I am old enough to run for president and have a license to practice law. FYI, I’m not Vin Diesel in The Fast and the Furious. I like fast cars. But, I know where to go if I really feel compelled to do something irresponsible. More to the point: I’ve never caused anything but a fender bender and that was, cough, many years (egads, decades) ago. Moreover, I did not get a traffic ticket from 1995 until last night.
There are several reasons I know the stop was bogus. I will leave out the painful description of the intersection I was pulled over in and the significance of the traffic signal pattern. The main one is that it was not conducted as a traffic stop. If you are being pulled for speeding it is not necessary for the police to check out your car as you go by, slowly turn around, and follow you down the road for 1/2 a mile checking out your car before deciding to pull you over. Nope. If they want you for speeding they hit the lights immediately to let your speeding ass know to slow down.
I wasn’t speeding.
It’s hard to gauge sincerity on the internet, I know. I would not be ashamed to admit I was speeding. Nor would one ticket kill me financially. But, I know some of you just will never believe that an ordinary police officer would pull over someone who was not speeding and give them a ticket for something they did not do. Well, it’s true. I’ve gotten two bogus tickets in my life, this being the second one. The first one I got in Gulf Breeze, Florida - the same exact situation: cop pulls me over after following me for a while then makes up some vague claim of speeding “back there” to justify pulling me over and giving my car the once over. The same ticket for going 9 over was issued, minor to be sure. UNLESS YOU WEREN’T FUCKING SPEEDING.
Just to wrap this rant up: Goddam unethical totalitarian tax collectors - that’s all you fucking traffic Nazis are. Sure, there were probably street races going on in my residential subdivision but you were protecting our access road from people going to the Chilis for takeout food.
I am wise to you fuckers. If you have a red car with a wing (albeit small) - with twin Idaho potato cannon fart pipes - you are not going to be able to drive by without talking to a cop. HEY MORON! It’s a fucking Infiniti G35 - IT CAME THIS WAY! It’s my wife’s daily driver, you fucking morons.
This is why I’m getting a SVT Ford Focus ZX5, the five door version. And putting MOON and HURST stickers on it.
I’m only contemplating the second part, but it’s a fun idea, really. I’ve noticed that cops like to harass people who like pocket rockets, while they like to applaud people who like muscle cars. Go fig. I’ve never gotten a ticket for speeding on the highway with my Beetle, while I know someone with an Eclipse with graphics and a big wing that gets nigh one a month.
I drive faster than he does. Of course, I also drive safer than he does.
I could not help asking one cross-examination question as she issued the citation.
So, this does not have anything to do with my wife’s shiny new red car, does it?
sputter “I could not even see you in the dark.”
A lie. Other cars headlights were lighting up my car as I stopped at a stop sign right next to her. She chose to follow me only after getting a close range and well lit look at the car.
I’ll admit that the stock exhaust looks like twin anti-aircraft artillery. I did not fucking design it, and its quiet.
A long time ago I had a drinking buddy who was a cop. One night I got a ticket from one of his associates. I felt that I did not deserve this ticket so I bitched at him loud and long. he told me the following and I was smart enough to remember it.
So if I get stopped on a marginal call I smile and make nice to the officer, because in my head, I am counting up all the ones I deserved and didn’t get. Know what? I’m way ahead on points.
One side benefit, is that by being nice I have been let out of several tickets.
Hmm, a cop has never applauded me, I’d like to be applauded once in a while… no one ever applaudes for me, is that asking too much? My GF never applauded me, I bought a stang and cops dont applaud me? and they do others ? damn…<shakes fist>
Y’know, I’ve never had trouble with the cops ('course, now that I’m posting this, I’m probably gonna get pulled over today), while I have buddies that have a half-dozen tickets (and another half-dozen times pulled over that they managed to talk their way out of… some of them were total DUI’s, the nitwits :rolleyes: ). I certainly don’t drive like a maniac… hell, I pretty much drive like an old lady.
Although I’m sure my day will come, when I jump 3 mph about the speed limit just as some really anal cop with a bad case of hemorrhoids, a failed marriage, an ulcer, and insomnia just happens to be nearby…
Bingo. I told my wife that the car of her dreams was a “cross between probable cause and guilt beyond a reasonable doubt” to the cops around here.
In fact, if I was to search, I might be able to find the post I made about three weeks ago which speculated that this car might bring unwanted attention. That was quick.
I’m driving my nice “sedate silver” (not stock and rumbling) Z-28 with just under 400 horsepower from now on. Almost exactly five years in that car, 38,000 miles, still no tickets.
Venoma,
That’s the car. What you can’t see are the cartoonishly garish rear tail pipes. Yes, the wheels really are that big. Oh, and it’s redder than that in real life.
Generally, everyone:
Thanks for not turning this into a discussion of my disrespect for law enforcement. I guess everyone understands those 12 or so hours after a questionable ticket.
Ah, the lament of the flashy car. You want to show off to the noobs and passersby, but also be invisible to the local constabulary? Can’t have one’s cake and eat it too.
However, if you had, speaking purely hypothetically, mind you- not that I’d know anything about this- if you had, say, an ‘81 two-tone grey Monte Carlo with a few dents, some chipped paint, and grandmas’ grocery-getter faux wire-wheel hubcaps, packing a .030"-over 455 Olds big block out of a '68 Toronado, with dual exhaust, a Crane Fireball cam, light portwork, an Edelbrock intake and 10.5:1 compression (roughly estimated at 385hp and 525 ft/lb torque) feeding power through a THM400 automatic with a shift kit to a c-clip-eliminated 12-bolt diff with discs and 3:75s…
… you can blow past State Troopers going the other way in excess of 75 mph in a 65 zone, and they won’t even blink.
Speed traps in Florida. The two up near Gainesville are legendary. I would add that most any little island community is a speed trap. They have low speed limits and love to bag tourists who won’t come back to fight the ticket.
Doc Nickel:
Pretty much. If you see it coming and step in front of it anyway, that’s not smart is it? I could repeat “I told you” to my wife forty thousand times and yell obscenities, but I’ve opted to go to court and bitch instead.
There was a ‘good’ reason. For a time my wife had a silver car (urban camouflage I call it) and had lots of problems with people pulling out in front of her, into her lane, or just into her car. It was surreal for a while how many fender benders she had. So she thought, “red is visible.” :smack:
I’ve been in a vehicle that was pulled over for speeding three times now (Never as the driver, thankfully). In every case, the officer followed the car for at least half a mile before turning on his lights. I think it’s mostly to run a check on the vehicle to make sure there isn’t some particularly dangerous situation they should know about (Warrant for arrest, stolen vehicle, etc). I dunno, makes sense to me. Sorry to hear about the rest of it, though…
The rabid frothing anti-SUV crowd usually belches some nonsense about SUV drivers being terrorist-huggers/supporters because SUV’s use more gas than a four-banger econo-box.
So these SUV threads are not about taste at all…
BTW for the record I dont own or drive an SUV…they’re eeevil
In this case it’s a six cylinder, near luxury, rear wheel drive, mid- sized, import sports box. Why are we oppressed?
How can you think about racing? All I can think about is insurance.
Amen.
Actually, casdave, there is an import racing subculture which the cops treat as mortal enemies. The whole Fast and the Furious thing, you familiar? I’m not in it, but I’m pretty sure that the cop mistook me for one.
Phoenix Dragon: Interesting. I’ve always seen them hit the lights as soon as possible, or even step out in the road in front of a vehicle. I think they do the check you are speaking about by the side of the road before they approach the vehicle.
I used to live in an apartment complex. About twice a week the OPD would set up a roadblock type speed trap on our street. So, as I walked the dogs, I could watch them give tickets.
The long story:
In my case the alleged speeding had to occur between a light and a stop sign that are not much more than a third of a mile apart. I was slowing very early for the stop sign because the intersection is hard to see at night. Any speeding had to have happened way back just as I was leaving the last light. There is the whole issue of having to accelerate to the supposed speed in time to slow down gradually for the stop sign…
Before I make this stupid complicated over nothing, especially since the cop will just claim that I rapidly accelerated up to 54 so that I could slow down interminably like a fucking moron: if I was speeding the cop had forever to hit her light to let me know to pull over. I’m talking 10 seconds or so. I was basically just rolling along at 30-40 (seriously) looking for the damn four way stop. Then I took forever to stop for the stop sign, having noticed the cop ten feet from me. You know, one of those full and really complete stops where you look both ways twice as if to say “don’t fuck with me.” Nope, it was not about speeding. She waited. Only after seeing the car stop at an intersection and go did she even develop an interest in pulling me over.
