Woman Refuses to Pull Over Because She's a Prius Driver

Matt Posky
by Matt Posky
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woman refuses to pull over because she s a prius driver

A Washington State Patrol trooper was confronted with occupational difficulties earlier this month while attempting to pull over a woman driving a Toyota Prius with expired tags. The woman, 42-year old Jamie Petrozzi, was headed southbound on I-5 through Marysville two Wednesdays ago when the trooper turned on his lights and attempted a traffic stop.

The driver made no attempt to stop on the highway and, instead, exited a mile later before finally stopping at an intersection. From here, the highway patrolman ordered her to pull over using his loudspeaker. Petrozzi declined to cooperate, forcing the trooper to approach the side of the car and instruct her to pull off the road. “I will not,” she said, according to the arrest report. “I drive a Prius. I am not pulling over there.”

Rather than conducting the traffic stop at her current location, the Olympia resident said she would instead pull into a nearby parking lot to conduct her business with police. After a fourth refusal to pull over, she was arrested.

According to Everett’s The Daily Herald, which was shared with us via Jalopnik, the woman refused to leave her vehicle when asked and went into a fury when taken into custody. “I will own your bank account. I will own your house,” she was reported to have said.

While you could chalk the encounter up to an impatient trooper or a civilian suffering from a complete lack of practical prudence, the Prius angle makes this a hell of a lot more interesting. The time for being smug and protective of your Prius is over, and has been for about a decade. While it’s always been unnecessary, it hasn’t been fashionable since the the model’s third generation appeared.

Leave the “I own you” backtalk to the trust-fun kid driving a gold-painted BMW M4, as it has to make officers feel empowered when issuing a ticket. Meanwhile, hearing that kind of thing from a Prius owner just seems like it would be more confusing than anything else.

The police report alleges Petrozzi said she refused to move to the shoulder because her tires keep “popping,” which apparently, in her mind, had something to do with its status as a Prius. We think the only thing that was popping was the driver’s bad attitude. However, if her vehicle was suffering from some kind of audible issue, that only makes her unwillingness to stop even more confounding. Petrozzi was arrested for failing to obey instructions, refusing to identify herself, and obstruction — all of which are misdemeanors.

[Image: Toyota]

Matt Posky
Matt Posky

Consumer advocate tracking industry trends, regulation, and the bitter-sweet nature of modern automotive tech. Research focused and gut driven.

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  • Road_pizza Road_pizza on Sep 27, 2018

    She refused to pull over because she's a sanctimonious b****.

  • Wadenelson Wadenelson on Oct 01, 2018

    May I play Devil's advocate here? DOT seldom if ever sweeps the Interstate shoulders of gravel, glass, nails & screws. The one flat I EVER had on my motorcycle resulted from pulling on to the shoulder to remove a layer of clothing. Drywall/deck screw. I absolutely understand leading a trooper to the next exit. If nothing else too many morons, drunks, and cellphone using drivers threaten to sideswipe you pulled over on a highway shoulder. /flamesuit on.

  • Carsofchaos The bike lanes aren't even close to carrying "more than the car lanes replaced". You clearly don't drive in Midtown Manhattan on a daily like I do.
  • Carsofchaos The problem with congestion, dear friends, is not the cars per se. I drive into the city daily and the problem is this:Your average street in the area used to be 4 lanes. Now it is a bus lane, a bike lane (now you're down to two lanes), then you have delivery trucks double parking, along with the Uber and Lyft drivers also double parking. So your 4 lane avenue is now a 1.5 lane avenue. Do you now see the problem? Congestion pricing will fix none of these things....what it WILL do is fund persion plans.
  • FreedMike Many F150s I encounter are autonomously driven...and by that I mean they're driving themselves because the dips**ts at the wheel are paying attention to everything else but the road.
  • Tassos A "small car", TIM????????????This is the GLE. Have you even ever SEEN the huge thing at a dealer's??? NOT even the GLC,and Merc has TWO classes even SMALLER than the C (The A and the B, you guessed it? You must be a GENIUS!).THe E is a "MIDSIZED" crossover, NOT A SMALL ONE BY ANY STRETCH OF THE IMAGINATION, oh CLUELESS one.I AM SICK AND TIRED OF THE NONSENSE you post here every god damned day.And I BET you will never even CORRECT your NONSENSE, much less APOLOGIZE for your cluelessness and unprofessionalism.
  • Stuki Moi "How do you take a small crossover and make it better?Slap the AMG badge on it and give it the AMG treatment."No, you don't.In fact, that is specifically what you do NOT do.Huge, frail wheels, and postage stamp sidewalls, do nothing but make overly tall cuvs tramline and judder. And render them even less useful across the few surfaces where they could conceivably have an advantage over more properly dimensioned cars. And: Small cuvs have pitiful enough fuel range as it is, even with more sensible engines.Instead, to make a small CUV better, you 1)make it a lower slung wagon. And only then give it the AMG treatment. AMG'ing, makes sense for the E class. And these days with larger cars, even the C class. For the S class, it never made sense, aside from the sheer aural visceralness of the last NA V8. The E-class is the center of AMG. Even the C-class, rarely touches the M3.Or 2) You give it the Raptor/Baja treatment. Massive, hypersophisticated suspension travel allowing landing meaningful jumps. As well as driving up and down wide enough stairs if desired. That's a kind of driving for which a taller stance, and IFS/IRS, makes sense.Attempting to turn a CUV into some sort of a laptime wonder, makes about as much sense as putting an America's Cup rig atop a ten deck cruiseship.
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