Highway Patrol

Avoid SD if at all possible when traveling. Troopers (specifically officer Anderson) - will pull you over for going 3mph above the speed limit and be placed in jail for two nights because the officer ‘forgot’ to file the paperwork. Completely unprofessional officer that joked and laughed at the incident in front of the kids to another officer.. should seriously be psychologically re evaluated and re trained in police misconduct.

Aside from a few monuments, I don’t find any reason to visit SD. If you do decide to visit the monuments , depending on which direction you come from, your GPS might suggest you take highway 16, DON’T DO IT!!! Not only is the scenery enough to cause you to want to snooze during the day, but at night, it’s pitch black with many animals to watch out for! The most inconvenient part about using this highway : the highway patrol.nnApparently this is one of or THEE highest speed limit areas in the country, so for that reason going 1-2-4 mph over the speed limit, is enough to warrant a patrol officer to follow you for miles, wedging you between himself & other vehicles. He then is allowed to ride next to you for minutes , at the same speed as you & the other vehicles around you, & stare in your car to “locate any possible threats”. After following you for miles, he will decide to pull you over, ask you a bunch of odd questions that have nothing to do with speed only to follow those up with issuing a warning for going 3 miles over the limit. Oh, but he won’t stop there! He will ask you to join him in his car while he writes the warning, but that is just his tactic to separate the driver from any passengers. He will ask even more suspicious questions , none will be relevant to “speeding”. He then will come ask the passenger questions like, “ How do you know the driver ? Why are you on this road? Where are you coming from? Why do you own gloves?”. Even after you inform him of you having a skin disease known as atopic dermatitis which is prone to infections such as staph and MRSA, showing him your flare ups on your hand, he will smile & acknowledge such information, say misleading lines such as “ I thought you were a nurse”, only to still ask to search your vehicle. As you stand on the side of the highway watching as he searches the vehicle , he will realize there’s no sign of criminal activities. After stalling a roadtrip for a couple of innocent people who were trying to enjoy the sights in their very OWN country, he will finally give you the warning that was supposed to be for “speeding” and let you go.nnIf you find this whole ordeal suspicious and unjust, you should contact the Highway Patrol offices & truly find out if it was handled correctly. Once you contact them, they will email you asking for all the information needed to validate the incident. They will eventually call you and try to explain why following a car for miles & pushing them further into the flow of traffic , riding next to them to search the vehicle for nonexistent threats, only to pull them over miles later for “speeding” is justified. They will then eventually ask you if you want to file an official complaint. If you say yes they will also offer to view footage & then give a follow up call. They won’t follow up. If you contact them to inquire about the follow up call, they’ll call you once, leave no voicemail & then send you an email. The email will have an unpleasant tone stating that nothing wrong was done by the highway patrol and that your feelings of being treated unfairly are essentially ridiculous.nnI wish this story was an exaggeration or a precautionary tale of what could happen instead of a true account of an event that DID happen. Many could say the highway patrol was just doing their job, & maybe they were. I honestly feel this wasn’t the case. I was there. I saw the other cars & trucks traveling the same speed as us or faster. I saw the highway patrol car lingering behind, beside and around us. I was questioned about why I was tired & why I was in that state. We were questioned about where we were coming from , which was then used to prejudge our intentions based on stigmas that are attached to the state in which our trip originated. After doing research, I feel the officer who stopped us is just itching for another career boosting drug bust! What happened was unnecessary & I have my feelings on why it happened at all.nnIf highway patrol truly cares about the safety of people, they have to learn to care for ALL people first.