Given all the rules and regulations there are to follow as motorists, it’s confusing to stay abreast with every last one. In fact, it’s just about impossible—so much, in fact, that I dare not even try. What I tend to do instead is just take a “When in Rome” approach to the whole situation.

I drive the speed limit (more or less), stay off the radar, and refrain from the silly things I’d have loved to do as a kid. It’s been working for me for years, but even as careful as I try to be, I’ve had my share of run-ins with the law.

If you drive long enough, it’s bound to happen. It’s just impossible to follow all of the rules all of the time. Sometimes, it’s really not your fault, but sometimes, it legitimately is your fault. Either way, a majority of us are in for a talking to eventually. All of that is copacetic, but what about the stranger reasons that people get pulled over for?

When a cop makes routine traffic stops over the course of many years, they hear it all eventually. You and I, on the other hand, only hear the stories that we’re told by our law-enforcement friends and family. Most cops have a small list of interesting reasons they’ve had to pull someone over. Equally as odd, however, are the reasons people have been told they were pulled over by cops. Which exactly is the stranger of the two, it's hard to be sure.

20 Not Stopping For Invisible Stop Signs

The funny story of a routine stop on-base turning into a yelling match is well-known, as a regulation was misinterpreted by a certain police officer. But nobody likes being told that they don’t know as much as you about the very regulations they enforce.

To top it off, the story was about a truly silly traffic stop in the first place.

“When I was in the Air Force, I got pulled over for not stopping as I exited a parking lot,” Army engineer John Matterson recalls. “When I had told him that his regulation was restricted to government-owned property and not personal vehicles, he didn’t like that very much,” Matterson laughs, “he just yelled at me and walked back to his car.”

19 Driving A GMC Syclone

Sometimes, it’s less about you and more about what you drive that gets noticed. Taking it a step deeper, sometimes it’s not even what you drive but how you drive it that gets you noticed. Any one of those factors is going to get you a hotter heat signature on the highway patrol's radar, so having all three converge at the same time basically means you’re a rolling bust. Take for example, something like the GMC Syclone—it’s basically Chevy Sonoma-sized pickup with 0-60 mph times somewhere just under the 4.5-second mark. These things did 15-second quarter-miles from the factory, but they’re super rare. One guy reported owning one for brief period of time, in which he claimed to be pulled over every time he took it out.

18 Not Slowing Down Fast Enough

Because 45 mph means 45 mph, sometimes rural enforcement is a quirky thing. For the most part, they’re the Andy Griffith do-gooder, but sometimes that do-goodin’ gets a little too uppity for its own good and the next thing you know, you’re giving out tickets for not slowing down fast enough.

Is that even a thing? Not really.

But if you’re the small-town fuzz and you decide it should be a thing, then it becomes the thing. They set up traps where the speed limit drops down from 55mph to 45mph; and then to 35mph. This is where the uppity little officers will pop you for one or two miles above the limit.

17 Going The Speed Limit

Sounds ridiculous, right? That’s because it is ridiculous, but it’s true. You could be pulled over for going the speed limit. And the logic is sound. Picture a downtown New Year’s Eve in a densely-packed city, loads and loads of people, and everybody’s having fun, even the designated drivers.

Even the Uber drivers are in on the action!

It’s highly probable that just about anyone you’d pull over under reasonable suspicion for driving under the influence probably is (enough to get the deuce, too). Trying too hard to follow the letter of the law as ambient traffic flies by you isn’t exactly the best way to blend into the invisible safety of anonymity.

16 The Oldest Trick In The Book

What’s a better excuse than a light bulb for an officer to pull you over? If that doesn't seem to make sense, it's because bulbs don’t even have to be burnt out for you to get pulled over for them being burnt out. If that still doesn't make sense, consider that an officer “sees” a bulb out, but then it’s not burnt out when you check it. You still can’t prove it wasn’t “on” when he happened to look at it. Chances are, he just wanted to check you out for some other reason. Cry about this all you want, but if you stopped doing the things that made them curious about you in the first place, you could drive around with burnt-out bulbs all over your car and they wouldn’t bother you at all.

15 Not Matching The Description

Tanner Landenhall was heading home with a date when he was pulled over out of nowhere. When Tanner asked why he’d been stopped, he was told his truck matched the description of one they were looking for. Except it was a Ford, instead of his Chevy. Oh, and it was red, as opposed to white. By the end of the whole thing, he was finally told his license plate light was out and that was the real reason he got pulled over. (Remember that light bulb trick I taught you?) Strangely, the officer would be sharp enough to notice a light bulb on a truck that flies by him while remaining oblivious to the make, model, or even color.

14 Driving A Muscle Car

Or any super-rad car naturally attracts those fuzzy eyeballs, but muscle cars especially. This is more or less just to get a chance to check out your car, and most cops don’t even need to be shy about it. Can you really blame them? I know if I had a switch on my dashboard that turned on some flashy lights that made everybody pull over, I’d probably just hard-wire them right into the ignition circuit to save wear and tear on the switch. Then again, I’d never stop for a red light, either. If you drive a really cool car that’s rare, chances are you’re going to get stopped for some rubbernecking sooner or later. Who knows, maybe he wants to race, too, though it’s best to stop and ask first.

13 Having To Make It Home

Sometimes nature calls when you're on the go. There you sit, as you try to drive home, stuck in the perfectly painful position; daggers of urgent need shoot from your seat up through your body.

You’re almost home. If there was ever a time to speed, it is now, and you do.

You also get pulled over for it. When you tell the officer why you were speeding (with your face twisted up in a sweaty contortions of agony), if he feels sympathetic enough to your situation, he may just let you slide because who hasn’t had that paralyzing urge at one point in their lives and had to hold it.

12 Having An Exhaust Note

Just because it’s a bad reason to pull someone over doesn’t mean they can’t use it; and in many places it’s technically illegal to modify anything to do with most major components of your car, or at least, the fun ones. You can put your bumper stickers all over your car, but many powertrain and exhaust upgrades are a no-no. This isn’t too heavily enforced, typically, and we all get away with it for the most part. But if they want to, it’s an automatic strike three. They probably can’t search your car, but they have a reason to stop you that doesn’t require lightweight lying about a license plate light. Some cops even try to pull over cars with factory exhausts, claiming that they sound modified.

11 Driving Longer Than A Minute

The cops really don’t need to wait long to catch you doing something wrong if they really want to get a better look at you. The license plate light lie is only a last resort, while most cops like to claim they only have to follow you for a short minute before they find a technical “green-light” to light you up.

You may think it doesn't apply to you but then again, that’s what everyone thinks.

Don't worry, that’s what I think, too. A good cop doesn’t have to lie about a reason to pull you over, he just has to watch you long enough and eventually, you’ll slip up.

10 Going The WRONG Speed Limit

Remember that thing I said about profiling young kids due to their predisposition for showboating? Well, if you wanted to argue with me, hold that thought, because here’s exactly why you get profiled for being young.

A 17-year-old kid was clocked at over 100 miles per hour near milepost 90 on I-71 just south of Grove City, Ohio.

Inexperienced 17-year olds have no business driving 100 mph in the first place, but no man on earth has any business taking a Ford Explorer into triple digits. That’s just lunacy. During questioning, the boy became extremely agitated, claiming he was only doing 85mph. When asked what made him think he was going 85 mph, he told the officer the speedometer maxes out at 85 and his foot was all the way down.

9 Driving Too Slow

This is one that needs to be enforced a lot more heavily, and just as severely (if not more) than driving too fast. If you’re that guy who's cutting lanes at 90 mph as you zing through traffic, you’re just going to get out of my way quicker. And that’s ok with me. But it’s the fossilized grandma looking like a wax museum exhibit, put-putting home in the first car she never had to crank-start in the blistering cold. She's the one that that needs a judicial crackdown. Either that, or we can subsidize mass-transit between noon and 3:00 p.m. for them to make it to an early dinner, but I'm pretty sure everyone can agree that slow drivers are worse than fast ones.

8 Driving A Beater Too Fast

Sure, driving fast gets you noticed and some fast cars are definitely more persecuted than others just because of their notorious reputation. But then there are all the others, the dumpsters of society, rolling around with just enough nuts and bolts to barely hold them together.

You know, those cars that you watch to make sure you don’t hit the stream of spare parts flying off?

Cops see these scumbags and don’t like them, although they love to chase down the winged, speed-demon beaters and tone that ego down a notch or two. Plus, you can get them for big ones like speeding and then nit-pick the equipment violations to death. Why they pulled you over is less of a question than why they waited so long to pull you over in the first place.

7 The Rolling Stop

Usually, this limited to segments of the country that are too busy to bother with silly formalities such as a complete stop every time a red octagon pops up on the side of the road. When you’re used to things like this, especially in places like California, you have a tendency to do it everywhere you go, whether you know it or not. California even has a stopping style, the California Roll, named after it. If you can’t guess what that is by the name, it’s basically a slowing to a safe speed as you half-way check both directions before proceeding. It’s so commonplace that people even do this in front of police in some places, and meanwhile sushi shops sell out of their fake-crab creations.

6 Getting Profiled

You were hoping, deep down, that this list would have a mention of profiling with a hint of distain. But honestly, what do you expect? Profiling is the mac-daddy of tactics available at an officer’s disposal! For younger drivers, especially, who stick out like a sore thumb because officers rightfully assume that they have very little driving experience and juvenile tendencies for showboating (more so for the guys than the ladies, admittedly). I’m not one for needless profiling, but whippersnappers today are so sucked into their phones that the lack of situational awareness is just dangerous. I’m ok with them getting tickets, and for getting pulled over for no real reason.

5 Going The RIGHT Speed

This one is never going to be admitted to you, but you could get pulled over for doing the speed limit if it makes you stand out. It’s the age-old dilemma: when you’re doing something wrong, is it safer to blend in with the crowd at the risk of breaking a few laws here and there, or should you drive the speed limit right up to the number (like you never do) and hide behind a technicality? It’s a matter of preference, but I’d venture to say that if you’re one of the faster ones out there on the roads, you look like you don’t care if anybody sees you or not, making you as minimally-conspicuous as possible.

4 Being Pregnant

She didn’t get pulled over for being pregnant, but a pregnancy-related emergency is often the excuse when a young couple got pulled over for speeding. That’d all fine and dandy if it were true but playing on a cop's emotional heartstrings with a child’s welfare on the line seemed like a pretty foolproof bet.

Who could deny that?

The couple that hatched this diabolical scheme to evade a ticket by telling the cop that he was speeding because his girlfriend was pregnant and needed to see a doctor immediately. The cop, knowing it was a ruse, played into it. He personally escorted them to the hospital and had the staff prepare a room. He made sure he stuck around until they were forced to come clean and deny care, then he let the billing department write the ticket for him.

3 Being A Pilot

It’s not possible to get pulled over for being a pilot, but being a pilot might make you drive in ways that get you pulled over. When all they do is fly just below the speed of sound all day, driving in a car slower than the speeds at which their planes can even generate lift has got to be a drag. But pilots make money, and Corvettes go fast. One off-duty pilot was pulled over in his Corvette going over 100 mph in a 55 zone. The officer told him, “You were flying! Unless you have a pilot’s license, you’re going to jail!” The pilot produced his pilot’s certificate from his wallet and showed the officer. In acknowledgement of the rare irony, the officer cleared him for takeoff with only a verbal warning.

2 Dyslexia

Sometimes it’s the small things in life. A day in the life of an officer is filled with a lot of different things, but between being the bad guy during routine traffic stops and being the good guy when the real bad guys come around, humor can be in short supply. Sometimes a little smile is all you need in your day. A routine traffic stop ended with a note of humor and a happy ending when a particular Scott Russell was tagged for speeding. When the officer told him he was going 54mph in a 45-zone, he immediately blamed his dyslexia. The officer thought it was funny enough to let him slide, but told him if he catches him doing 53mph in a 35 zone, it’s over.

1 Transporting Undocumented Motorcycles

The year is 2010 and the location is beautiful, sunny San Diego. Eric is moving tomorrow and packing all his things into his truck and trailer, including his Harley. His motorcycle is strapped down in the bed of the truck and covered by a tarp to keep it dry.

At some point, the tarp began to flap in the wind and needed some quick adjustments.

Eric pulled over and fixed the tarp before continuing back on the highway again. He wasn’t on the road for more than 14 seconds before Border Patrol had him lit up and pulled him off to the side of the road because they said he looked like he had human cargo underneath the tarp where his motorcycle was.

Sources: policeone.com, parade.com, revlimitphotography.com, and lakeparkpolice.com.