Tweet
A little bit of background on this rather weird question. I hold dual citizenship from the USA and Poland. My drivers license is issued in Illinois (I go to school in Florida). In Poland I drive in a Florida registered Jeep Liberty (registered of course to a family member that has Florida residency so we do not have to do emissions testing if it was Illinois registered). The car is legally driven out of the country every 6 months to comply with registry laws in Poland and in order for us to keep US plates.
Anyways, I did get pulled over there several times for speeding and other things which resulted from the Police initially not realizing the car is US registered and exempt from domestic vehicle code (such as mandatory asymetrical front lights, color of turn signals, rear foglight, mandatory mufflers etc). Of course I was let go for the non-moving violations as they did not apply to me, but for the speeding, driving into a commercial/government vehicle street (by pure accident this one) and other small stuff such as an illegal turn (this happened in more than one European country) I have never received a ticket probably because the Police had no idea how to enter the car in their system, where to send the ticket or even how to enforce such a ticket. This exact same thing happened to me once when I rode the subway in Poland on a 24hr ticket that literally expired 5 minutes prior and got stopped by city officials who were dumbfounded what to do with me as I only had my IL DL on me and let me go. So here comes a reverse scenario of a foreigner (say European for this example):
1. If you pull over someone for speeding/rolling stop etc. in the USA with a foreign drivers license do you usually write them a ticket?
2. Do holders of foreign licenses have to pay the fine up front in the USA? And what happens if they dont have the money with them, do they go to jail? Question comes from the fact that realistically speaking US plates are immune to speed cameras and parking tickets in several countries I have drove in.
3. How do you check valid insurance/registration on cars? Specifics here include cars on European plates that do not conform to US emissions laws and do not exist here (For example Polish/EU issued plates have no registration period sticker, and the insurance is tied to the plate so more often than not there is no insurance card).
4. If someone has a suspended foreign drivers license, is that normally possible to even check during such a traffic stop?
5. How do you run a check when you pull over a holder of an American issued DL in a foreign registered car in the USA? Of course you check paperwork but in most cases it wont be in English (sometimes not even in Western Alphabet) so then what?
I understand that if the infraction was something larger jail time is in order, but my curiosity is simply for normal moving and non-moving violations and how you guys would deal with such a scenario. As I said before, my curiosity stems from my experiences overseas on American DL/International Permit.
Anyways, I did get pulled over there several times for speeding and other things which resulted from the Police initially not realizing the car is US registered and exempt from domestic vehicle code (such as mandatory asymetrical front lights, color of turn signals, rear foglight, mandatory mufflers etc). Of course I was let go for the non-moving violations as they did not apply to me, but for the speeding, driving into a commercial/government vehicle street (by pure accident this one) and other small stuff such as an illegal turn (this happened in more than one European country) I have never received a ticket probably because the Police had no idea how to enter the car in their system, where to send the ticket or even how to enforce such a ticket. This exact same thing happened to me once when I rode the subway in Poland on a 24hr ticket that literally expired 5 minutes prior and got stopped by city officials who were dumbfounded what to do with me as I only had my IL DL on me and let me go. So here comes a reverse scenario of a foreigner (say European for this example):
1. If you pull over someone for speeding/rolling stop etc. in the USA with a foreign drivers license do you usually write them a ticket?
2. Do holders of foreign licenses have to pay the fine up front in the USA? And what happens if they dont have the money with them, do they go to jail? Question comes from the fact that realistically speaking US plates are immune to speed cameras and parking tickets in several countries I have drove in.
3. How do you check valid insurance/registration on cars? Specifics here include cars on European plates that do not conform to US emissions laws and do not exist here (For example Polish/EU issued plates have no registration period sticker, and the insurance is tied to the plate so more often than not there is no insurance card).
4. If someone has a suspended foreign drivers license, is that normally possible to even check during such a traffic stop?
5. How do you run a check when you pull over a holder of an American issued DL in a foreign registered car in the USA? Of course you check paperwork but in most cases it wont be in English (sometimes not even in Western Alphabet) so then what?
I understand that if the infraction was something larger jail time is in order, but my curiosity is simply for normal moving and non-moving violations and how you guys would deal with such a scenario. As I said before, my curiosity stems from my experiences overseas on American DL/International Permit.
Comment