A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (I was a teenager), all the LEOs and one assistant DA told me that "RULE OF THUMB" was; someone was considered traveling if he was more than one county removed from his home county. In other words, if you are in your home county or an adjacent county to your home county, you are not travelling. HUH???
I told all of them that if I go to the grocery store I am travelling.
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This rule-of -thumb "law" enforcement tradition is increasingly being exposed for what is - the path of least resistance for some who are not self-motivated to aquire and maintain fluency in the respective State laws. It is disconcerting when a citizen has to interact with LEO's who aren't current on, or simply disapprove of existing laws. I expect the USPS letter carrier delivering mail on my route to actually deliver MY MAIL in my mailbox - not my next door neighbor's mail just because I live "pretty close to" my neighbor.
This is one of the primary reasons that so many members of the public find the law "unclear". Unlike most other fields that require continuing education in order to maintain professional certification - LE training is primarily focused on very real concerns regarding officer safety, effectiveness in identifying and establishing some plausible basis for asserting probable cause, and perfecting cunning techniques designed to circumnavigate the 1st, 2nd, 4th & 5th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution in order to obtain evidence related to criminal activity. Knowledge derived from word-of-mouth, rules-of-thumb, and a subjective community caretaking "consensus" may or may not reflect the actual law. Refering personal concerns regarding the subjective "appropriatness" of otherwise lawful conduct to the jurisdiction of the court system should not be the function of LAW enforcement.
It is not unreasonable to expect certified professionals to maintain a current knowledge of cutting-edge resources applicable to their zone of responsibility. Why do we allow those entrusted with the responsibility of enforcing our laws to avoid periodic testing of their effective working knowledge of the actual laws on the books ? In order for commercial truck drivers to haul haz-mat loads they have to take a written haz-mat knowledge test in order to renew their CDL's. Nurses are required to up-grade training regularly and demonstrate proficiency in their medical knowledge.
The vast majority of LEO's in Colorado and Texas are more than willing to apply the law as actually written. LEO's have their hands full with REAL criminals, and generally recognize and respect the RTKBA when exercised by the law-abiding. I suppose that's WHY there really isn't much 46.02 case-law in Texas in lieu of some collateral criminal conduct.
