🚔 Traffic Stops, ID Refusals & Police Reactions – The Truth From a Former LAPD Motor Cop 🎟️🚘

What REALLY happens if you refuse to give ID during a traffic stop? Is it just about asserting your rights, or are there real consequences that most people don’t consider?

In this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on what actually happens when drivers refuse to identify themselves, based on my 20+ years as an LAPD motor cop who wrote over 60,000 citations.

You’ve seen the viral videos—drivers refusing to hand over ID, cops calling in supervisors, cars getting impounded. But is it just for clicks, or is there a legitimate strategy behind it?

🚦 What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

✅ How police handle drivers who refuse to provide ID
✅ The legal gray areas of traffic stops & personal identification
✅ When refusing ID can get you arrested (and when it won’t)
✅ The difference between legal assertion of rights & social media trolling
✅ The liability officers face when letting drivers go without verifying their license
✅ What happens if the driver later causes a crash & how it comes back on the officer
✅ Why some cops take ticket court rulings personally (and why they shouldn’t!)

💡 PRO TIP: If you think refusing to identify yourself is a simple loophole to avoid a ticket, think again. There are legal and real-world consequences that viral videos don’t always show.

👮‍♂️ Insights From a Former LAPD Motor Cop:
This isn’t theory—this is real-world knowledge from someone who’s been on the other side of the badge. I’ve seen how these situations play out in the field AND in court—and I’m here to tell you what works, what doesn’t, and what you should really expect.

📢 Want to be prepared for your next traffic stop? Listen now and gain real insider knowledge on how to handle it smartly, calmly, and legally.

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🎙️ Subscribe to the podcast for weekly episodes on traffic stops, ticket defense, and police encounters!

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Transcript

0:00

little bit of little bit of anger sorry about that I know that some some of you are pretty emotional because you've gotten a ticket you believe it's not justified I get that I think it's an account of perception so as a cop when I was out there writing all those tickets there was a task it was something that we were mandated to do now I don't know if that's changed so much but you know it wasn't my favorite thing but you get the motorcycle you work traffic enforcement you do understand the philosophy that there are five major causes of traffic collisions the fatal type and whenever you get one cop out there in the street that's monitoring traffic out there just to educate engineer and enforce the traffic laws then and by engineering I mean if there is some issue like for example if a stop sign doesn't exist and there's a danger out there for the world then they should go to the engineering department and say listen I've been out in my travels when I've did that I've done this before south of Ventura Boulevard there in Los Angeles you know this should have a stop sign there I believe there's enough traffic to necessitate the placement of a stop sign so then they do a survey and they do studies and then they send somebody out from the city and they do their research and then lo and behold after a while there is a stop sign put there and the stop sign has particular uh a methodology that goes with it for example there are certain rules that apply to the violation of that particular stop sign and of course that can be fought in court if somebody gets a citation for a stop sign that the city erects and they don't believe it's possible they could go to court and fight it but as far as perception goes with the five major causes of traffic collisions a lot of its speed related speeds kind of a top one DUI of course is another one DUI is a misdemeanor type crime if we're gonna talk about traffic citations the perception is as follows the cop goes out there he's been tasked with trying to control a particular problem every for every person that the police officer stops there's another Brazilian that drive by and they self convict they believe that oh my gosh there's a police officer out here I'm going to slow down or I'm going to do the right things that's how the mechanism is supposed to work so the police officer pulling somebody over writing them a ticket that person then is gonna go tell everybody this prick cop wrote me a ticket for doing something I don't remember doing perception police officers out there tasked with writing a citation on this particular street or they want to or whatever it may be maybe they're just you know one of those people that was beaten up when they were kids they decided to get back to the world by becoming a police officer whatever it is and I've seen all types I was doing that job for a very long time LAPD retired there you go without the money alright so let me throw that out there so maybe they got on the job for that reason whatever it is they're out there enforcing the that particular vehicle code whatever it is speeding red lights stop size pedestrian violation turning violations whatever you are in your car on your motorcycle or on foot whatever your violation of the day happens to be and you are not thinking of getting stopped you're not thinking about police you're not thinking about anything else you're in your own world you're thinking of something other than being pulled over for a traffic citation and getting that citation written to you you're not thinking about that so most people when police stop them they ask that question which I really I've never was one to ask that question I don't like it do you know why I stopped you today it was always I'm Officer Macgyver Los Angeles Police Department Valley Traffic Division the reason why I stopped you today was this do you have any legal justification for doing this whatever that is whether it's speedy stop sign red light and that was it and then if they were able to give me legal justification which I I've never heard legal justification I guess cutting a finger off I had this he actually cut his finger off it was in a napkin he was running to the hospital driving really fast to try to get the finger attached we won't talk about whether or not I wrote him the citation I didn't do it there if I was gonna write it would have been at the hospital at some later point but again that's kind of CS right little chicken shit but you know do you have legal justification if not need to see your license registration insurance and done finished now the videos that we see are people that are talking about they didn't know why they were stopped well of course because also the other thing is maybe it took a while for the cop to catch you if you were driving 60 miles an hour and a 35 mile an hour zone that cop has to go from zero where he was sitting on his police motorcycle or even worse than a police car and try to catch you so he's traveling a lot more than 65 miles an hour yes violating the basic speed law absolutely to try to catch you and there were some of those rides that were a lot more e ticket related than others because you are going from 0 miles an hour against a curb you're clearing traffic and then all of a sudden you get on that gas and you are going as fast as you can to catch the person that was violating the law having said that there are mistakes made the vehicle should be guaranteed to be the one that was originally spotted by the police officer in some cases if there happens to be another vehicle that looks incredibly similar that might be a reason why you have no idea what you were doing was wrong because really it wasn't you maybe that is an argument that can be presentative in fact that applies to you but in most cases I believe people they completely forget where they were and they don't remember at that moment the law enforcement officer said that they were doing what they shouldn't have been doing they just don't recall so then when you get the cops stop at you and say do you know why I pulled you over you know I would often respond if I got stopped I would say you tell me or I wouldn't say anything is there anything else I can help you with I I don't have any I don't know why you stopped me what do you need well I stopped you because you were speeding great what do we do from here well do you have any reason why you're speeding I don't know what you're talking about I wasn't speeding what do you need now whatever it is you don't have to be a prick but you can be polite but ultimately if you're gonna hold back your ID and not give it to you because you're free inhabitant or whatever you believe your constitutional rights are against self to incrimination or you don't have to give up you know your information you're driving a car that car requires you to have a license the officers going to need to see that if not they're gonna take the car because you don't have a license so there's a little bit of push pull there now I know people say well cops lie sure I'm sure that's the case personally never have because I didn't think there was honor in that in fact I wasn't even one of those cops that got pissed off when somebody went to court and actually won a case where I had all the evidence I had all the information I had everything dialed in I gave perfect testimony I didn't miss a beat and the person said something just odd that the judge deemed beyond reasonable doubt that's the judge's call or protems call not my call I didn't get upset I didn't loose sleepover I didn't worry and of course if you do win in court you don't have to be concerned about a cop sending out all their buddies against you giving them the license number in your description saying oh we're gonna have to pull everybody over that lives at this particular residence around tickets that's big sin stuff folks that's go to prison stuff I can't imagine police officers doing it at least at the bigger agencies the smaller ones I don't know those games we all hear stories but as far as big police no way and then as far as there being some secretive conspiracy with police officers against one another nobody's gonna lose their job for another one of us nobody's gonna hinge an entire career supporting a family and being able to pay their bills and live in a house and have a car and being able to make a living on what somebody else does if that ever was the case in the past that ship is sail folks there is no brotherhood like that and if somebody goes out there and and violates the law as a police officer good luck on them keeping that a secret it's gonna be their partners it's gonna be other people it's going to be a lot of people bringing that to the front and basically reporting that cop now when police officer doing their job understand that they have their entire shift to fix something so if you're in your car refusing to give your driver's license or identification because you believe that you don't have to in this world they have a long time to play this out now of course there are other people that might be in danger have an emergency these sorts of things but that police officer is going to stand there Intel it is resolved whether you break down or whether they have to extract you out of the vehicle because they formed some opinion that you now are more of a threat than you were before because really in the big world of things I don't know how many people do not get out of their vehicle or do not give up their driver's license identification but if that's your choice great I love the playing field though I love the game and it's wonderful when people go to court fight the police and win I think that's honorable that's something if you believe that you didn't commit the violation whenever the officer said you did however they said it happened and they played all the word games understanding their building evidence from the very beginning of that violation to all the way through the traffic stop if you don't believe you did it then you need to go stand up for yourself then it comes down to time and you have a job and it's expensive because you gotta go to court again go talk to your boss maybe they can give you a little bit of leeway with regard to employment so you can go and fulfill this but do your research understand the vehicle code section that was written understand what the officer told you take some notes if you're gonna videotape and record it great just make sure that that's legal and wherever you are and you're not gonna get in trouble for something in addition but I wouldn't think that's a problem to be able to have your own record of the events as they took place most police are gonna have video cameras they might have even video camera the actual violation I don't know if that's a thing back in my day it wasn't but video cameras right before I got done with that whole line of work they started to become implemented in a lot of cases we had tape recordings we recorded the entire traffic stop beginning to end it went from tape and then it went digital then they thought digital could be manipulated so then that changed and then finally digital was accepted and they had mechanisms to be able to tell if the actual digital recording was manipulated changed or basically modified in any way so that was used I never used it in court usually just because it was just a mess especially with a magnetic tape or the micro cassette tapes but there were cops that kept you know control of all of that in a very beautiful way I was never it was never that big of a deal to me but I do know this and I'll close with this and this isn't some excuse against the cop that wrote you the ticket or that you know you should feel better about it but ultimately whenever police officers are working on a street that has a high incidence of speed related death crashes and they're out there enforcing the law and you're not speeding usually you're not gonna get stopped but if you are getting stopped and it's not it you didn't do it you can follow that up in court but for the most part it does reduce the amount of death on that particular street and when one person is written a citation everybody else that passes by is now convicted in some sort of way mentally that they bring to their awareness not where they were playing in their mind and on their little vacation where they're gonna be going in the future but now all of a sudden they're critical of themselves they slow down and they pay attention for a little while until they go back into that world of fantasy or stress or whatever it is they are living their lives on I'm Connor with honor I hope this helps you understand a little bit more of my method and personally that whole do you know why I pulled you over thing that just irritates me I would never have asked that when I stop people I would tell them why I pulled them over give them a chance to explain if they want to and then we move on from there whether I'm gonna write the ticket or not write the ticket be well we'll see you in the next one