Being pulled over by a cop is never really a welcome or pleasant experience. Instead, it’s usually a rather stressful and inconvenient one, especially if you don’t even know why you’re being stopped in the first place! Whether it’s because you’re speeding, have a head light out, or rolled through a stop sign, the sight of flashing lights in the rear view mirror can make your heart skip a beat.
Regardless of how you feel about being pulled over, oftentimes the police are simply doing their job. Plus, if you aren’t doing anything stupid or illegal, then you shouldn’t have to worry. Sure you may end up getting a ticket or fined for some minor infraction, but at least you’re free to go and be on your way.
When it’s all said and done, you may have noticed that the police officer tapped the taillight as they approached your driver’s side window. Even if this has never personally happened to you, perhaps you’ve observed it happening to someone else or picked up on it in old movies and TV shows. It seems kind of strange and at the time it probably made you think to yourself ‘what was that for?’
There are actually two explanations for taillight tapping. First, it serves as a quick and easy way for a police officer to leave their fingerprints and trace evidence on a vehicle, should anything terrible happen during a stop. Back in the day before body and cruiser dash cams, there wasn’t a whole lot a cop could do to definitively establish that they had contact with a car and the occupants in it, so they’d leave fingerprints just in case something happened.
And while they used to call in license plates before stopping a vehicle, as they continue to do so today, marking it physically also showed that they had approached the car. Should there have been an issue down the line, that establishes a timeline of events that could prove crucial.
The second reason why cops tap on taillights is just as relevant today as it was over sixty years ago. They do it to both get your attention and momentarily distract whoever is in the car. That way, if the driver or passengers are attempting to hide drugs, weapons, or other contraband, the tapping surprises and throws them off guard.
Think about it, a cop tapping on your car would make you jump up, stop what you’re doing, and snap to attention. As it turns out, this shock tactic works well and has led to countless people getting caught red-handed trying to conceal their illegal ways. There you have it, the real reason why cops tap the break light when they pull someone over.
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