There are times when the police conduct a traffic stop on a vehicle based upon a tip from a citizen that the vehicle was driving erratically. Sometimes, this is a tip from another driver. When the police observe traffic violations that, by themselves, justify a traffic stop, courts need not analyze the reliability of the citizen’s tip in determining whether the traffic stop was valid. However, the police often gather little to no evidence prior to conducting a traffic stop. In those instances, courts must analyze the reliability of the tip. In other words, the courts ask: "can police pull you over based on a tip from another driver?"
In analyzing the reliability of the tip, informants are divided into three classes:
(1) the anonymous informant;
(2) the known informant; and
(3) the identified citizen informant.
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