After my first traffic ticket, I didn’t get any more until 1998-’99, then for some strange reason I started attracting tickets in my very fast, very turbocharged bright red Dodge Spirit R/T in Southeast Michigan near the University.
One of them was fair and oversquare: I’d upgraded that car’s fool system with high-flow injectors, and on the way home from the test drive I turned off a side street onto an arterial and goosed it. The car scooted right along, certainly faster than necessary. An officer saw the whole thing, and I got (charitably) done for 40 in a 30. I still went to court about it, because at the time I was onside with a mealymouthed Association’s position that each and every traffic ticket ought to be fought, just to jam up the system. The hearing was short: “I’ll knock $5 off, but you already got a break on this ticket, Mr. Stern. Next case”. I don’t remember how much the ticket cost, but somewhere I might still have that $5 check from the city of Ann Arbor. When it came up for air ten or fifteen years ago I found its info on Michigan’s unclaimed-monies website, but I didn’t get around to doing anything about it. The next time it surfaced I couldn’t find its info online. Whatever. Five bucks I should’ve paid anyhow; that officer really did give me a substantial break I didn’t deserve.
But the other ticket cluster was completely spurious, just bogus from start to end. The car developed a noisome squeak whenever the engine would move. Acceleration, deceleration, and even the most careful of gear shifts went SqueakSqueak! It was the exhaust headpipe’s doughnut gasket where it met the turbo outlet. There was a TSB with a part number for a revised gasket, and for some reason I didn’t just buy one.
So I hadn’t any new doughnut gasket, revised or not, when time and space worked out to put in a new over-axle pipe, muffler, and tailspout. I wanted to see if I could kill the squeak otherwise, so I shmeared some high-temperature anti-seize grease on the old doughnut gasket and the new spring bolts.
We (I mean the UM Solar Car Team) had a really nice shop space, so I took the car there and got help from teammate Joe, a quick-draw sharpshooter with a wrench or whatever other tool might come to hand. Jackstands…creepers…lights, annnnnd…action! We also took a chunk of rebar to the perfectly good catalytic converter and hollowed it out. Pointless Dumb Crap We Did in Our 20s for a thousand, Alex?
We got everything put back together at about 11:30 at night. Joe went home in his rusty Frankenstein’s Cherokee. I put the tools away and started up the Spirit. Almost immediately, all that anti-seize I’d been such a frivolous pastewaster with began burning smokily off the hot exhaust flange. I let the car run outside the shop for awhile with the hood raised, stinkin’ up the place, but eventually I just had to go home.
The car ran well. About the same as before, but without faulty-muffler noises and (glory be!) with no more SqueakSqueak, and now with entertaining turbo spool-up and spin-down noises echoing through the empty catalytic converter shell. There was no traffic, but there were stop lights every so often. I accelerated with gusto, but without monkeyshines. I kept it sane and safe and below the speed limit, but neither did I dawdle. Nevertheless, after the second light gone green, a Crown Victoria (I could tell by the front light signature) zoomed up behind me. No flashing lights, but its deliberate proximity made me think it best to signal and pull over to the right. The CV followed, so I pulled off and stopped.
The cop didn’t seem very much older than I—maybe younger—but he called me sir and asked me if I was in a hurry (no), if I’d been drinking (no), and why’d I’d pulled over on my own (You came up right close behind; it looked like either you wanted past me or wanted to talk to me).
Then: “Any reason you’re squealin’ yer tires away from every stop light?” No, I just finished some repairs on the car; it’s late, and I’m headed home. “Oh yeah? Well, I had to really work to catch up with you after you left those lights!”. Told me he was going to write me for excessive noise and went back to his car for 23 minutes, came back: “I wrote you up for doing it once, I’m giving you a warning for doing it the other times”. He kept my out-of-state licence; said I’d get it back when I came to pay or contest the ticket, and if anyone asked to see my licence before then, I was to show them my copy of the ticket.
In the light of the next morning, a night’s sleep, and a more careful reading of the ticket, I saw I’d been done for “Excessive noise/breaking traction”. It dawned on me the cop hadn’t been using figures of speech; every time I started from a prolonged stop, I left behind a big cloud of what the officer thought was tire smoke. Well, shoot. I had my explanation, and it was a completely valid one, but would that be the deciding factor?
A couple nights later, on the way to the solar car shop I turned right off Washtenaw onto Carpenter, squeezed the accelerator up the short hill and into aptly-named Pittsfield Township, and another Crown Vic materialised large in my rearview and lit me up. I immediately turned right into a shopping centre parking lot. The cop gave me a dirty look when I gave him the other night’s ticket instead of a licence, went back to his car for a measured 28 minutes, then came back to berate me: “Oh, I heard about you!” He kept hollering for several minutes, then threw my papers back at me and said he wasn’t going to cite me, but I’d better not try contesting the other night’s ticket, because if he saw my name on the docket he’d come testify against me about what he’d seen me do tonight (which he never actually specified).
I…they can’t do that, can they? No, I’m pretty sure not. I scheduled a court date for the other night’s ticket, then set about mounting a defence. First stop: the solar car shop, quick, before the scrap bin got emptied. I retrieved the old pipe-muffler-tailspout assembly and the old spring bolts, and threw ’em in the trunk. I fetched a scrap piece of sheet steel, clamped it in a vise, smeared some of the anti-seize on it, put a propane torch under it, and photographed the resulting billows.
Then over to Ann Arbor Muffler. I explained my plight; sure, they’d put the car up on the lift for me for a few minutes. I took pictures of the silver-grey rivulets running from the flange down the headpipe.
Came the day, and I arrived well prepared and dressed respectably. I dragged in the old pipe-muffler-tailpipe assembly; the old spring bolts; Joe (who looked, as always, like he’d just come off a 30-hour shift of grease jobs and muffler replacements); the tube of anti-seize on a double-bagged paper plate; a stack of twenty-seven five-by-eight colour glossy photographs of smoking anti-seize; receipts for all the new exhaust parts, and the factory service manual and TSB binder with drawings showing an exploded view of the manifold outlet and headpipe junction with circles and arrows and a paragraph explaining what each one was, to be used as evidence in court.
The magistrate asked the cop what happened. Cop said “His light turned green and he squealed his tires quite loudly—extremely loudly—and fishtailed away from the light. He got to another light and when it turned green, he did it again, squealing the tires and fishtailing. I was approximately a half mile behind him and I had to really work to catch up to him. I pulled behind him and he pulled over before I could initiate a traffic stop. I asked why he did that, and he said ‘I did something stupid, and I figured you caught me’. I asked him why he squealed the tires and he said ‘I just put new spark plugs in the car and I wanted to see what it would do'”.
Magistrate asked if I wanted to explain. Yes, thank you, your honour; I would like to explain how Officer Williams could have got the mistaken impression that I broke traction. May I approach the bench? I showed him the shop manual illustration of the manifold outlet and seal ring, pointed out the spring bolts, showed him the TSB about the squeak, showed him the tube of antiseize (“contains graphite in an oil-base grease”), pictures of the headpipe with obviously new spring bolts and melted antiseize, and pictures of smoking antiseize on the hot metal plate. Showed him the receipts, told him about the exhaust work, and directed his attention to scruffy-lookin’ Joe holding the dirty muffler and pipe in the clean courtroom.
“Okeh, but what about what you said to officer Williams?”
Your honour, when Officer Williams asked what was my hurry, I did not say I wanted to see what the car would do; I was not in a hurry, and I didn’t say anything about the car’s spark plugs, which I hadn’t touched. I said it was late and I was headed home. Also, there’s a problem with Officer Williams’ statement that I was fishtailing. As you can see here in the specifications page I’ve tabbed in the factory service manual, mine is a front-wheel-drive car. Front-drive cars do not fishtail if one or both drive wheels lose traction; that only happens on rear-drive cars. Moreover, nobody bought my tires for me, and when they wear out I’ll have to buy the replacements; I can’t afford to turn them into smoke.
Magistrate said “Well, you’ve brought lots of evidence that it happened the way you say it happened, and the discussion between you and the officer is…uh…in dispute. I’m dismissing this ticket. Officer Williams, do a better job of correctly remembering your roadside conversations”.
It’s inexplicable, but Officer Don’t-You-Dare-Dispute-That-Ticket didn’t show. I got back my licence, and I didn’t have to pay any money about it. I took Joe out for a nice lunch; we went to Bob Evans.
Your turn! Tell about the tickets you got out of after they were written and issued. Not the ones you talked your way out of or otherwise avoided getting in the first place; those are for another time.
The judge in the first photo is from the 1992 film, My Cousin Vinny, one of my favourite car-related comedy films. Absolutely brilliant performance of lawyer and his girlfriend played by Joe Pesci and Marsia Tomei. And that I-didn’t-see-that-coming defence…
When I had a Texas driver’s licence, I accumulated lot of speeding tickets. With clever legal manouevres, I had every ticket dismissed except two minor offences. After I moved to Colorado and surrendered my Texas licence for Colorado one, I haven’t gotten one single ticket ever since (knock on the wood).
There’s a stop sign at the end of a jug handle off of the 254th Street exit southbound on the Henry Hudson Parkway in the Bronx, where Vinmont Road (a private road) meets 254th Street and the exit proceeds straight northerly and becomes Mosholu Avenue. To the right of the exit there is a stony knoll about 15 ft High that extends to the street corner.
I was driving my wife’s grandmother from a family gathering at a country club in Scarsdale back home to her apartment at the Hebrew Home for the Aged, and took the exit to drive down 254th street to Palisade Avenue. I braked to a complete stop at the stop sign, turned my directionals on and made the left onto west 254th Street and a patrol car of New York’s finest went live behind me on vinmont Road and pulled me over a hundred feet later at Riverdale Avenue.
The officer asked me if I knew what I did, and I said no. I said I am driving my wife’s 92-year-old grandmother home. He said I ran the stop sign. I said I did not. He gave me a $500 ticket.
In New York, a violation of vtl 1172a is a $243 fine with a $72 surcharge and a court surcharge of a $115 and 3 points on your license. I had not had a traffic ticket for 23 years at that point.
I was steaming mad. The next day I drove back up to the Bronx, with my camera and shot pictures from the stop line at the exit, and from the vantage on vinmont Road where the cop had been sitting. There was no way from where the police officer had been sitting behind a Stony knoll 15 ft in height, that he had any eyes on the intersection at all except for straight ahead. I printed full color exhibits and scheduled a court hearing – in the traffic violations bureau which is a separate administrative Court – and went to fight the ticket.
As I stood there the officer who had issued me the ticket three months earlier recited a bored narrative that misdescribe the entire intersection, saying that I had driven straight when I had made a left and the judge, who knew the intersection very well I think, dismiss the ticket on the spot without me having to introduce any evidence or say anything at all.
In the mid 90s, I was driving my 1969 Ford Custom through a wealthy neighborhood when I got pulled over for DWP (Driving While Poor).
Recall that in 1969 and thereabouts, cars had 2-part safety belt systems, and that a person could wear the lap portion of the belt without also attaching the shoulder belt. Which is exactly what I was doing.
The officer was NOT aware of this, and wrote me a seat belt ticket.
I took it to court. The presiding judge happened to be a donor to a nonprofit for which I was doing some volunteer work, and while she didn’t know me by name, she clearly recognized my face.
I pleaded Not Guilty and the judge asked for an explanation, which I gave. I recited the statute cited on the ticket, which clearly used the words “seat belt” and I said that I was indeed wearing my seat belt.
The Judge asked the officer if I was wearing my seat belt, and his answer was, Yes, but…” when the Judge cut him off with words I’ll never forget.
“Officer ______, if you want to make a career out of *enforcing* the law, I suggest you take some time to *understand* the law.”
Case dismissed.
I recently received two tickets for “no seatbelt” (my boyfriend and I) in my 1974 Chevrolet Custom 10 pickup, because we were wearing lap belts only. The problem is, that’s all the truck has from the factory and that is all the law requires for a 1974 model year vehicle. I protested the tickets and was told to “buy some seatbelts”. And what? Tape them to the cab? I might as well cut some shoulder belts out of a junkyard car and drape them over my shoulder to pacify ignorant cops.
Subscribed because I know I’ll love the stories .
I pay my tickets because I know if I’d been ticketed every time for every error I’d go broke .
As it turns out I don’t often get ticketed, usually when out of state, chickenshyte lazy officers love to pinch tourists, it’s shameful .
Many years back a friend m mine got a speeding ticket whist sitting in the _passenger_seat_ of a right hand drive vehicle, the CHP officer was just being a jerk, they weren’t going overly fast .
-Nate
OBTW : I greatly miss Feed Gwynne .
-Nate
Nate,
I miss Mr. Gwynne too. He and his wife Betty owned the farm across from my farm in Taneytown, Maryland, but only a short time after we bought our farm, as he became sick and eventually passed away. The few times I had to chat with him, were wonderful. He loved talking and hearing about old cars.
Great story, Daniel.
It doesn’t sound like a “you thing” to not just replace the gasket, and to try a shortcut instead.
As soon as you mentioned high-temp grease and exhaust I thought “Oh, that’s gonna burn off. Everything burns off.”
It reminded me of when I tried to “repair” a small exhaust “flex pipe” on my Taurus. I made the most durable mix of exhaust patch, aluminum sheet and clamps that I could . I was quite proud of it. After a couple of days it was loud again.
So I took it in for a proper fix. The tech working on it explained that those things “flex” with the motor (Oh yeah, duh, I really can be that clueless. I mean, it’s in the name!) and showed me a corner pile of 10 or so similar creations which he’d removed recently.
He did say that mine was the best one. So there’s that.
As far as tickets go, haven’t gotten one since 1990. (Knock on wood) At that time, I did what they said I did so I paid the fine. Not a lot of story there.
Except maybe there is. I just remembered.why I got the ticket.
I was on a mindless cruise to nowhere for no reason with my friend Dave. (The one with me when I flipped the car later. See “What Was Your First Accident?” CC post for full.story)
We were on a quiet two lane highway south of Chicago in my Corolla SR5. A box-Caprice came up.on us quickly and pulled along side. There were several attractive young women in the car who proceeded to “flash” us. It was quite entertaining. (We were 18 or 19 or whatever)
One if them called out “Have you ever seen any this good?” Or something to that effect.
Umm, no. In fact I had not.
They sped off quickly and got up to around 70 or 80 in what was probably a 45 or 55 zone. I kept pace with them, not to be creepy, but I just couldn’t help myself.
Of course both cars got stopped by a cop. The girls seemed to quickly talk their way out and left.
My defense of “But, officer, they were showing us their BOOBS!” didn’t help get me out of the ticket.
Driving home from getting my first drivers license I got t-boned at a blind intersection. My mom’s Cavalier wagon versus a canary-yellow Delta 88. Guess who won? The cop asked why my license was warm. “It just came out of the laminating machine.” I didn’t appreciate the laughter …or the ticket (failing to yield the right of way). But it was nice to get my first ticket and my first crash out of the way.
It was 1979 and I was diving on Ohio River Blvd between Emsworth and Tom’s Run Rd with my best friend Howard as my passenger. Ohio River Blvd is a four lane road with, at that time, a small eight inch high concrete divider between the north and south lanes.
I noticed a pair of wires taped to the road with an older Camaro parked 20 feet beyond the taped wires. I was speeding, probably 25 mph above the limit, and was only able to drop 10 mph before crossing the wires. The Camaro pulled out with flashers and pulled me over. I was a local PD speed trap and the officer wrote me a speeding ticket.
Howard, who is an attorney, looked at me and said we are going to fight the ticket. I received the summons and requested a magistrates hearing for the speeding ticket.
We went to the magistrates hearing and it turned out that the magistrate had gone to law school with Howard. Howard had determined that there were three points of law he was going to contest on the ticket. Howard and the magistrate argued the first two points of law for what I thought was an eternity, it was like they were having a law school debate. The magistrate threw out both points saying they were not pertinent.
Howard then presented the final point of law. The local PD speed trap was illegal because Ohio River Blvd was considered a limited access highway, due to the eight inch concrete divider, and was under the jurisdiction of the state police. The local PD had to have written permission from the state police to perform speed enforcement activities. The magistrate then asked to local police officer, who wrote the ticket, if they had state police permission. He did not know and would check with the chief.
Three weeks after the hearing I received the notice that my speeding ticket was void. I never saw again the local police performing speed enforcement on that stretch of Ohio River Blvd.
My best friend and I were driving my 1983 Mercury Zephyr GS sedan, Inline 6, from Washington state to Phoenix in the early-mid 00s to help my idiot brother who had gotten himself into a bind.
While traveling through Utah through some rolling (rather steep) hills, I was squeezing that little 200 Cubic Inches for all it was worth. As I topped a hill, I was overtaking a beige Mercury Grand Marquis (two RWD Mercury sedans haha) and there sat a Crown Vic in the median.
He pulled us over and asked me did I know how fast I was going. Before I could stop myself, i said “no sir, the speedometer only goes to 85”. He (and my friend) let out a chuckle and said “well you know that is above the speed limit, right?!” I said that I did and was not disputing that whatsoever. He said that both cars hit his radar at about the same time. One was going 81, the other 90 MPH. Since I was passing the other car, he figures I was at 90. He also murmured something about “triple digits by the bottom of the hill”, but I think he was hypothetically speaking at that point.
He ended up writing us for 75 in a 70, ignored the expired out-of-state plates and lack of proof of insurance. Huge break he cut me, and I definitely learned a lesson!
Driving my 1975 Opel Sportwagen in an industrial area of San Jose in the early 1980s, turned right at a 4 way stop. Had noticed patrol car approaching from opposite direction. He turned left to follow me, turned on lights, cited me for “running a stop sign”. I might not have come to a complete stop, but couldn’t have been moving at more than 2 mph, and that I had clearly seen oncoming patrol car, I explained to the judge weeks later. Further, that it is very difficult to shift into first gear in a manual transmission car at anything above 2 mph. Case dismissed.
I’ve only had two tickets in 52 years of driving. The first one was for 5 over in 25 MPH zone. Friends advised me to plead “guilty with explanation” to get 0 points, so I did. Still had to pay the $75 fine, but didn’t get any points. Second was for a similar offense in another street, well known for speed traps. Figured I’d go to court again and try the same plea. Not so fast. The judge was “in” with the cops big time. He let the officer stand next to him at the dais and let me (and everyone else) talk to him from the middle of the large chamber. He didn’t care what anyone had to say, you were guilty. That time you had to pay extra to go to court if you lost, so I ended up paying $125 plus got 2 points. Years later, the judge died and was escorted to the cemetary by just about every cop in the city. I guess he really was their buddy.
With regards to the exhaust donut, the only way I’ve ever been able to remove the bolts and springs is with the blue wrench.
I’m old enough that all my “stupid stuff” happened pre-internet. It really surprises me that my first and only ticket was 11 years ago. A “self appointed law enforcement officer” probably thought I was going too fast for his liking decided to shadow me and cut me off brake checking me at every stoplight for several blocks and other nonsense in between. I had enough and when the street was all clear as in no cars in any other lane the light was just changing and he did it again with a sudden lane change and slam on of the brakes. I did the exact opposite move and hit the gas going through on the yellow leaving him stopped at the light. Just then a cop stepped off the curb, pointed directly at me and directed me down a side street where four other officers were writing tickets. First question asked, “Was the traffic light you just passed red?” Verbally I answered “No.” mentally I added “like I’d tell you if it was” It was a one way street so they couldn’t see if it was anyway. I got written up for 10 over for a whopping $28. I paid the ticket because I should have known better. There are ways I could have avoided the whole situation. That particular area is regularly targeted for “speed enforcement” ever since a spectacular crash involving a pair of mid-morning stoplight racers. Small world as it turns out it was my next-door neighbour’s minivan that was hit from behind in that collision. He damaged his neck, back and shoulder and spent several months in rehab re-learning how to walk and dress himself among other tasks we take for granted.
Back when I was young and foolish and at the time I was working a job that was seasonal for the most part. The bulk of the work was in the first four months of the year and I cleaned up on the overtime enough that I could be a bum all summer while working sometimes three days a week. It was a cold February night and I had just finished at the last job of the day at 2:30 am. The day actually started at 6:00 am and included a couple of hundred km of travel site to site in between. I decided to drive home through the city as it was shorter and at that time of the morning there was no benefit in taking the highway route since it was longer and no real time savings. I was traveling on the main road approaching the city limits and there was a cop following along. Sometimes in the next lane and sometimes behind me. I was being careful to watch my speed and not look like I was deliberately being careful which would arouse suspicion. We were side by side through two green lights in a row when a traffic light at a mall exit changed yellow to red. He stopped and I kept on going. Right through a red light with a cop in the next lane. I knew I had done it and watched my rear view as the lights came on. He started in with small talk about how late it was and how he could tell I wasn’t drinking and I explained how yes, I’ve been working hard without disclosing how long of a day it had been. He finally got around to the elephant in the roadway. “Did you know that the light you just went through was red?” My answer made him chuckle a bit. “I saw it was red but it didn’t occur to me that I should stop for it.” He told me that maybe I should stop at a coffee shop or something or take a walk in the cold air for a few minutes. He said that he didn’t want to respond to a crash and find me in one of the deep ditches where the road gets dark up ahead. Then he let me go on my way. He followed me so I pulled in to the first 24hr coffee shop. He beeped his horn as he passed and gave me a thumbs up.
Great story!
In 2018, my business partner decided he wanted a car stationed at our factory in Aberdeen, Saskatchewan. Since I can’t turn down a good road, trip, we drove the 2001 Acura TL there.
Last summer he decided he wanted it back. On the way, I stopped off the visit the Coldwar Motors folks. I was getting a bit tired and wasn’t on my game. I always scan around me for Dodge Chargers because 99% of the time they are cops. Anyway, just outside of Edmonton, Alberta, I was tooling along at 130 km/h in a 110 km/h zone. The Charger was in fact ahead of me and clocked me with rear facing radar.
I duly pulled over and the cop asked, “Do you know how fast you were going?” I replied, “Yup, 130 km/h.” Since I was honest about it, he wrote the ticket for 115 km/h, so the fine would be only $120.
Alberta is kind of like Canada’s Texas. The don’t want any lefty-socialist-late-loving-tofu eating-British-Columbia-commies knowing anything about Alberta, and for that reason, it is the only province that doesn’t link its driving database with the other provinces.
I knew it full well when he wrote the ticket, and he knew it too. I still haven’t paid the ticket and they haven’t even sent me a reminder. They know there is no way to collect. It’s freedum in action.
I rarely get any kind of ticket because in Vancouver, even going 50 km/h is a rarity.
It’s good to see there are still some cops who understand the value of a teaching moment instead of essentially waving their d*cks in your face .
I don’t remember all the tickets I earned but I certainly remember every cop who ever took the time to _talk_ to me and the message he wanted to impart .
-Nate
Back about 25 years ago I had to move a project car because the storage owner abruptly kicked everybody off his property. At first I was going to rent a trailer but the weather was really nice, Nov in Minnesota. So I decided I would move it on a Sunday morning and take gravel backroads, 10-15 miles. Expired plates, open headers, no insurance and years worth of dust, almost a barn find.
I only came across one car all the way to the new location, local law enforcement.
I explained what I was doing, he wrote me up for all three offences but allowed me to continue on my way.
I contacted my son, he is a paralegal working in a law office. First question was what county did this happen in. Got to have a lawyer that practices extensively in that county.
$600.00 for retainer. Go to court, when my turn comes the judge orders all parties into his chambers. The issues are discussed, I get a $35.00 fine for loud exhaust, all other issues are dismissed. Promised to use a trailer next time.
The moral of the story was explained to me as the $600.00 I paid to the lawyer was my “fine” and that the lawyer, judge and bailiff were all on friendly terms. In my state a no insurance conviction can result in loss of license. That would have cost a lot to me, my job required commercial drivers license. So I could have lost my job and it would have probably cost me $3000-5000 to get my license reinstated plus the hit on my insurance rates. Really dodged a bullet that time. I’ve been very careful since that episode to protect my license.
Back in 2014, my wife and I were driving our daughter to the airport for her very first trip out of country. We live in a pretty rural area and the nearest international airport was in Charlotte, NC about 2 hours away. On the way down, as we were driving through Lincoln County, I got blue-lighted. I wasn’t driving really fast, and he had actually pulled me for having an expired tag. He took my license and registration back to his cruiser, and we sat there waiting for my ticket, when he suddenly pulled up beside me, rolled down his window, and yelled out, “Follow me.” He then took off like he was shot out of a rocket — with my license and registration.
Well, I closed the glove box, put my seat belt on, flipped on my blinker, let a couple of cars go by, and finally pulled back out on the road — by which time the Trooper who stopped me was nowhere in sight.
I drove for several miles with no sight of the Trooper, and crossed into Gaston County. I suddenly realized that were I to get stopped now for speeding while trying to find this Trooper, I would have a dead tag, no license or registration, and a story no Trooper would believe. We tried calling the HP Station in the area and then the Sheriff’s Office with no answer (It was a Sunday). Then, with no other obvious options, I called 911.
At first, they thought I was trying to report someone impersonating an officer, but eventually I realized that since we had crossed the County line, we were talking to a Gaston county dispatcher. I knew the Trooper’s last name, but realized they may not know who we were talking about, so I asked them to transfer me to Lincoln county, which they did. I explained my situation to them and they took my cell phone number and said they would get it to the Trooper and have him call me.
A few minutes later, the Trooper called and I asked where I was. I told him, and he told me where he would meet me at the next intersection. We got to the spot and I got out to await the Trooper. A few minutes later, he pulled in and up beside me. He rolled down his window and handed me back my license and registration, then said, “Sorry about that, but that guy went by at 108 and I just couldn’t let that go.”
He never did issue me a ticket for my expired tag.
Living in rural areas for so long and travelling mostly on back roads kept my licence safe. That, and knowing the vehicles and habits of the local enforcement officers. That’s not to say I didn’t do some stupid things, or always travel at legal speeds either.
My closest call was when I was taking the Cortina (by then about 30 years old) to visit a friend outside Colac. I’d turned onto the highway at Winchelsea and went around a bend in the road to find a police roadblock. Oops!
Licence check, no problem. Breath test, all clear. Ah, just a routine stop. But then I was waved to the curb for a vehicle check. Guess they just saw a bloke with an unruly beard in old car and thought it was a clunker that needed to be off the road. Or was it that they couldn’t ping me for anything else that they thought they were sure to find something wrong? Living in a state with such draconian speed enforcement laws (a fine for 3km/h over?) has led to an adversarial relationship with the law. My father-in-law, a retired policeman, always gave us plenty of tips on how to avoid notice, but in the main street of a town on a main highway? The police used to be my friend; now I wasn’t sure, but I expected the worst.
I’ll give them this, they were very thorough. Lights – they all work? Huh. Bodywork – what, no rust? Not even underneath? After all this time? How old is this thing? Checks registration details. 1974! (It helped that the car was rust-colored). Tyres – all good, plenty of tread. (20mm wider 70 profiles went unnoticed.) Bounces the suspension – shockers okay. (Didn’t notice they were quality gas units). Engine – what, it’s still a four? Not modified? (all the mods were inside!). About the only thing they didn’t do was jack up the front end and check the ball joints, but they got a visual. Hmm, I might get out of this…….
After what felt like about twenty minutes they finally complimented me on the condition of the car, and waved me on my way. Phew!
I subsequently found a different route to go visit Rob, that got me joining the highway much closer to his house!
In Tassie they put your car on the shaker designed to find faults in heavy trucks before they issue a bomb sticker, transport do a roaring trade on benefit days when all the unregistered cars appear in town to collect money and do shopping and plateless cars litter the Huon for days untill they are retrieved.
I have a few incidents I could recount, but I think one that involved my mom when I was maybe twelve, might be more interesting. She was cited for a fairly minor moving violation, making an unsafe turn, and went to court, to plead her case. I don’t think she was exonerated, but the damage was reduced when she actually corrected the judge. He asked if she saw the “black and white” before making the turn. She responded that the police in our town don’t drive black and white cars; that it was a tan Plymouth Satellite, but she saw it on the roadside before making the turn. He commended her for being an observant driver and dropped the fine. She thanked me for always chattering about the cars around us when she was driving. I think the Satellites were new in the force, replacing full size Plymouths or Dodges, and I must have said something at the time.
Daniel, it’s really good to see you back. Your approach to fighting the ticket was admirable, and very in keeping with what we’ve seen of you in your COALs. Glad you won.
In summary: a Chicago police officer from corrupt Cook County told the truth, but a down state Warren County officer flat out lied. Both incidents took place fifty years ago, but I only got out of one, and when you read this, you’ll understand why I thought it worth telling. The first was when I left work in Chicago close to Cicero, IL. The second was in Warren county in far west IL. The Chicago cop followed me from where I left a summer factory job and stopped me for a violation which took place in Cicero and out of the officer’s jurisdiction. I went to traffic court (in Cook County) to fight it, and it was a simple case of my word against the officer’s (unless he failed to show and the judge dismissed it). So I told my story admitting that I rolled through a stop sign and in fact did not stop for a full count, but that it was in Cicero and not Chicago. Then the judge wanted to hear from the officer, and he specifically asked him if what I said was true. To my relief, the officer replied that I told the truth, and the judge dismissed my ticket.
The incident in western IL was that I was speeding, but the Warren County officer was six car lengths behind me when I was speeding (I could count the cars between us on a long curve on Route 34 as I was heading east toward Monmouth, IL) and only caught up to me long after I returned to less than 55 mph. The law was that an officer had to be right behind a speeding vehicle to measure its speed and not have any other vehicles in between it and the speeding vehicle. At my appointed court date I told my story to the judge specifying the six cars separating me and the officer, and when the Warren County judge questioned the officer about the six cars between us the officer flat out lied to the judge (not that I expected different from him). I paid the fine and left for home.
Two stories:
1. Rental car. Texas suburb. Downhill, mice new wide road. Elementary school around the corner at the bottom. First day of school. I never had a chance.
2. Expensive beach community north of San Diego. Buddy and me on bicycles. Watched a group of hardcore cyclists blow through a 4 way stop. At the next 4-way a few blocks layer, we slowed, I made sure my foot touched the ground briefly .. and immediately got pulled over by a local. $200+ each. Found out later that the village is notorious for targeting out-of-towners to keep their own taxes low. I avoid that beach now (which is easy to do in San Diego!)
In my younger and idiotically reckless days, obscene speeding was my modus operandi.
There are two instances in particular that stand out where I managed to avoid a hefty
fine, or some time in jail.
One was in 1993 in my fathers then new Z28. I was 18 and he wanted me to bring it
to him from Maryland to West Virginia. I got pulled over after being clocked at 110 in
western MD near Frostburg. The officer gave me a warning, and even thanked me for
stopping as he said he would have been unable to catch up if I had floored it.
The second was a couple of years later, in my 1991 Nissan Sentra SE-R. As with many
of my egregious moments, it occurred in Harford County MD, RT 152 to be exact.
One night while out with friends, I passed a parked police car at the intersection of
RT 165 doing over a hundred. My thinking was, if I hammered it, he would be unable
to get going and I would have time to turn down one of the many small roads and
disappear into the night. Unfortunately my estimate was incorrect, and when I realized I
would be unable to outrun him, I pulled into a church parking lot. He told me I was doing
125 and that if I hadn’t pulled over when I did, backup units were on the way.
Given that one of the passengers had a fair amount of a non legal substance on their
person, I anticipated a night in lock up. For whatever reason he wrote me a ticket
for 30 over and reckless driving. Although I didn’t get out of it completely, when
I got the court summons, through what presumably was clerical error, there was nothing
about reckless driving, and it was now only twenty over, which I got reduced to 10, once
again for no apparent reason other than just showing up at court.
In retrospect, I should have lost my license many times over during my younger years.
Later on I sold the SE-R to a friend, one of the passengers that night, he promptly
totaled it in impressive fashion, nearly cutting it in half sliding into a small tree,
with, amazingly, no serious injuries.
I was doing 40 mph in a 30 mph through a small village when I spotted a hi-vis wearing CPSO (community police support officer) holding a grey radar gun.
He pulled me over. A brief conversation along the lines of “how fast were going” “about 40” the gun said 42 and then…..
…. a brief lecture on speed in villages and that he was “not going to pursue as this was a new limit and we are advising by gently enforcing and reminding”. I’ll take that, even if it seemed strange to hear a speed limit I’d been aware of for 30 years described a “new”
To understand this story, I have to start with a couple of background points: Police in Pennsylvania are not county wide, like Virginia. Rather each individual municipality has it’s own police department, usually staffed with part time officers, most who work for two or three adjoining municipalities simultaneously. Yes, the departments work out their scheduling nicely. It’s cheaper than hiring full time officers.
Johnstown, PA, where I lived at this time, is a city where the poor and working class live down in the valley (Johnstown Floods, anyone?), and those who can afford it move up the hill into the eastern and western suburbs. I grew up in the western suburbs, went to the rich bitch high school, etc. And promptly rejected every trapping of that life upon turning 18 and leaving for college.
Late 1992/early 1993 I’m living outside of the town with my girlfriend, my father is (alone) still living in the family home, and his health is going slowly downhill. At the time, I’m flying colors with the Brotherhood of Veterans M/C, the major patch holding motorcycle club in town. Watching dad sliding, I took the time to change my driver’s license to the family home address, and started setting matters to enable me to move into the family home quickly. (I’m 42 at the time, my 35 year old sister was married and living north of Philadelphia, and when the day came we had long ago decided the house was mine – she had absolutely no interest in moving back.)
The day came when dad asked me to take him to the hospital, and the way he walked around the house before he got into the car, it was obvious he knew he wasn’t coming back. I moved into the house that night, my girlfriend kept our apartment going. Dad died two weeks later.
A month or so later, spring arrives and the motorcycle comes out. One weeknight evening, I’m coming home from the town’s only biker bar, I’m flying my patch, and as soon as I cross into the Westmont Borough line I see flashing lights in my mirror. I pull over, kill the bike, put my hands on the handlebars and wait. Good old Deputy Friendly comes out and barks out a cursory, “Driver’s license, registration and insurance card.” While pulling out the paperwork, I ask the reason for the stop. Get something mumbled like, “flickering taillight.”
The usual bullshit. I’ve seen it before. The cop walks back to the cruiser, I settled in for the usual 10-15 minutes to process some kind of ticket . . . . . . except that he’s back in about two minutes and suddenly there’s no problem. Well, the only difference I can see is that he saw my name and address (especially the latter) on my license, and suddenly everything changed. He’s suddenly tolerably polite, and I’m free to go.
Over the next month, I ran into the other six officers of the Westmont Borough Police, and every time it was the same thing (don’t these guys ever talk to each other?). In fact, we had a downright friendly relationship, including on two occasions when I rode home almost blind drunk (none of the 1.0 crap, double it), they followed me home to make sure I arrived ok. I made a point of not overdoing that perk.
And when I threw the one party for my club at the house (the first For Sale sign went up on my street the following Monday), they pointedly did not disturb the party, just did two quiet cruise-by’s over the course of the evening, no doubt to mollify the complaining party.
Amazing how you’re treated once your identified as one of the major taxpayers in the Borough. And if anyone wonders why I’m a supporter of BLM, there’s part of your reason. I’ve been there, light version.
@ Syke :
Bureau Of Land Management ? .
Just checking .
-Nate
It was a fine spring evening in 1973, and I get a phone call from my friend Howard. Howard’s father lived in a wealthy section of Potomac, Maryland, his dad was president of a national TV/Radio network.
Howard tells me to come right over to see his latest car; a 1962 Corvette with the factory hardtop. On arrival I see Howard’s beautiful black with white coves, Corvette. He decides we are going for a test drive, and he takes the license plates off his Alfa Romeo Spider convertible and sticks them on the ‘Vette. We take off and head over to the main road in town, River Road.
River Road is a 2 lane country road until it goes over the DC Beltway, and it becomes a 4 lane divided highway. So we cruise down into Washington DC, and at the end of River Road where it joins Wisconsin Avenue, he turns the ‘Vette around and we head back north towards Potomac.
Now while Howard is a rich kid and a bit spoiled, he knows better than to go faster than the speed limit while running tags from another car. As we go back over the Beltway and River Road narrows down, another car comes up behind us and hits the light bar. Yep, it’s the county police. Next thing we know, we are both looking outside our windows at pistols pointed at our heads.
Howard is told to slowly bring out his license and registration. He gives him his registration along with his correspondent’s press pass for (XXX network news — thank you daddy!) and his DC police press pass. The other officer politely [but firmly] asks for my ID. I present my MD driver’s permit, along with my US Army ID, and as I’m stationed at Ft. Mead, with the 519th Military Police, I hand him my Military Police ID too.
We were told to stay in the car while our info was checked. What seemed like forever, but was only a few minutes in all likelihood, the one officer came back and handed Howard his ID and then handed over my ID as well. He told Howard to go straight home with the car, and if he was OK with that, the officer would not give Howard a ticket for the “Alfa Tags”, and he admonished Howard for switching the tags. Within earshot of the officer, and with all the bluster I could pull off I said “Howard! Your dad knows better than to switch tags like that and not tell you! I hear the cop mutter “Damn right, could have got his kid killed.” I don’t think the officer realized I had said that in case the situation got back to my commanding officer, as it would help back me up in the claim I had no foreknowledge.
Howard, simply could not let it go, and asked the cop what happened, as police simply didn’t pull guns for using bad tags [at least not back in 1973]. Cop says OK, here’s the setup. Earlier this evening the 7-11 in the Tenleytown area of DC was robbed by 2 guys in a black sports car. The black Corvette you were driving had bad tags. ‘Nuff said?” He continued; “You forget about the pistols, and we forget about the Alfa Romeo’s tags!”
The rest of the way back to Howard’s was a slow and uneventful trip.
A year or 2 later, Howard tells me his younger sister was driving her mother’s new Jaguar XJ6, heading southbound on Connecticut Avenue in NW Washington DC, when she ran the red light at Nebraska Avenue, smashing into the passenger side of a late model Cadillac eastbound on Nebraska Ave.
There were no injuries, but on the police arriving, Howard’s sister breaks into uncontrollable sobs, crying huge amounts of tears and gulping for air between bouts of intense sobbing. Every time the police try to ask her questions, she just keeps crying. Howard’s dad comes down to pick his daughter up, and has a few words with the police. She gets into the car and instantly stops crying, like a faucet was shut off. Never did get a ticket. She said it was because she never stopped crying enough to say a word, I think it was that, plus her dad said something to the police.
While that true story about the Corvette trip wasn’t one that involved me getting a ticket or even driving the car, I have to point out that having been a member of law enforcement, I know specific words to say on being pulled over, so I don’t get speeding tickets. Ever. The officer always tells me to wait while he runs my license, and finding I’ve never had anything for 40+ years against my license, they always give me my license back and admonish me to be careful out there.
You see, police know former and current law enforcement members have been thru major training courses on how to drive really, really fast in emergency situations, and some of us just have a hard time staying below the double nickel. the chances are that we cause an accident are very rare. And they also know guys like me often arrive on an accident before they do, and we know what to do. My car and truck are both equipped with yellow vests and boxes of road flares.
2 yutes?!?