I Have been stopped numerous times by the Russian police and have been forced to pay them off two times.

The first time I'm pretty sure that I went back to my lane before the white line started but i still got stopped. I was new and green to paying the police off and they where pretty scary. The whole thing took maybe half an hour of negotiating even if I don't really speak Russian and spoke even less at that time. They showed me a report they had already filled in with someones Russian drivers license paper clipped to it and showed me both the report they where going to write for me and a temporary drivers license they where going to issue me. At that time I paid but today i would have asked to see the evidence I believe they have to shoot in such serious offenses.

Second time was also about the same kind of offense. There was maybe 30 cars driving behind a lorry at about 50km/h and when the white line stopped i went for a takeover and wondered why only one car was overtaking with me. There must have been a temporary sign prohibiting takeovers that I missed. Same thing, they where clearly professionals in scaring people. Both of these incidents happened east of the Ural mountains, around Tatarstan.

One time I met some German travelers and we decided to camp in the forests somewhere between Omsk and Novosibirsk IIRC. Not generally a good idea nor recommended but we survived. In the morning I left a minute before the guys because i wanted to travel alone. Just a few kilometers from where we camped I was stopped at a police station. He asked for my documents and as he was looking at them the Germans arrived too and got stopped as well. The police asked something including the word "kamrad" (friend) and answered him niet, "No".

He gave me my documents back while he checked the German guys paperwork. I did not want to leave until i get a clear sign for that so I stayed there. He spotted what he thought was some kind of offense in their visa registration and started questioning them about that. They did either not understand anything of what he said or then they did just not want to understand, but I did a mistake by telling them in English what the problem was. A mistake. He wanted them to follow him to the police station and as they left I asked him what about me. He showed me to follow. We were put in a cell but the door was left open, so after maybe half a minute we decided to go outside to the beautiful morning showing no fear for them. After a few minutes the police finally arrived with their passports and let us go.

One interesting thing was that when we were leaving they shouted something after us through the window. One of the German guys went there and got a book that turned out to be the new testament in Russian. No idea why they gave that. But the lesson of the story is to keep calm and show respect but no fear for the police. They probably hoped for us to hand over some dollars immediately when we were put in the cell.

I have also been stopped two times for speeding, once for 120 in 90 and once for about 75 in 50 and both times they have let me go immediately when i they realized I'm a tourist. So speeding does not matter, passing a white line does. Don't do that.