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Old 07-28-2011, 10:57 AM   #1
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Re: Police Harassment of Skoolies

This is an informative video on asserting your 4th amendment rights:


I've previously seen this in better quality video on youtube but can't find it now. There is another like it that addresses police search of your home. These videos seem to be geared towards young people who party, but really I don't feel like having some thug cop tearing my bus apart and asking intrusive questions even if I've got nothing to hide. If we as a society allow this kind of bullshit we'll find ourselves moving towards some kind of fascist state before long. We have little enough privacy as it is so long as we are interacting with any kind of communication technology like internet, email, cell phones, etc.

I've not finished the exterior of my bus yet, but I'm going to try and find a balance between having some "artsy" touches while at the same time not looking like a total hippie bus.

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Old 07-28-2011, 01:12 PM   #2
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Re: Police Harassment of Skoolies

I have never had a problem with this, although my buses have always been painted pretty conservatively and maybe the fact that I live in the midwest where everyone owns a bus makes a difference as well.
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Old 07-28-2011, 03:49 PM   #3
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Re: Police Harassment of Skoolies

For starters, the side of the road is not where you have a "discussion" about whether your bus/RV is your home or a vehicle (yes in SOME states, but NO in others). This has been covered several times on the RV forums. Mostly because many RVer's pack guns. If you have TX plates, expect to be well searched if crossing onto Canada. Seems Canadians think all "Texans" carry guns. We have only been pulled over ONCE since we started RVing (as opposed to "camping"). I was in the Class C on a back road in South Georgia on our way to FL. Seems drug runners were buying older RVs, filling them with drugs and if pulled, would dump the RV. It did freak out the cop because David was following me aways back in a pickup truck pulling a 16 ft cargo trailer. Since I was pulled over, David pulled over as well. Cop was nice and explained why he pulled me. I did explain the truck that crawled up on his bumper was my hubby. Everything okay. I learned years ago to be super polite and say "sir" a lot. I think TX believes that your RV is your home. I know that the Escapees Club has lobbied for many years to get fulltiming RV's recognized as a "home". We have fulltimed since 2006 and haven't had a problem yet. But we also try to keep a low profile. No "wild" paint jobs, no bumper stickers that might make a cop pull us like "protected by Smith & Wesson", "legalize marijuana" "Veggie oil conversion" (did you pay road taxes on your veggie oil and do you have proof on you???), etc

We came out west (1700+ miles) no plates, no insurance, no problem (no yellow paint either and we pulled the flasher covers off). Never got so much as a second look. Only spent three nights in public campgrounds (2 nights in a TX COE, 1 night in a NM State/County park). All the other nights were spent in parking lots. No problems. And we weren't exactly what you would call "low profile".

Stacey even blatantly ran a traffic light in Tatum NM because she was plastered to my bumper (David was in the lead in the bus towing my Jeep, I was in the middle and Stacey was bringing up the rear in her Jeep pulling the untagged food cart... no tags needed in TN). And she made the left turn in front of a cop... he had to wait on her to clear the intersection.

IF we were to have something that we weren't supposed to have, like say, unregistered guns, I would make sure that they were well buried in the walls. or someplace. Not that we have unregistered guns. We spend far too much time in public campgrounds and we aren't supposed to have guns or any weapon in most parks we have been in. Certainly not unregistered guns.
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Old 07-29-2011, 08:03 AM   #4
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Re: Police Harassment of Skoolies

Cops don't know the law. they are not lawyers. We discovered this when we were trying to find out some info on towing lengths and asked the NC state troopers (the main question was would we have a problem towing a Lincoln Town Car with a 40 ft TN tagged bus since the combined overall length was over the NC legal length if the tow bar was included but at the length if the tow bar wasn't counted.... problem solved when we bought the Jeep). This is why WE don't stand on the side of the road arguing rights with cops. Often is is just bias against transient folks.

The food cart was built on a flatbed cargo trailer. It didn't need to be tagged in TN where we were residents, had a house there and all our vehicles were tagged in TN. David kept getting pulled by the bops in NC (where he was working) because he didn't have tags on the trailer which NC requires. David had bought the trailer in NC and they always pointed to the sticker that said "Franklin, NC" and said it needed to be tagged in NC. So I finally printed David out the section of law that applied to the trailer and David kept it in the glove compartment to show cops. TN didn't require a lot of things to be tagged... like our pop-up trailer. We could if we wanted to but I simply printed out the section of law that exempted it and kept it in the glove box. I sold the pop-up in NC and the idiots at the DMV could not understand why I didn't have tags to turn in. Stupid idiots. And it was hard to not tell them that. Why would I turn TN tag into NC anyway. I would have to do that in TN!

We found it interesting that Bradley County TN (was home to Mail Call... our former mail fowarding service) booted about 75 full-time RVers off the voter rolls because they used the mail forwarding company as their legal address. NAACP filed suit on behalf of the RVers (they were contacted by some of the RVers) and go everyone re-instated. But it was a mess. What came out during all this was that a homeless person could vote because they could claim a park bench or tree was their "home" but the fulltime RVers were in a "grey" area because their home was not "fixed". This is why I will use Escapees Mail Forwarding service and why I recommend others to use it as well. Livingston (Polk County TX) UNDERSTANDS that RVer's have slightly different requirements and are willing to work with them. Even the state reps are "RV Friendly" people.
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Old 07-29-2011, 02:34 PM   #5
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Re: Police Harassment of Skoolies

driven at least 50K miles criss-crossing the country in a skoolie. Was only stopped twice. Once in Illinios or Missouri (can't remember) at a rest area for parking on the side with the cars, rather than with the big trucks.

The other time, after a grueling 2,000 mile non-stop adventure, we were stopped a couple hours from our home in michigan by a state trooper for not going through the weigh station. According to him, every vehicle has to go across the scale, including motorhomes and other recreational vehicles.

oh yeah....i was also stopped once locally when filling up with wvo after dark. I did have permission and it was a complete non-issue.

No tickets were issued.

I also crossed the Canadian border about 20 times, only getting pulled over and inspected less than half of the time.
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Old 07-30-2011, 08:47 AM   #6
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Re: Police Harassment of Skoolies

I just remembered a couple more....

In downtown Detroit I parked a little too close to a fire hydrant and was approached by a police officer. After a long conversation about wvo and a look at the jacuzzi he said something like"someone will probably give you a ticket for parking here, but I don't feel like it"

Another time I was sleeping in the bus in some random strip mall parking lot about 3 am or so, and a car rolled up to investigate the liquid dripping out of the bus. The concern was that I was dripping black water. Turns out it was just clean filtered jacuzzi water.

There were also a few requests by oakland county officers to stop using the 50 foot flame thrower during the Woodward dream cruise.

I never felt inwas harassed by Leo because of my skoolies.
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Old 07-30-2011, 08:54 AM   #7
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Re: Police Harassment of Skoolies

Quote:
Originally Posted by richlindquist
Quote:
Originally Posted by lornaschinske
IF we were to have something that we weren't supposed to have, like say, unregistered guns, I would make sure that they were well buried in the walls. or someplace. Not that we have unregistered guns. We spend far too much time in public campgrounds and we aren't supposed to have guns or any weapon in most parks we have been in. Certainly not unregistered guns.
I don't understand. You register voters not guns.

Rich

I don't get it either. I'm from the South. I know where to buy an unlicensed gun at most anytime. We've bought and sold several. Of course we don't have any now. Didn't when we stayed in the State parks either.
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Old 07-30-2011, 06:59 PM   #8
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Re: Police Harassment of Skoolies

Quote:
Originally Posted by lornaschinske

IF we were to have something that we weren't supposed to have, like say, unregistered guns, I would make sure that they were well buried in the walls. or someplace. Not that we have unregistered guns. We spend far too much time in public campgrounds and we aren't supposed to have guns or any weapon in most parks we have been in. Certainly not unregistered guns.
Not sure what city/stae you are from, but there is no mandatory gun registration in most cities/states in the U.S.
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