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Bloomingdale v. State1/2/2004
of the location of a moving vehicle suggests that the citizen reporting the driver is likely on the road herself and trying rapidly to report an imminently dangerous situation. For example, it would be a very imprecise method of accomplishing harassment to report the subject as a driver who might be driving erratically, as contrasted with reporting activities that would result in a frisk or search of the person. Automobiles can travel at high rates of speed and change direction rapidly. To harass someone by reporting him as an erratic driver would at least require knowledge that the person is driving a specific vehicle, at a particular time, and in a discrete area. A police officer must then be near that location at the same time and promptly respond to the report by pulling over the vehicle. Because this is such an intricate, improbable, and imprecise method of harassing another, the risk that an anonymous tip of erratic driving has been submitted by a malicious, false informant becomes significantly reduced.
*1221 The greater mobility of automobiles also increases the reliability attributed to the tip by its readily observable, descriptive details. It would be difficult for a tipster accurately to place a moving vehicle in a particular location at a specific time if the tipster has not immediately observed that vehicle. An officer therefore should be permitted to give greater credence to an anonymous report of unsafe driving when it is supported by: (a) the precise description of the vehicle; and (b) the officer's corroboration of the descriptive features of the vehicle and the location of its travel in close temporal proximity to when the report was made. [FN44]
FN44. The widespread availability and use of call identification technology may also reduce the risk that an anonymous tipster is acting maliciously. Because of such technology's accessibility, most potential tipsters are likely to know that their identities may be discernible by police, even if not disclosed by the tipster. Potential tipsters are therefore less likely to give false tips, for fear of being prosecuted for giving false reports to police. See Florida v. J.L., 529 U.S. 266, 276, 120 S.Ct. 1375, 146 L.Ed.2d 254 (2000) (Kennedy, J., concurring) (noting the widespread availability of instant caller identification to police and concluding that it may lend reliability to an anonymous tip that may have been deemed unreliable before the advent of such technology).
Finally, when deciding whether an anonymous tip of erratic driving provided reasonable suspicion to stop a vehicle, courts should balance the government's interest in responding immediately to reports of unsafe driving against the comparatively modest intrusion on individual liberty that a traffic stop entails. An erratic driver poses a potentially imminent threat of harm to the public. [FN45] Unlike cases involving possessory offenses where courts have rejected dangerousness exceptions to the reliability requirement, [FN46] police officers confronted with an erratic driver have limited options for investigating the tip, short of stopping the vehicle. If the officer must follow the vehicle to corroborate the allegation of erratic driving, the officer risks observing the vehicle actually cause an accident. [FN47] Investigation of a different charge not involving a moving vehicle, however, could be accomplished by less invasive means, such as initiating a consensual encounter or quiet observation, and without creating such a high risk of imminent harm. [FN48]
FN45. State v. Boyea, 171 Vt. 401, 765 A.2d 862, 868 (Vt.2000); State v. Rutzinski, 241 Wis.2d 729, 623 N.W.2d 516, 526 (Wis.2001).
FN46. E.g. J.L., 529 U.S. at 272-73, 120 S.Ct. 1375.
FN47. See Boyea, 765 A.2d at 862 (de
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