Random: Whatever You Do, Don't Be This Foolish Pokémon GO Player

Doesn't the game have a function that makes it unplayable if you're going a certain speed? Don't know how people are still getting away with this then.

Honestly thought this was a joke at first ngl

When the gamers lost their sanity....

@patbacknitro18 no, that thing just stops you from hatching eggs, not playing the game.

Well that was anticlimactic.

Oh...are we not supposed to do this?

What a loser. Nothing else to add.

They just let him go with a warning? Forget that. Like he just has all those up to just look pretty. Drivers like that are seriously dangerous. He's just a wreck waiting to happen.

Wow I got a ticket for having 2 earbuds (one would have been fine) in my ears a parked car after jogging and this guy is let off? Someone in this deep won't be able to quit.

I thought this was established years ago when GO was the big mega craze?

I see articles like this and have the feeling games are some of the most stupid people on the planet

@patbacknitro18 The game can sense when you're moving too fast and prevent Pokemon in the wild from popping up, and prevent you from getting items from stops and gyms, but you can still go through items and Pokemon you already have. But, if the player is parked on the side of a road, the game will play as normal.

You could have probably just put the Seattle times link. Also whatever happened to the idea of archive links if you're going to post any sourcelink from kotaku.

honestly this would be cool if you were doing this with a friend or something so they can handle the phones, but by yourself and making these car stops is just too much

He was stopped at the side of the road. Right? He stopped and pulled over. What's the problem?

What right does the trooper have to tell him what to do? Don't police have anything better to be doing with their time? Instead of mocking people having fun they should be out actually dealing with crime! Actual crime.

Oh, but I suppose this is MUCH easier than catching those A-holes on crotch rocket bikes doing 120mph down the highway weaving through traffic.

You know you need help when you have 8 smartphones just to play Pokémon Go.

This my friend, is the real Pokemon Go Master:

I'm glad no accident happened, but it's all the more bitter to realize that if any did... a lot of media and bystanders would be blaming the game, not this guy's issues.

......... what is the issue here? He was stopped on the shoulder; not actually driving while playing. If anything, he was acting more responsibly that many players.

@Heavyarms55 ah, i see you've never driven before, and don't know what a highway is.
The side of a highway is for emergencies only. Pulling onto one in heavy traffic would block ambulances and fire trucks from using the shoulder to get where they are going.

This is explained to you on your very first day of driving school.

What a moron, people like him are the reason games get a bad rep

...I'm pretty sure having multiple accounts violates the TOU, but people do this all the time. Some people in my local community group have an alt, and one (that I know of) even has two. I'm fine with my one account, thanks. XD

While this doesn't seem to be the case here, I have seen or known of cases where people play this while driving. I sometimes run the game while driving (typically going between stops that are a fair distance apart) but refuse to pick up my phone and often leave it facedown unless my car is parked in a safe spot.

Please folks, if any of you ever text or do anything on your phone while driving, please reconsider your actions. I personally know someone who's lost one of their children to a driver who was texting while driving.

@SpicyBurrito16 ebay has listings . for $30-40 for the rare pokemon. if he's selling all 8 of the rayqquausuauaua, he could easily be looking at $300 for 30 mins work.

@mjharper not in a fast moving vehicle. it's it a bit more excusable if it's on a bike or a golf cart in the middle of near empty golf field, but as far as something like a car or truck is concerned it fall under the same category as texting and driving. its actually worse than that due to the fact that video games draw more attention texting dose. it's all fun and games until the windshield is coated with blood & guts of something that's not an insect, bird or bat.

@Heavyarms55 I would have taken issue with the story had the guy been ticketed; the vehicle was at a complete stop and pulled off out of traffic on the shoulder, which is perfectly legal in some areas like mine if someone needs to make a text or call or something.

I also don't see a problem with the request for him to put the phones in an area where he wouldn't touch them once he resumed his commute. In states like mine, using a hand-held cell phone while operating a motor vehicle is illegal for very obvious reasons. Unfortunately, people still do it quite a bit.

Basically, I don't think anyone was in the wrong here, but reminders never hurt.

@Tyranexx Is it perfectly legal? On a UK motorway this would be an offence, you shouldnt use the shoulder unless you have a problem with your vehicle.

It's near impossible to play the game in a car, I've tried. (I don't drive)
So, no idea how he does it. >_>

There's a guy in my area who regularly drops in for raids and he uses 10 phones from his parked car. You should see him battling. He looks like Elton John.

@BumpkinRich I can't speak for every state - each has their own driving rules, though many are pretty universal - but the official Driver's Ed. site for my Midwestern state says that it's legal as long as the vehicle isn't moving (and if there aren't any posted signs that say otherwise). Some cities even have their own rules. Most pulled over vehicles on busy freeways or highways that I see are indeed experiencing problems of some sort; most people pull off at an exit, rest area, parking lot, or non-busy side street (if applicable) for about everything else.

The area I live in is predominantly rural, so someone pulling over on an interstate or busy highway for something like this is borderline unheard of. Parking lots and going on foot (if possible) are definitely safer.

I just find it so hard to understand why people use this many devices to play. It must be so difficult to keep track of everything. Not to mention impossible to get very far because after you've caught something on every phone, you've got more to catch and they keep spawning before you move along. I see it all the time on community day, people with two phones. I'm happy to stick to just the one thanks.

And yeah, doing it while driving is the worst.

@tendonerd So, what was the explanation, if you were parked? That makes no sense.

Don't worry, I would never be a Pokemon Go player in the first place.

Calling Pokemon Go a game is like calling McDonald's a restaurant

@Tyranexx Maybe I misunderstood the story then, I thought the cop ordered him to put the phones away and move on. If it was just a reminder it's not as bad.

But sharing the story to the public and effectively mocking this guy is still out of line.

@russellohh Ah, I can see you haven't passed first grade English. You're supposed to the big "I" when using it as a pronoun referring to yourself.

I've been driving for 10 years, yes, that rule is on the books in some regions but police have dozens of more serious things to deal before whining about this. They are lazy, good for nothing scum who love to arrest teenagers for smoking pot and harass people on the side of the road instead of dealing with violent crime or responding to actual emergencies. America in particular needs to focus on dealing more with violent crime, as it has become one of the most unsafe countries in the world and police are worried about someone parked safely on the side of the highway? Don't make me laugh.

Those are the "good" cops too. Some are just trigger happy killers looking for an excuse.

@Heavyarms55 I didn't take that tweet as negative - though I suppose I can see how it would come off that way - more that the trooper was surprised. Heck, I'D be surprised if I came across someone using that many phones for it, and I play the game! That amount of multitasking would probably cause me to short-circuit.

@Tyranexx I guess that's one way to look at it.

I just don't like police. Very very very rarely do I see them do something positive, either on the news, or in my own experience.

The news is obvious, but in my experience:
After being in a car crash and calling them, police took more than 40 minutes to show up - had anyone been injured they'd have bled out.
After several cases of vandalism on my car, police still acted like it was weird that I was telling them someone was going around smashing windshields.
When my African American friend tried to turn in a lost purse, the police told him "We don't need any more of your kind here!"
When I was lost in a city I didn't know my way around and trying to get direction back home, the cop behind the counter in the station wouldn't even talk to me until he finished talking to his wife on the phone.

On the other hand, my more limited experience with Japanese police has been much better.

I don't really see where's the problem here. He was not driving. He was playing some games in his car, which was not moving. No risks.

@Heavyarms55 Totally agree with you man! I'm from Italy and sometimes police men beat people that did nothing to death (and they usually get away with it). No problems with respectful policemen, they are not all the same luckily.

@AndreaF96 Agreed. It's true that not all police men and women are trigger happy killers, racist scum, corrupt, power mad or just cruel.

However the general frequency these sort of dirty cops appear in police forces around the world suggests that the either the number of good police is far smaller, or their influence is much weaker.

The high likelihood of a cop being dirty makes it very hard for me to respect any of them - at least in terms of American police. My experience elsewhere is limited. Though the past few years I have lived in Japan and their police have been decidedly more noble - it's a much smaller sampling.

@Shadowmoon522
Except when you are playing Carmageddon; in that case that is when the fun begins I guess.

I am so glad (most) news media have gone past the "games make people into murderers" nonsense; and now people understand that originally stupid people are at fault, and not the other way around. 10 years ago the headline would have been "Pokemon Go on the verge of causing major car disasters"

@Heavyarms55 My personal experiences with the police have ranged from fairly decent to neutral (The same can't be said about the TSA, but I'm getting off track here). I do know people that have had negative encounters; the one that stands out in my mind the most was a coworker who was ticketed many years ago for t-boning a car when he was making a left turn. However, the car had entered the intersection when the light had already turned red. Not sure if the officer felt sorry for the older gentleman, but my coworker fought the ticket and won by default; the officer didn't even show up! The real battle was between his insurance and the other guy's insurance, but my coworker's insurance won in the end. The truth was in the accident details.

I don't believe the majority of police officers are terrible individuals. I treat one neutrally like everyone else and try to go into a conversation without any preconceived convictions. Unfortunately, the individuals in professions of authority like that are the ones who DO make the headlines whenever they do something very negative. Said abusers of power shouldn't ever have earned the right to wear a badge. When one of these individuals does truly screw up, they deserve an unbiased trial like everyone else. Don't withhold any evidence, do any favors, or give them leeway due to their job and position in the community. I try to look at each of these on a case-by-case basis and do agree and disagree with some rulings that went one way or the other.

I do think officers as a whole get unfair hate at times. I have read stories that aren't as widely covered about them doing some good in the world. Yet on the other side of the coin are those officers, both past and present, who should not have been acquitted for their racism, prejudice, inept training, blatant cruelty, negligence, and/or authoritative abuse.

I had to chuckle at your "crotch rocket" comment up there. There's only been an officer around ONCE in my memory to catch injustices like that. That was a good day.

@Tyranexx Well the way I treat police and the way I feel about police are totally different things. I'm just not stupid enough to mouth off at someone with a gun.

I genuinely do not believe that most police are decent people though. I think they are outright trained not to be and the the job of police officer attracts certain types of people - people who like exercising authority over others, people who enjoy enforcing their will on others and people who like the justification to use violence to do so.

So I respect them in the sense that I fear what they might do to me or others in retaliation for any perceived disrespect or anything they could remotely misunderstand as a threat. Too many police have gunned down unarmed innocent people because those people were mistaken as a threat or were disobedient.

@Heavyarms55 I generally try to treat people how I want to be treated, though their behavior and actions can certainly sway me one way or the other. I'm cautious around officers, not exactly trusting but also don't expect them to go commando without warning either. I can be a little sharp-tongued and sarcastic when ticked off, but likewise I'm not stupid enough to mouth off at anyone who can make my life very difficult for the next while.

I'm not going to deny that middle paragraph; I'm sure there are nearly as many motivations as there are people who join that profession and have in fact read some blatantly negative motivations for those who want/ed to go into criminal justice online. Conversely, I've read some motivations that I would consider positive and honorable too.

It saddens me whenever a life is needlessly lost, no matter how it is taken. Obviously the deaths related to mistaken threats need not happened at all, and I believe in cases of disobedience that moving to subdue the individual with as little harm as possible should be the top priority. Killing, IMO, should only be considered if other lives are clearly threatened and should be the last resort.

There are a couple of cases that I'd like to compare and give my opinions on, but one was brought up again fairly recently and is kind of a hot topic as a result, so I'll hold off. I'm not sure if this is the right place for that anyway.

@Tyranexx "I'm not sure if this is the right place for that anyway."

You're probably right. We strayed pretty far from this article's actual topic.

@Heavyarms55 It's funny; I generally try to stay on-topic with a subject, but I can also be derailed pretty easily lol.