Check out the tale of a recent ride-along over at The Bold Italic. Written by Mark Lukach with design by Diana Martinez. Among other things, we learn that when you get pulled over late at night for something seemingly insignificant, the cops are just using you as an excuse to flash their lights.

[From midnight to 2 a.m.], the most important thing for officers is to be as obvious as possible. The easiest way to do that is to pull people over. So we did that. If we saw a guy with a tail light out, or turning left where it’s prohibited, we pulled the car over. Not to cite the guy. Not to be dicks. We did it in order to have police lights flashing on busy streets where drugs are sold, gangs congregate, and the inebriated get rowdy. In the course of an hour, we pulled over four cars along Mission Street, and didn’t ticket a single driver. We were just letting our presence be known.

Read the rest here.

Or members of the Met Corps.

(via S. Pigeon, who probably owns at the daily jumble)