...but it happens....or I should say that around here, it USED to happen. For awhile it was happening so regularly that I started advising people to lock their vehicle if the officer requested that they accompany him or her to the cruiser. The standard MO was to engage the driver in conversation while checking the license and registration. A backup officer would arrive on scene, casually stroll over and start rummaging through the vehicle. That's frightening on two counts: The illegal search is one, but that pales in comparison to the danger posed to the officer by taking an unsearched person into his vehicle. God help you if your buddy finds something AND the criminal sitting next to you has a weapon but no desire to get arrested. It has been a long time since I've heard of it happening around here, and that may be due to the change of leadership in WPD. Over the past forty years, the largest portion of search and seizure case law revolves around vehicle searches. The courts allow substantially loser standards on vehicles, but it seems that every few years another case arises where an officer has pushed the envelope and the court has to address another legitimate concern for officers or rein them back in. What's particularly disturbing, however, is that several large departments and agencies in the Northeast are using 9/11 as carte blanche to basically search any vehicle they want to under the claim of security concerns, then fishing for weapons or drugs. I'm aware of at least one incident where trucks were proceeding unmolested into the Lincoln Tunnel while the Port Authority police stopped and checked every car with Virginia tags. (That has Bloomberg's nuttiness written all over it.)