tresamore

Just move out of MA. Best thing I ever did. I lived there for 25yrs. Bad state to be a car enthusiast in. The drivers are crazy, the insurance is crazier and I'd rather chew broken glass than go to the RMV. When I left, they were rolling back the surcharges on tickets from 3 to 7 years and placing mandatory titles on all cars, regardless of age. Say you got a ticket 4 yrs earlier and finished paying your insurance surcharges on it and it was gone for 1 year. It now would come back for 3 more years! I was paying $1250/yr for my Corvette and if was going to go to $1950 w/ the new 7 yr rule (misspent youth). I moved to NH and paid $600 12 yrs ago, it is now $525 a year. Plus my insurance broker told me your allowed a free ticket every few years before they surcharge. I even get checks back from my insurance company if they have a good year!

SteveG

Worf: You wrote "Persons of Questionable National Origin" then you wrote something about being profiled yourself as a sports car owner. If you don't see the hypocrisy here . . . Whata hoot you guys are.

My story: In remote NE PA, Got vascar'd at night, lines barely visable in daylight let alone at night, I was over, but not what he said I was. Judge says you won't get any points, reduces the fine. I grumble, but based on that do not appeal. Day 31, one day after the allotted time to appeal runs out, I get the points in the mail.


Now, my question to all is if you (original poster) admit you were doing 100, but appeal a lesser charge, you are pleading not guilty, you are not serious about the "prove it" logic, are you?); is that lying? Was the judge lying to me? Wouldn't it help if we ALL started from a position based on telling the truth? STOP WHINING. OR, here's a novel idea, take it to the track, it's cheaper and you don't endanger, yourself or the guy and his kids who may have reason to believe you aren't doing 100 in a 65, and who doesn't have reflexes you have.

UKKid35

Recently one of the UK insurers has stopped increasing premiums for drivers with a moderate speeding offences, stating that they are statisically no more likely to claim than non-speeding motorists.

heinrich

Steve, LYING ... yes. It's lying.

Is it also lying that the officer wakes up in the morning, kisses her husband and kids goodbye, and speeds on the way to work, because she's late? And she gets dispatched, and needs to run out there asap to ensure the safety on our freeways ... she speeds there (as I have seen a hundred times) ... is she lying now? So she stops and tickets RC51 in his 928 for 10 over the limit on the freeway .... He leaves, not happy ... Shoot, it's time for lunch, she speeds back to the station ..... is she lying yet?

RC51 is late for the court appointed trial date ... he speeds there. The judge barely sucks his coffee down, and SHOOT he's late to court, but he speeds there ... is he lying yet? He hears RC's case, takes the (usual) hard line and says RC is a menace and a danger to society .... PAY you buggar :-) ... Is he lying yet?

And so-on.

I drive behind cops all the time. They speed horribly. I drive with traffic all the time. No-one does the speed limit. No-one.

I live in a 25mph zoned community ... rightly so, because kids are all over the roads and driveways are concealed. I get two kinds of speeders. Kids in Camaros/Hondas ... and .... cops. The cops in my neighbourhood routinely FLY by my concealed driveway at what I judge to be 3x the limit. I hear those whooshing American V8's whoosh by, no lights, no sirens. And I think to myself ... "Dude ... he's gonna kill someone" .....

We could go on and on ..... Are we lying yet? Are we all speeding? Are officers more or less qualified or justified to speed? Do they?

MBMB

Why fight it? Because speed laws and traffic court aren't about ethics, morals, justice, or right and wrong. They're about revenue collection. Paying a ticket won't make the roads any safer. It won't make you a better driver. It won't make the world a better place.

If you believe speed is wrong or feel guilty about endangering others, confess your sins to the clergyman of your choice.

If you want to give more of your money than you have to to the government and insurance companies, though, just pay.

worf928

The point was to force a mental examination of what passes for law enforcement these days and to perhaps gets some folks thinking about where our constitutional rights are headed. Check the link I posted when referring to what you quoted above. The hypocrisy is that the priorities are reversed. Traffic safety is not the number one priority. Revenue collection is the higher priority.

The further issue is that search, seisure, and detainment constraints set forth in the constitution are being abridged or suspended outright. If you can walk into an ethnic restaurant and be detained for hours and have your constitutional rights denied what makes you think it cannot happen on the road if law enforcement chooses to apply the same basis when suspending your rights?

worf928

Let me set one thing straight in case I have been too subtle.

Pulling over a van full of pick-your-basis-for-profiling folks is no different from pulling a 928 out of a pack of cars all going the same (illegal) speed.

Who ever does the pulling-over has decided to single out someone or something. The difference is that it can now be a lot worse for the one pulled over than it used to be.

Ispeed

Hey guys: you speed, I speed, we all speed. Everybody speeds.

Heinrich: if I feel guilty and still fight the ticket, that's my problem, not yours. And I'm not going to be judged by you, just as you are not going to be judged by me. We are all free to have our own personal values and code of conduct. To each his own. You are doing 120 on video.

The bottom line is that if you don't fight your tickets, you probably are going to wish you did (in Massachusetts). These are our rights, and to exercise your rights is a long standing American tradition.

tresamore

My Stepfather is a cop and has been for 30+ yrs. He has ALWAYS told me that the I'm being pulled over for what I'm driving as much as for how I'm driving. Chances are if you did 90 MPH in your 928 and pleaded a story about being late then did the same thing in a minivan, you'd get away with it a hell of a lot more in the minivan. He also told me that when you get pulled over in a sports car and get a ticket, its more than likely for all the times they knew you were speeding before and didn't get caught. It comes with the territory of driving the cars we do. Its not fair, but what is? Sure cops drive fast, but what are you gonna do? I'm sure we all use our connections to help us get things in life. Some connections are better than others. Say you save a $1k on a stereo system your buddy at the store hooked you up with. The guy next to you buys the same thing for $1k more because he's not connected. Don't you think he'd be pissed and want in? Not a lot you can do.

2V4V

Ahh, the realities of "McJustice" - billions collected, the customer is always wrong, and the service sucks.

It's not what you know, or whether or not you're innocent. It's who you know and/or what can you pay.

Lessons I have learned...

Have a V1.
Have cop friends.
Have judge friends.
Have a good lawyer.
Try to keep a low profile (hard in a 928, but not impossible).


Greg

heinrich

OK I've edited my original post, since apparently it was so unclear that some thought I was coming down on RC51 when I was actually trying to support him.

heinrich

GByron ... out of your list, I can do:

Have a V1. <I have an SR1 and a Bearcat>
Have cop friends.<nope>
Have judge friends.<haha no>
Have a good lawyer.<hell yes, must-have>
Try to keep a low profile <not a chance. part of the fun of this car is making it conspicuous, otherwise i might drive something else>

cage433

My 928 was safely in Musante's garage (the #$%$$# rubber hose feeding the clutch slave cylinder destroyed itself on eastbound Mass Pike at rush hour. Result: long flatbed ride) on the aforementioned day.

I've had a couple of relevant weird experiences with CT and MA state troopers recently. I'm not sure tickets are ineveitable, but I think my luck is running out........

Incident #1: Me in my modified Audi S4 (H&R coilovers = lowered, big exhaust, etc) on the Mass Pike at about 10:00 PM. I had it rather than 928 due to expected snow. In the middle lane, westbound, somewhere around Framingham. Cruising quietly at 85 or so, and not paying attention to anything but the radio. A car starts to pass on my left. Spotlight comes on and is directed into my car. Turns out to be a marked State Police car. He flashes me for a few seconds (warning?) motors off and is gone. Go figure.

Incident #2: Night time in western CT on Route 202 (2 lane road). No cars around, so I am taking advaqntage of conditions and going >85. As I come over the top of a hill, a CT State cop is sitting in a driveway. Everything on his car lights up, and he pulls out behind me. Him "how fast were you going?" Me: "oh around 65" (speed limit 45). I am then unable to produce an insurance card (don't ask). He explains the consequences of both infractions and I get a bit queasy. Back to his car he goes to do the usual checks. He returns, smiles, and tells me he will give me a verbal warning for the MPH thing, and a ticket for failing to have proof of insurance in the car ($90). Then he tells me that my car looks great, asks me some questions about it, and tells me about his mid '70s 912. I was stuck for 10 minutes listening.

I know I'm due, but I can't keep my foot out of it...........

James-man

Keeping a low profile works.

We all know the rules. We all know how law enforcement behaves in general and understand that there may be quirks and inconsistencies in reality. For those regions which may have tighter enforcement we exhibit greater caution. For every MPH for which we exceed the speed limit we become conscious of the increase in risk of getting caught as well as the increasing potential for punitive consequences. We do the risk/reward weighting within our non-helmeted heads and choose how far to take our chances.

Having an older-looking, black 928 may be a bit less conspicuous than a shiny (red maybe?) S4 or GT. Low profile car.

Allowing speeding "rabbits" to go on ahead serves a good purpose of taking the highway patrol's target off the 928. Sure, risk/reward says you can probably play with the speeders for a short stint, but let them fly and have them do the mine-clearing for you. If you are the fastest or among the fastest crusing the road you increase your chances. If you restrict high speed driving to short bursts instead of sustained cruising - lower risk. Low profile driving style.

Maybe this sounds boring but there are daily opportunities to have fairly low-risk moments of joy. There are frequent opporunities to drive at the car's limits without any risk of legal consequence (track, AX).

I choose a relatively conservative driving style not because I hate speeding, but because it is technically against the law and I do not wish to have to deal with the mettlesome consequences of getting nailed.

I am getting the feeling that I am in the minority of those who have not had the blue and red lights flashing behind him for over a decade. Geez I must be an old fuddy-duddy.

So, um, how often do you folks have run-ins with the long arm of the law? How often do you have close calls (V-1 alerts heeded, exited without detection, blend back in with traffic, etc)?

bcdavis

How about this:

All ticket income goes into a fund for hospitals, emergency services, and highway repair.

But NONE of it goes to the local government, and none to the cops.

Tell the cops that their job is to fight crime.
Not to collect revenue.
If they see someone driving really unsafely, by all means, ticket them.

But we need to get out of this lame loop of cops giving speeding tickets, and parking tickets, just as a way to raise revenue for the towns...