Always check 'yer six!
 

I had one of those interesting mornings…

I’ve finally figured out why I was having trouble with the fuel maps in the EMU- if you want both I/J maps turned on, you gotta manually enable the second one for each injector channel individually in the I/J Parameter screen. So last night I made a new set, and this morning I went out to try ‘em out and capture some datalogs.

My favorite place for this sort of thing is Alga Road just east of El Camino Real in Carlsbad. Very few stoplights and lots of long, uphill stretches where you can floor it in the lower gears and really let the engine wind up. I should mention that the top was up (chilly morning) and that I’m somewhat tall. This becomes important later.

So I’m sitting at the stoplight on El Camino southbound waiting to turn left onto Alga. The light turns green, and I head off. As soon as I’m straightened out heading east I give it the gas. About the time I’m ready to shift out of fourth (nearing the crest of a hill) I hear the siren, look back and see the lights. Ok, flashers on, pull over to the side, engine off, hands on the wheel, look straight ahead. The drill.

Officer: “Do you know why I stopped you?”
Me: “Yeah, I guess I was going a bit fast back there” (important tip: Just admit it. This is not the time to play dumb.)
Officer: “You were doing close to 80 MPH back there.”
Me: (thinking: Only 80?)
Officer: “You drive like this all the time?”
Me: (thinking: Only when I’m tuning my illegal, non-CARB-approved engine management system)

Now, I don’t condone road-racing. I’m a reasonably mature and restrained person, but this is a nice straight section of four-lane divided highway, and traffic is light today. But because there are a few neighborhoods around, it’s a 45MPH limit.

So he goes back to the Crown Vic with my license and registration, which I’m thinking I won’t be seeing again any time soon. I’ve always assumed that getting pulled over for speeding with boost and EGT gauges on the A-pillar, a vent-mounted WB02, and a computer on the dash showing your datalogs was pretty much instant impound. Which is about when I remembered that since I had been logging, my vehicle speed graph was still sitting there prominently on the display. (Very discretely reach over and hit the “hibernate” button on the PC while he’s walking back to the cruiser.)

At any rate, I’m cool and reasonable with the officer, and at the end of the conversation I’m holding nothing worse than a written warning!

When I got back home, I read the warning, and it says I was doing 75. More importantly, the speed was estimated by pacing, no radar hit. I checked the data logs from the run a bit later, and it looks like before he hit the siren I’d peaked at 167KPH, which is 104 MPH. (thinking: God, am I lucky!)

Oh, about the top being up? Well, I’m about 6’2” tall, and between that, my small glass rear window, and the fact that I keep the side mirrors turned out to the side (rather than inward) means my rearward visibility is pretty poor. The police officer had been sitting right behind me at the stoplight before I took off. :eek:

Bahaa @ the last sentence!

Good story, I try to keep it reasonable but most of the drive to work is highway. My V1 is my friend.

BTDT at the last sentence. four wheel burnout and cut across 3 lanes and made a HARD left onto a side street. cop was behind me at the light.

but guess what? VERBAL warning. hehe

luck SOBs i always admit my mistakes and i always get tickets, but its only in my Camry im still ticket free in my miata.

Great story. You got off.

my first ticket.... err tickets 10 years ago...
I left 150' of rubber behind my 70 Oldsmobile (455 cid and somewhere north of 500 lb ft). Cop on a motorcycle was the second vehicle behind me. The judge (bench trial) hit me with something like "improper start" and let me off of laying drags and reckless driving.

second ticket...
Driving somehwere in my E420 on a divided highway, saw a cop with a radar gun on the opposite side. On the return trip, without thinking, approched the cop at 115. When I saw him, I hit the brakes *hard*. Came by the cop at the speed limit, but we all knew what was coming, so I pulled over. Before he wrote me the ticket, he told me that my car caught his eye when he saw the front end dip down (when I hit the binders). He wrote it at 71 in a 50 and told me how lucky I was he couldn't prove more.

i got pulled over for a 65 in a 30.. it was like 1 AM and no one was on the road... needless to say i was VERY kind to the officer and i now have to go to court

What, did you blow him or something?

What happens after getting caught seems to be luck- is the cop an a$$hole or not. I've always followed the "yes sir" method to minimize the pain and it works MOST of the time.

I'm glad my new car has an integrated radar detector. Saved my bacon already on several small two-lane back roads I like to drive on.

yeah i am glad you got off ok wow maybe when i am old theyll cut me some slack :gay: i always get a ticket for some reason but luckily i stay away from them for the most part so i dont have to many tickets.

I got a streetracing ticket for 99 in a 45 one time years ago. That wasnt the only ticket I have gotten. At last count I have been pulled over 18 times. I have gotten out of 14 of them and went to traffic school on the other 4.

damn remind me to ask you how you got out did nismo hook you up or what.

back when I had a dusty mauve corrado, I always told them some crazy shit. "Its a blue gti, its a black scirocco, or some other random shit. I had several tickets in that car, and always got a lawyer to say the facts were obviously incorrect.

I know people always bs about the car color or some shit, but when both the model and color are incorrect, i guess it works out.

yeah the always do black mazda on mine maybe i should ditch the mazda badge as well, the right it for coupe to go figure i love my hardtop

You guys are lucky bastards. I'm going to court soon for doing 35 in a 30. No, I wasn't radar-ed but apparently a visual was good enough for RECKLESS DRIVING... if you're at Deal's Gap. I was totally in my lane, and the car wasn't even leaned over at all. I was polite too.

haha great story, sounds like my luck :)

i was doing some doughnuts in a parking lot kinda out in the sticks and two cops randomly pull in and setup a speed trap (my guess) so i have got the lot stinking of rubber with smoke everywhere and my car pulls out of the smoke and i am looking right at them. they just waved and i casually drove away. but then other times i go 6 over on the interstate and pay 280$ in fines for three tickets for bogus shit so i guess i still come out the same with getting off on some and getting hit hard on others... i dont let it bother me as i get away with alot of shit on a daily basis to still only have 4 points :gay:

one of the few nice things about flint... I can come around a corner 30* out of parallel with my path of travel and cops just wave and possibly blink their lights once.

Al Hounos and others,

I think a lot of it has to do with where you are and where you come from. Speeding a bit through your own neighborhood is one thing, but just being at a place like the gap makes you a target. I mean, you went out there for a reason, right? :rolleyes:

Out here we've got a similar bunch of roads, collectively referred to as Palomar Mountain. (guess which mountain they run across?) Palomar is a big-time mecca for the local sportbike crowd in particular, and fatalities are common. Just do some searching on the web and you'll find some awesome helmet-cam footage.

But recently, it seems that the attitude of the local law in the area has changed from "we don't care if they kill themselves" to a slightly more enforcement-oriented one. Car drivers seem to be more often targeted, probably because they're easier to catch.

Realy makes you wish we had something like the Nürburgring here...


I remember a while back one of our members observed that, when budgeting for a turbo project, one line item which most folks forget to include is the speeding fines and insurance premiums you'll be running up. :bigtu:

I think you can get away with a lot more in a Miata than in many other cars. I think the police have a hard time believing a Miata is really going that fast and tend to ignore us. I went right past a parked cop a couple of months ago with the rear tires in a full boil in a 25mph zone and they did nothin'. Not the first or last time either.
Gotta love that about our hairdresser's cars.:bigtu:

Well see that's the thing. I had seen cops on the way up, so I was careful to take it easy. If he had actually caught me doing what I would've if I had done a clear recon run, it wouldn't have been so infuriating!

Ok here is a helluva story....

I was returning from LACR (Los Angeles County Raceway) in Bob Palmblad's fairly quick white miata... yes the one that was north of 250 RWHP with a supercharger. Anyway as the owner of a dynoshop, people knew me, especially the mustang crowd.... on the way back I was invited to dinner by them and impromptu dragracing as well. Mind you the two older 5.0's were deep in the 11's and there was no way I could really challenge them but the newer Cobra that was with them I was able to hand it's ass too.

So we're on our way to outback to get some grub and turn down a fairly deserted road as a shortcut behind the automall. A 35 zone with 2 lanes in each direction... naturally the two fast mustangs stage and go, followed by the Cobra and I... The Cobra jumped by 2 lengths but by the end of 2nd gear I had 2 car lengths and was pulling hard.... watching all this from a side street? Yep, a LA County sherriff. Needless to say he pulls out and proceeds to chase us down. Now, We stopped at the stop sign and we were still being hooligans, all sideways, tires squealing, etc. Stop at the traffic light... Lights come on... Of course the little Miata is the car getting pulled over.

Simultaneously across town my fabricator is doing the same shenanigans in a customers Honda and gets popped. He's racing an El Camino, law of nature, the import gets pulled over. So back to my story... The cobra beeps the horn as he rolls by me, knowing that the cop isn't gonna go after him... bastard. The cop asks for license, registration and insurance... This is a customer's car, I have no idea where that is. (I tell him it's a friends car.) He takes my license and runs it. Comes back to the car, and asks me why I am street racing. "I wasn't street racing officer, that was just a little horseplay." Not knowning where he caught sight of me. He explained that he had seen the pass on the back street, and he thought it looked more like street racing but appreciated the legally clever answer. Exhibition of Speed is a lot less money than Street Racing as far as fines go. None the less, he hands me back my license and says, "I'd like you to slow it down a little." Now I NEVER get the warning, NEVER... and here he is giving me a warning after witnessing a 120 MPH pass in a 35 Zone?!? "Yes, Officer" was all I could choke out in disbelief.

Meanwhile, back to my friend with the Honda, he had two warrants for driving with a suspended license. He went to jail, his customer's car got towed, and he had a shitload of fabrication work that he was supposed to do that weekend. They wouldn't let me bring the TIG welder or Plasma cutter to jail for obvious reasons and it took him until Monday afternoon to get out.

Moral of the story... Don't drive a Honda. Just kidding... I got lucky, very lucky. And I got lucky when it really counted. 120 in a 35 would have been big dollars along with the impound fees.

Mark

No kidding! Check out CA code 22348. $500 and 30 days suspension! :eek5: But not nearly as harsh as:

since we are sharing stories

i have to fly back to cayman from england in 2 weeks to appear in court on a dangerous driving charge.

i was in a friends 98 wrx with an assload of sti stuff, zero sports equal length manifold, jun ecu, jun flywheel and clutch, vf23, only running around 6-7psi though (boost controller got stolen at the port). Driving home at 12:30am on a sunday morning passing maybe 2-3 cars for the whole drive. I pass a slow moving DC2 type r on a roundabout and about 2 miles later i come to a stop light. DC2 pulls up, gives me a rev, i think sure ill bite. About 1/2 mile from the light is another small roundabout. I leave him at the lights, reach the roundabout and downshift from the top of 3rd gear (not sure on speed), brake for the roundabout, i leave the roundabout and cruise at 50. The ITR catches up on the road leaving the roundabout and over takes me coming up to a bend, late brakes ontop of some erratic steering and put the car passenger side first into a parked dump truck at 90mph easily (was somewhere in the top of 3rd gear when he passed me).

I'm getting done for dangerous driving which i dont really mind. The passenger died, the driver was drunk and high (so say the police). He is getting death by dangerous driving or vehicular manslaughter along with a host of other charges.

Moral of the story? Don't fuck around with people you dont know on the street.

I have the knack of getting hit on the stupid crap. Ticket one was an illegal left turn. I went to McDonalds for lunch, and pulled out. The no left turn sign was way back by the building, not the end of the driveway. I never saw it. I noticed a cop come FLYING up on me. I didn't know I had done anything wrong, so I drove normally the 3 blocks back to school. I pull into the school parking lot and BAM, lights go off and I stop. They asked me why I wasn't in school, asked me what I did wrong. Explained that was my school. They didn't care. Got the ticket reduced to something, 0 points $130 fine.

The second one was at my dads house. This 4 lane avenue I had driven on for years all of a sudden had a new stop sign. It was a small one hidden by trees. I didn't know it was there, I saw the cop and went strait through it. He pulled me over and asked what I had done. Explained I didn't know and he told me of the new stop sign. I went back to look and there was another cop car hiding behind the trees just waiting to pick someone off. He drove out of there the second I saw him. They took the sign down 3 weeks later. I went to court with pictures and everything, but the cop didn't show. Got off like I should have, it was an honest mistake.

Thankfully I've had it easy from what I read above.

I'm 18, been pulled over 23 times.....gotten ONE ticket..had my car searched like 9 times...because im 18.....20 times was for stupid shit like having a tag light out..or the best one "following too closely AT A STOP SIGN" but again out of 23 times..three were legitimate and i've gotten two tickets

Which is it, one or two? ;) Still a crazy number of times to be pulled over, you must be doing something to get so much attention:eek5:

Omg... horrible... :eek:

Hey, you know, you gotta do what you gotta do. ;)