed you or any other LEO for anything, especially for something that I chose to do. I take my chances and it is my problem. I am sure when I start to take home call I would run into this type of trouble one day and I take full responsibility for driving reckless on an empty highway at 2am. However, if I told you that I have an emergent case and I am on route to the hospital when you pull me over, I would expect the courtesy of expediting the process or if possible, to send me a ticket later in the mail and let me go on my merry way.

You are given the responsbility to up hold / enforce the law, but you do not have the power to decide who is guilty. Only a court of law has the power to do that and often times when this type of cases goes to court, the charges end up getting drop / reduced. That's why we have a court system to decide who is right and who is wrong.

[Kev]

Originally Posted by Jaypod

Hey I am not saying I dont believe it happens - I am sure it happens. And I dont need a sample, emergencies are emergencies. Like I said in my original post - Hope he fights it and the courts see it his way. However if you think getting out of a ticket because you are a doctor responding to an emergency is some right of passage - good luck to you. I am sure there are many cops that may let you off but the reality is speeding is speeding and unless you have the training and a lightbar and siren to announce your presence its dangerous to others as well as yourself. If you drive your car into another car or go off the road - how are you going to save lives?

My suggestion is you may want to keep the attitude to yourself as my experience in being pulled over a few times has been if I keep my cool (after all I was speeding, how can I argue?) an be courteous, you never know, they may let you go with a warning and be understanding of your circumstance - acting and talking like an arrogant pr*ck is likely to get me nowhere.

Wowowo, how do you infer that I have an attitude and talk like a prick? Do you have some sort of telepathic ability like Ms. Cleo? Maybe you should keep your prejudice to yourself, seriously. I have never said he should walk out scotch free for speeding. I'm just saying it's an emergency and we take our chances. If we get pulled over, we would try to explain our situation and hope that the officer will speed things up and let us tend to our patient.

Light bar and driver training? Do you know what type of "driver" training EMTs get? Luckily both my medical school and my residency program train the city and county EMTs and we have first hand experience of what type of training they got, which is fairly useless even compared to just an HDPE aimed at teaching you defensive driving. As far as light bar goes, are they really that useful at the wee hours when we are called in? I highly doubt that because other cars are far and in between at that time. I welcome your comments on these issues.

[ihyln]

Originally Posted by immiketoo

All of them. But, I tell them right away that if they need to write me a ticket, thats cool, I earned it. And that is my point. Responsibility, NOT professional courtesy.

I will call BS on this, professional courtesy is highly regarded among the force as you might already know. I know you are on the defensive here but that's not going to help you by saying that "give it to me anyway, I deserve it". As it stands cops don't give other cops tickets.

[Paddy]

To be fair, I think in general most cops respect the medical community and vise versa. Both are familiar with seeing carnage from road traffic accidents and both appreciate the risks and results of speeding. IMO the doctor should not be speeding unless he has had some proper training on defensive driving like most cops do. Most likely the doctor was not concentrating on the traffic/conditions but trying to get from point A to point B as fast as possible.
The problem with 25 zones is that people are lazy, they take one look in the mirror, see nothing, then pull out after a few seconds and assume nothing is there.

As others have said just as some doctors abuse the "emergency" card, some cops abuse the "power" card. That's human nature and not indicative of the (respective) professions in general.

So maybe this doctor should have gotten a break, who knows, but the beauty of the system is, bring it to the judge and let him decide.

IMO, the judge will throw out the case.

Question is what did the OP learn from this?

Probably nothing, because he's buying a radar detector.

[Jaypod]

Originally Posted by Kev

Wowowo, how do you infer that I have an attitude and talk like a prick? Do you have some sort of telepathic ability like Ms. Cleo? Maybe you should keep your prejudice to yourself, seriously. I have never said he should walk out scotch free for speeding. I'm just saying it's an emergency and we take our chances. If we get pulled over, we would try to explain our situation and hope that the officer will speed things up and let us tend to our patient.

Light bar and driver training? Do you know what type of "driver" training EMTs get? Luckily both my medical school and my residency program train the city and county EMTs and we have first hand experience of what type of training they got, which is fairly useless even compared to just an HDPE aimed at teaching you defensive driving. As far as light bar goes, you

You must be Doogie Howser as you sound like a 12 year old - read my post I suggested you might want to keep your attitude to yourself.

I said "acting and talking like an arrogant pr*ck is likely to get me nowhere."

Whatever- Good luck to you

[Kev]

Originally Posted by Jaypod

You must be Doogie Howser as you sound like a 12 year old - read my post I suggested you might want to keep your attitude to yourself.

I said "acting and talking like an arrogant pr*ck is likely to get me nowhere."

Whatever- Good luck to you

Here's what you said:

Originally Posted by Jaypod

My suggestion is you may want to keep the attitude to yourself as my experience...... acting and talking like an arrogant pr*ck is likely to get me nowhere.

so, I'm merely responding to your "assumption".

I would kindly suggest you be very careful while you maintain your balance on your moral high horse. Good luck to you too.

[mphatic]

Originally Posted by Paddy

To be fair, I think in general most cops respect the medical community and vise versa. Both are familiar with seeing carnage from road traffic accidents and both appreciate the risks and results of speeding. IMO the doctor should not be speeding unless he has had some proper training on defensive driving like most cops do. Most likely the doctor was not concentrating on the traffic/conditions but trying to get from point A to point B as fast as possible.
The problem with 25 zones is that people are lazy, they take one look in the mirror, see nothing, then pull out after a few seconds and assume nothing is there.

As others have said just as some doctors abuse the "emergency" card, some cops abuse the "power" card. That's human nature and not indicative of the (respective) professions in general.

So maybe this doctor should have gotten a break, who knows, but the beauty of the system is, bring it to the judge and let him decide.

IMO, the judge will throw out the case.

Question is what did the OP learn from this?

Probably nothing, because he's buying a radar detector.

Exactly! This thread has devolved into a pissing match of epic proportions which was a little entertaining but has now jumped the shark. At this point no one sounds very mature

OP-the consensus here is a V1 detector and a Laser Interceptor jammer. I agree on the jammer; pricey but the best (about $700 front only/$1200 front and back) plus installation if you don't do it yourself.

V1 is also top notch but two additional considerations are whether RDs are illegal where you drive and how much of your "fast driving" is highway v side roads. If side roads and lots of false alarms bother you and if RDs are illegal you might consider the BEL STi-D or STi-R. I'm no expert but it's supposedly better at filtering false alarms and is completely stealth-undetectable to RD detectors that LEAs use. The R (for remote) can be founf on the internet for $600 the D (driver) for less.

[Sincity]

I hope this cop doesn't end up on your table/bed one day........

[NewM3driver]

V1