When a police officer is following you:

Just because a police officer is following you, doesn’t mean you should drive 15 miles an hour under the speed limit, slyly sneak your seatbelt on, chug down that last gulp of beer and stare in the rear-view mirror to see what he is doing.  If a police officer is following you very closely he is either doing 1 of 2 things.

1. He could be reading your license plate.  Sometimes it is hard to see license plates at a distance, so he might be creeping up on you to read your plate.  He is trying to run your tag number through a database that will tell him if you have expired license and tags or for outstanding warrant information.

Basically if he is doing this it should be very obvious, because he is mostly looking at his computer and typing.  In this case just go ahead and pull off to a side street and get out of his way, because if he is going to pull you over, he would have done so already or is about to.

2.  He could be and most likely (at least in my precinct) is trying to get to a call.  Basically someone called 911 and needs a police officer’s assistance, however the problem isn’t severe enough (based on the knowledge that we have over the phone) that we can turn our lights and sirens on.  Really because of liability reasons we can’t bluelight to get to every call.  Because disgusting slimy individuals out there just want to sue the government for a million dollars if they get hit in an accident because they stubbed their toe.  When people do that, everyone suffers (mainly the citizens that pay taxes for police services).  For instance: you could call 911 and all the 911 operator hears is you yelling saying you need the police then the line goes dead.  Well what is really happening is your psycho ex-boyfriend/husband/baby daddy decided he was going to kick open your door and beat you in the face with a baseball bat while he is raping you.

In that scenario a police officer is driving close behind you, he is going to look anxious to get passed you.  Someone needs his help, but technically and according to policy (at least in dekalb county) we are not allowed to turn our lights and sirens on to get there as fast as possible.  Because the county (you, me, everyone who pays taxes) can’t afford to pay $10,000,000 to that person you know who sues for a handout a “payday” if you will. 

So please, just go ahead and move out of the way.