What would you do?
What would you do?
We know that police officers tend to target right hand drives. Sometimes though, they don't know they just pulled over a right hand drive.... and go to the wrong side of the car.
One day I was thinking about what I would do if I was the cop on the wrong side of the car. I then realized that I have no pride. I'd make a joke saying, "Oh, it's one of those."
Turns out that most police officers have more pride than me though. I've heard from some people that some officers will not only go to the wrong window the first time, but if they go to their car and come back they'll STILL go to the wrong window. My message to these officers: Two wrongs do not make a right.
The police, unfortunately, do have a good case to pull over RHDs. Occasionally officers will pull over RHDs just to check out the car (had the same problem in my '74 Baja Bug), sometimes because the driver is being a moron (if your car has 300+ HP, it's hard not to... it's cool). Those points aside, compliance is a big thing. Even though your car is 15+ years old, it has to meet certain standards to be on the road. Safety checks (or your province's equivalent) will not always catch everything.
I don't want to launch into a big talk about compliance right now. Headlights, tail lights, side markers and seatbelts seem to be the hot-button topics. The Imported Vehicle Owners Association of Canada has a FANTASTIC forum that discusses issues such as this. If you're in doubt about it, and don't want to ask a cop about it... ask there. There is lots and lots of people that really know their stuff there.
Cheers!
rob
Image via http://www.wheels24.co.za/News/General_News/Carrera-GT-killing-M600-ready-20090623
July 25th, 2010 - 11:44
And as sidenote: if the officer does go to right side of the vehicle, he/she is at that moment out of the way of approaching traffic, which in my opinion raises THEIR safety margin……..just look at those “world most dangerous drivers” or “amazing vids” where some cops almost buy the farm by cars plowing into the parked vehicles…..so, they cannot say it CAN’T happen.
July 26th, 2010 - 10:15
RHD cars are just safer then LHD cars in that aspect. We get out on the sidewalk and not a busy street. The officer (if/when) we get pulled over is not in harms way as he stands on the shoulder of a busy highway/street.
Thanks to people like CADA people fear RHD cars because they believe we are 40% more at risk of an accident which is complete BS (thanks ICBC for that wonderfully faulty study). For instance, head on collisions are usually front left to front left, Where do we sit?? On the right side away from the impact.