Well, poop.....

[patrick66]

Ive never once had an officer show in court the first date. After a couple times of no show. I learned pay the damn fine. Most of the time 2 days wages or several times more than the fine.

They never do. This first hearing is to filter the people out that are there to simply pay the extortion fee, versus those that want to fight the ticket. Those that want to fight are given a new court date. The feelings enforcer never shows on that first court date. They know it costs us money to take off of work to fight the nonsense, and hope/expect people to cave and just pay the damned fine. And it works.

 

[Ron H]

Beware of the cop driving this Plymouth..

 

[68BabyBlue]

money has to come from somewhere....... police are a tax collection agency


proof: cop hides over the hill to trap speeders AFTER they create an unsafe situation; when he could easily park in plain site as a reminder to watch your speed........ "to protect and serve", my ***

Pennsylvania is better than many in this respect - They position patrol cars as a deterrent as a matter of policy, unless a specific location has been creating a ongoing problem. Then they start writing tickets to get attention. My last DOT inspection, however, shows how the revenue collection comes into play. Pennsylvania state trooper pulled me into a random roadside check, first truck of the day, not a big deal. A year earlier, same guy had pulled me in when they were checking for expired registrations when the license year ran out. I was up to date, and he gave my truck a level two walk around, gave me a report with zero violations, commented about the great mechanical condition of my older unit.

When he pulled me in the second time, he told me later, he recognized the truck. He remembered I was close to retirement, and he was anticipating giving me a perfect score on a level I inspection as a retirement present. The windshield sticker would have exempted me from roadside checks for the next 12 months. Instead, he came up with two defective brake slack adjusters, one on my tractor, one on the company trailer. Two bad ones means an Out of Service write up and a grounded truck. Trooper was amazed when I told him I carried tools and could adjust brakes, and was pleased to let me put the truck back in compliance.

He couldn't have been more apologetic when he wrote me up. The bummer was once he wrote the Out of Service report, he had to issue a fine as well, no choice in the matter. Officer wrote it up on the company, said they should pay it. I told him they would, then they'd charge the $300 to my settlement. He said that's not fair, I said that's the way the business works. That event made my decision to retire a few months later much easier.

 

[68BabyBlue]

They never do. This first hearing is to filter the people out that are there to simply pay the extortion fee, versus those that want to fight the ticket. Those that want to fight are given a new court date. The feelings enforcer never shows on that first court date. They know it costs us money to take off of work to fight the nonsense, and hope/expect people to cave and just pay the damned fine. And it works.

Pennsylvania is the opposite. The officer always showed up when I did this stuff as an in house trucking company attorney, and two tickets I did on my own behalf. Pennsylvania magistrate courts were a crap shoot, about 50/50 between those willing to cut a deal, and those who were going to get the money no matter what. First one I ever did, the trooper told me afterwards he thought I had a good argument, and would have thrown it out. But that judge would never let the money get away.

I had the opposite 20 years later, where the judge was trying to work a deal to keep points off my license, but the cop refused to amend the ticket. That was 24 years ago, I took that lesson to heart, and never got another one.

 

[eldubb440]

and the "inspection" thing?........

years ago, NJ had knowledgeable, mechanic type guys who actually inspected the car....... tires, wipers, horn, alignment, loose front end, brakes, ect

now the "inspection" is all about the "check engine light"........ that's it

so the sticker is highly over rated, and has ZERO to do with vehicle safety

 

[68BabyBlue]

Cop doesn't show up it should automatically be thrown out...

In Pennsylvania it is.

 

[Sam69sat]

Had an oinker give me a ticket for not dimming my headlights. Mind you, this was at 1am on a rural road coming around a hairpin turn. One cop was driving so close up my *** that i couldn't see his headlights. He followed me that way for a couple miles. Well, i came to that corner and there was another oinker coming the the opposite direction. I was so focused on the asshole behind me that i didn't react fast enough to dim my lights. Son of a bitch did a u-turn in the middle of the highway then i had both pigs following me. When i got in to town about a mile later, the first cop pulled out of the way and the asshole i brighted pulled me over and wrote me a ticket. There was a rodeo going on that weekend and i'm sure they though they'd bagged them a drunk cowboy. Piece of **** state cop they brought in for the weekend. I wrote a letter to the judge and the ticket was dropped.

 

[roadrunnerh]

I don't know about you guys but living here in PA, I see plenty of Ohio tagged cars that are rolling turds; rotted from rust, bald tires, etc. No inspection over in OH. Baloney skin tires with belts showing not a safety hazard?

Safety laws aren't for the responsible person, they are in place for the dipshits in our society. Most people keep/get their cars maintained, but without that required sticker, they NEVER will check ANYTHING on the vehicle. Also, it's one way to produce proof of insurance.

 

[Kern Dog]

I can honestly state that I earned every citation that I got and I got a LOT of them.
Speeding.
Following too close.
Failure to stop.

I’ve been stopped during county drunk driving sweeps and although annoyed by it, I wasn’t at any risk since I wasn’t drunk.
At least half the times that I have been stopped, I was warned and released. I used to get “fix it” tickets for bald tires, cracked windshield, loud exhaust, vehicle too low, expired registration and they were all legitimate according to the law.
It does suck to be stopped but come on… if you did have expired registration or inspection, do you think you aren’t to blame at all? Maybe the officer could have warned you or given a 30 day to comply notice. (if they offer that)

 

[Cheapsunglasses]

It does suck to be stopped but come on… if you did have expired registration or inspection, do you think you aren’t to blame at all? Maybe the officer could have warned you or given a 30 day to comply notice. (if they offer that)

I think that’s the issue he has, normally there’s a grace period when your tags are out because life happens, but Barney fife decided to make an example out of, he was probably the most dangerous person on the road!

 

[Kern Dog]

I was stopped once while out on a date. I told the cop I was with this new chick and trying to impress her with how fast my car was. He smiled and with a shake of the head and subtle laugh, looked in the car for a moment and glanced over the car… and sent me on my way with a basic warning.
The chick WAS cute.

 

[YY1]

What state has a grace period for expired tags?

Not FL and not OH.

...and OH cops will pull you over for safety violations.

However, i don't understand "rust" as a safety violation.

I have a relation by marriage from AM, and she says you can't have any rust showing on the outside of the body.
Consequently, there's a LOT cars with cheap bondo coats right over the rust in MA.
Is this still true, RC?

 

[Ron H]

When I was hot-rodding around in my youth, the local PD was yanking me over often. A ’70 Cuda does offer some attention. Granted a few times were earned. Years later, was out of town driving my company ride a 4-popper Sunbird. It was a hot day having the AC on. You know with the air on, the idle speed would kick up with no coasting ‘down’. Coming into town downhill road, the limit dropped from 45 to 30. Think I rode a mile without my foot on the gas. Just beyond the 30 sign cop pulled me over; says 40 in a 30. He wanted the ticket cash right off. I didn’t have enough cash for the ticket offering my credit card and he couldn’t take that. Had to drive to the PD for this. So had to follow him to the PD and it took some 90-minutes by the time it was done. So much for the shift-meeting I was on my way to. Small town in WI, an out of towner, assumed I was just fresh meat.

 

[Cranky]

The whole safety inspection is just a money grab anyway. 95% of accidents are driver error and most of the rest are road/weather conditions. Mechanical failure is rarely the cause of crashes.

and the "inspection" thing?........

years ago, NJ had knowledgeable, mechanic type guys who actually inspected the car....... tires, wipers, horn, alignment, loose front end, brakes, ect

now the "inspection" is all about the "check engine light"........ that's it

so the sticker is highly over rated, and has ZERO to do with vehicle safety

The station I go to for inspection got shut down from doing inspections for a full year because he was lenient and letting some things slide by. But think about all the ones that would ride around on 'maypops' or even tires that are 20 years old and hit the freeways with them. My diesel has tires on it that will be 19 this Oct but I'm not driving it much and when I do, it doesn't go over 40. Yes, I'm shopping for tires. Also without inspections how many would be driving with broken or burned out lights? I know there are places that pull ya over for a safety check but how many never get stopped for that? I used to see cars running around with expired registration/inspection but don't see that much anymore. However, there's a fairly large population that get a bogus sticker anyways and so far I haven't heard of any stations checking date codes on tires......

 

[1STMP]

So, I'm driving through town to a buddies house in my 2015 RAM when I see police lights behind me. I assume they're going to another scene as I haven't been pulled over in 30 years and I can't think of a thing I was doing wrong. I pull onto a side street to get out of the way and dang it it all if they don't pull in behind me.

My brain is going a mile a minute as I try and think of what in the world could I have done wrong to warrant being pulled over. The officer comes up to me and tells me my inspection was expired. I look at the sticker and...DAMN IT! It expired at the end of February. I never noticed.

So I hand over my license and registration, have a short convo with the cop (any tickets - no, issues with the truck - no, a reason I didn't get it inspected- I never noticed it expired,etc). He asks me to hang tight while he checks my info. Normal stop

I figure he's just going to run my info to check for warrants, etc. but it's taking too long for that. After about 10 minutes he comes and and hands me back my paperwork along with a ticket for expired inspection. No warning, no consideration for being ticket free for over 30 years, no consideration for being a resident of the town. No consideration for being a volunteer fire fighter...NOTHING!

Granted, my inspection was expired, but barely. My truck is in immaculate shape.

I was polite up until he handed me the ticket then I was less than polite.

FYI, I have the utmost respect for the police but this was bull****

Respect earns respect and I wasn't getting any so I gave no more. I didn't curse, I didn't yell, but I did make it known I was unhappy.


ok, rant over

Cops are funny this way.
I can relay a story where I
had just finished working
on a problem with my
nephew's corvette.
We took it out for a test
drive after the repair. We
lined up on a lightly traveled
stretch of lonesome
highway. Doing well over
120mph, and cresting a
small rise, the state cop
immediately lit up the reds.
He let us off with a warning
and a "nice car" comment.

 

[1STMP]

There is a world famous speed trap between my AZ house and Vegas. 75mph highway speed limit, down to 25 thru a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere. And I would guess 95% of the people using that highway know it. I rarely see anyone doing more than 30 mph. Its that 5% that generates all the money.

There are hundreds of those
speed traps here in NM.
Tickets are the town's main
source of revenue.

 

[YY1]

I wonder how many states have inspections vs how many don't.

...and if there's any data concerning safety related incidents to support having them.

Bet there's not.

 

[Ron H]

let us off with a warning

Must have been laid that morning

 

[patrick66]

What state has a grace period for expired tags?

Not FL and not OH.

...and OH cops will pull you over for safety violations.

Oklahoma gives you thirty days from the end of the month indicated on your tag/plate. My son's Buick expires 3/31, but he has until the end of April to renew without penalty. After that, if you are pulled over, you'll get a ticket for an expired tag. More than 120 days past due and you get towed.

Arizona is a weird place for tags. Your tag can get suspended, somehow. If you get pulled over, the cop can remove your tag from your car.

 

[YY1]

It's always bothered me that I have to carry paper copies of registration and insurance.

They know if your car has current registration and if you have current insurance.