German Police Stop Man With Mobile Office In Car 146
PolygamousRanchKid writes "Forget texting while driving. German police say they nabbed a driver who had wired his Ford station wagon with an entire mobile office. Saarland state police said Friday the 35-year-old man was pulled over for doing 130 kph (80 mph) in a 100 kph zone while passing a truck Monday. Built on a wooden frame on his passenger seat they found a laptop on a docking station tilted for easy driver access, a printer, router, wireless internet stick, WLAN antenna, and an inverter to power it all."
I've driven some long trips with a similar passenger-seat setup (minus the printer), but of course for use only while stopped. Since the police in this case had no evidence that the rig was being used while driving, the driver was ticketed only for speeding and for having unsecured items. Really, it seems like something that Skymall should offer in neater form; now I regret not picking up a surplus police cruiser computer when they were in stock at the local Goodwill.
double standard (Score:5, Interesting)
Because it's not like this is even a fractional amount of the setup most police squad cars have (at least here in the US):
* Multiple radios, usually 2-3 from what I've seen (emergency, local police dispatch, national or state frequencies, etc.)
* A laptop on a mount
* A printer
* A shotgun
* A radar gun
* spot lights
* fancy data uplinks
What exactly would the problem be with anyone having these things in their car?
Keep in mind that "all of the above", plus what the guy in Germany had, is common fare for many US truckers (well, except the shotgun, which I believe is now illegal for a trucker to have in his cab).
so? (Score:3, Interesting)
ummm.. my ford escape has had all this and more for over 4 years. I have had one accident not caused by me, and the cops were impressed by my setup, not busting me for it lol.
Re:Serious comment (Score:4, Interesting)
Respect for cops has not decreased over the last couple decades. My guess is that you are about thirty or thirty five years old, so you only have a couple decades of memory [me too, by the way; I'm 33]. Cops have always been disrespected for being hypocritical power-hungry douchebags simply because they in fact always have been hypocritical power-hungry douchebags -- cf. Javert from Les Mis.