We live near a spring-fed river, and the kids (19, 17, 14) went swimming the other day. When they were coming back on the highway, a police officer was driving the opposite direction, did a u-turn, and pulled them over. When he walked up to the car, he said, "Were you aware that you were going X mph?" My daughter (19) responded that she was not aware. She handed him her license and registration. (He did not ask for insurance.) He asked where they were going, if the address on the license was still valid, and who the other people in the car were. She said they were her brother and sister. Then he asked my younger dd (14) how old she was. She responded with her age. He then looked at my ds who was in the front passenger seat and asked him his age. He responded with "17." Then he said, "What is your birthdate?" My son responded with "Why do you need to know that?" (Now I wasn't there but his older sister said his tone wasn't quite where it needed to be.) The officer then said, "How you respond to this will dictate what happens to your sister! What is your birthdate?" Again ds said, "Why do you need to know?" The officer became furious and said, "I have a right to question anyone in a car that I've pulled over." He then returned to his car, wrote her a $279 ticket, and went to the passenger side to scream at ds that he was just going to give her a warning but that she could thank her brother for this ticket.
Something happened a little later that is pretty interesting, but before I get to that, tell me what you think. Do the police have a right to interrogate everyone in the car, particularly minors, when they pull someone over for speeding? Now, if he had had suspicion they were drinking or doing drugs, OK, but they were in swimming suits and clearly sober.
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