We’ve all done it, even if we feel guilty about it. We see a panhandler on the median at an intersection and, while stopped, we avoid eye contact, glance at our phones and don’t even read the beggar’s sign.
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This Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer is using that tendency to bust drivers for just that, Infonews.ca reports.
Cpl. Mark Taylor stood at an intersection in the British Columbia town of Vernon in street clothes holding a sign that read, “I am not homeless. RCMPolice looking for seatbelt/cell phones.”
Taylor got a number of positive reactions from drivers, but not everybody was happy to see him.
“In one hour our officers issued eleven tickets for either using a cell phone or not wearing a seatbelt,” RCMP spokesman Gordon Molendyk said.
Taylor took note of how drivers reacted when they thought he was just another homeless guy.
“It is very interesting when most people looked (my) way and thought I was panhandling, (they) quickly looked away so that there was no eye contact,” he said.
Police there have also ridden incognito on buses or posed as construction workers to nab offenders in similar stings, BuzzFeed reports.