The seven-step pre-flight check.

A traffic stop is a stress test. Done well, it ends quickly with both parties calm and clear. Done badly, it can spiral into something nobody wanted. The seven steps below are what HandsUp members run through before pressing record at any stop. They take less than a minute and they keep the encounter on the rails.

Step one and two: pull over safely, hands on wheel.

Use turn signals. Find a flat, well-lit area. If you're in a sketchy spot at night, turn on hazards and slowly continue to a safer location — most officers understand this. Once stopped, put both hands on the wheel and keep them there until directed otherwise.

Visible hands de-escalate. Officers are trained to look for them, and an officer who can see your hands as they approach the window starts the encounter at a much lower stress level than one who can't. Small adjustment, big difference.

If it's nighttime, turn on the interior light before the officer reaches the window. The same logic applies — anything that lets the officer see what they're walking up to lowers the temperature of the interaction.

Steps three through five: record, window, tone.

Step three is the most important. Tap the record icon in HandsUp before the officer reaches your window. The app starts capturing immediately. Set the phone face-up on the dash where it can see and hear the interaction without being held.

Window and tone.

Roll the window slightly — enough to talk and pass documents through. Not all the way down. That's a personal call, but a partial gap is enough for any reasonable interaction.

Tone matters more than facts in the moment. Yes officer, no officer, here's my license. Save the legal arguments for later — your recording captures everything regardless. Anger reads as resistance even when you're factually correct.

Address the officer with their rank if you can see it on the uniform. It costs nothing and signals that you're treating the encounter as a professional interaction rather than a personal confrontation. Officers often reciprocate, and the whole stop tends to end faster.

Steps six and seven: documents ready, recording awareness.

Reach for ID and registration slowly. Announce what you're doing: "I'm reaching for my registration in the glove compartment." Officers don't like surprises and most appreciate the verbal heads-up. Have your documents handy before the officer asks if possible.

Know what's happening on the record.

Once you press record in HandsUp, every word, every gesture, every moment is timestamped and uploaded to secure cloud storage. You don't have to remember what happened. The recording remembers for you.

The goal isn't confrontation. The goal is calm, clear, documented compliance — and a complete record of the stop, exactly as it happened, ready to share with a lawyer if anything later doesn't add up.