It's easier to get pulled over than you think. All you need to do is commit one of the five violations we've listed below. For even faster results, try combining two infractions at once. Many drivers find this very effective. Actually, the real reason for this list is to stop you from being pulled over by the police. By seeing driving behavior from the traffic cop's point of view, you can avoid encounters with the law. A little extra awareness could help you keep points off your driving record and keep down the cost of your car insurance. This list shows you the things to watch out for if you want to avoid unwanted contact with the boys (and girls) in blue.
Speeding. This was on everyone's list, and the reason is simple. The faster you go, the longer it takes to react to an unexpected situation, whether it's a pedestrian stepping into the street or another car making an unexpected lane change, says Detective William Bustos, officer in charge of the Los Angeles Police Department's traffic detectives. Braking distances also increase as speed builds, and it takes about 120 feet for a vehicle to stop when it's traveling 60 mph. Speeding is common in Bustos' jurisdiction, the San Fernando Valley, which has 230 square miles of mostly wide, straight streets. As recently as the early 2000s, the area attracted frequent street races that played like scenes out of The Fast and the Furious and its sequels. People are driving faster than they did in the past; "People seem impatient; their commutes are longer than ever before," experts say. CHP officers write tickets, particularly for speeding, in an attempt to control the "mileage death rate" — the number of people who die per freeway mile. That's a sobering thought. Alex Carroll, author of Beat the Cops, which has sold more than 250,000 copies, offers an opinion on how far over the speed limit a driver can go without being pulled over: 5-7 mph "easy," he says. The officers interviewed for this story confirmed that there's a "buffer," but added that the decision to cut a speeder some slack is up to the officer's discretion.