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Im in Kennett Square. My daily commute is to West Grove / Jennersville. All beautiful back roads. Some great driving roads all arohnd there and can still slip into West Chester in 10 munutes for dinner.
I lived in the Philly burbs and know the area. I was in sales at the time and would explore some of those roads when I had extra time between appointments. But over the years traffic has really increased in Southern PA. Take a trip up to "God's Country" (I think that is the moniker for Potter County) and you can find some great roads with little traffic. I still have a house in Williamsport and will sometimes take a long weekend just to go driving in those northern counties... and also take a hike at Rickett's Glen - one of the best waterfall hikes on the planet.
My first run in with the fuzz was after driving Porsches all day at Barbour Motorsports in Alabama and then heading to Chattanooga. After hanging out in bumper to bumper traffic for a time, as I progressed east it finally opened up I stabbed the throttle..... but what I didn't realize there was a trooper a few cars back. When I opened it up so did he with lights and sirens.
I believe I was already at 90+ when I saw him and then pulled over. The 1st thing he said "it's not every day I pull over my dream car". After the formalities as he asked me for my autograph on the warning (thank goodness)... he asked how fast have I had the car up to. I told him.... and then I asked if he wanted to hop in we'll take it down the road a piece. He said that would not be wise on his part.
I think the only thing that saved me is that he was behind me a while witnessing my safe driving habits while in heavy traffic and then when I opened it up after it was clear he gave me a pass. It didn't hurt that he was a young pup and not the old crotchety type that usually pulls me over in TN.
Mine just happened last month. I work form home, 7 days on and 7 days off, so I never drive to work anymore. So at the end of my week, it was a beautiful Chicago spring eve at 630 pm. Hopped in the 911 and proceeded to LSD which was wide open. Speed limit is 40. Go north at speed. Then do a quick pull off at Bryn Mawr exit prior to LSD terminus. Get back on ramp to go southbound LSD. Floor it. Hit 75 while on ramp. Get on LSD and slow to 60. See blue lights on the northbound side. Thought lucky I'm going the opposite way.
Seemingly out of nowhere, I see blue lights behind me a few seconds later. WTF?! Second cop. Busted.
Realize just then, I forgot my wallet. Oh. God....
I had my old hospital IDs in the glove box which i never use, not even sure why they were there. Cop walks up. Wants confession. Um, I was going fast? Not sure my speed. Asks for DL. Um, don't have it with me but I have this hospital ID. Walks back to car.
20 minutes later, he comes back. Says he would have let me go if i had my DL (hospital IDs always help), but has to give me 2 tickets - one for no DL and the other for 19 mph over speed limit of 40 mph. He said if I was 20 or over without DL, he would have had to take me in! I drove home at 39 mph.
I bought my 991.1 in Baltimore back in October. I live in Florida so the plan was to fly in, pick up the car, and drive it back home approximately 1100 miles. The problem is that I was just starting to play with sport mode when I reached Virginia, which apparently is a very strict speeding state. BOOM, statie gets me on laser doing 93 in a 60. Doing greater than 30 mph over the limit in VA is a big deal. I was very nice to the officer and he wrote it up as 89 so I was technically only 29 mph over. I had to hire a ticket attorney to contest it and ultimately made it go away for about $250 (no insurance points). Best money I've ever spent and will always remember the day I bought my first Porsche.
Never been ticketed in any of my Porsches (knocking wood). Only one ticket in the last 10 years, CHP clocked me at 98 in a 65 in my Audi on a dead empty freeway at 6am. Was nice enough to write me up for 80 so I'd qualify for defensive driving.
I got a bunch of tickets when I was younger, and quickly learned that in many cases, a radar detector is only a ticket detector. Several times it warned me just as I was getting clocked.
Worst I ever did in those days was 100 MPH in a 65. At least in part because there was I guy I knew a bit ahead of me going as fast. Once I realized how far up I'd gotten I slowed down, which I took a bit of flak for from said co-worker. I pleaded a sudden, acute pain in my wallet.
These days I stick to the "regularly accepted" 4-5 MPH over. I just get up to that speed quickly. The most I'll usually push it is 70 MPH in a 55 if that's keeping pace with traffic and I'm not at the head of the pack.
I'd never go 15+ MPH over the limit in a 40 MPH zone, just because those are almost always residential and hence a substantial overage is not safe. I might not react in time to someone pulling out of a driveway or something.
I think I am going to win the prize on this one. I got at least 5 tickets (that I know of) in the first 15 days of ownership. I know this sounds ridiculous and that I should be in jail but hear me out. LOL
In early July, I was on my European delivery of a 2018 991.2 C4. I was armed with WAZE and a radar detector (in the countries where it was legal).
Ticket 1: Day 1 of ownership, I received a ticket when I was in Dresden which was mailed to my US residence when I got back. I have no idea what I did wrong as I don't believe I was speeding or driving down the wrong street. I asked my son to translate it (since he had all of 1 year of German) and he said the ticket didn't specify. Picture below. Does anybody know German? Not paying this one.
Ticket 2: The next day. I was in Prague and got up early to drive around town with my GoPro attached to the windshield. Literally at 5:30am to get some great driving video of the city with no one around. Apparently only Taxis, trolleys and business owners were allowed on this street - I couldn't read the signage. I got pulled over and had to pay the ticket on the spot but didn't have any Czech money so they made me go to an ATM one block away. The lowest amount of money I could pull out of the ATM was $450 bucks to pay a $8 fine. This would never happen in the US. I got stuck with $442 of Czech money for the rest of the trip. Video below.
About a week later, I was in Bosnia and Herzegovina and parked on the street next to every other car. I purposely parked across from the police station since I was afraid to leave my brand new Porsche anywhere else in this country. I was only parked for an hour while my wife and I enjoyed a drink while overlooking the Sava river from a nearby cafe. I came out to find my car booted. Picture below. I went to the police station and no one spoke English but my sign language worked. I had to go a block down the street to talk to traffic enforcement. They couldn't speak English either but I heard "Bank" and read the body language of her finger. I went to the bank across the street and paid the fine after more charades. I walked out of the bank and towards my car and guys in orange vests were pacing me while talking on walkies talkies. They took my payment receipt and unbooted my car. They were all laughing their asses off. So was I. It was a total shakedown. They gave me a souvenir and smiled and said....."Memory". (the souvenir was a medal plate that they put on my windshield to let me know my car was booted). I have no idea what I did wrong if anything. I was parked like everyone else. $30 fine. It probably paid for the entire town's budget this year.
Tickets 4 and 5: I was driving through Zurich, Switzerland (downtown) and all these camera flashes went off. Similar to red light cameras in the US but I was not driving through any red lights. Apparently they are speed limit traps. Who puts speed limit traps in downtown areas? I got two of them. Not paying them either but they have not been mailed to me yet.
I'm actually worried about all the speeding that was really doing over there. There are speed cameras everywhere and not all of them are on WAZE.
Well.....that's just the first two weeks.
Last edited by subshooter; 08-04-2017 at 07:57 PM.
How do you look in orange? We'll come visit you on off weekends.
Snicker. No jurisdiction. No power of enforcement. The US does not have a reciprocity agreement with EU countries on traffic fines likes these. The world is not black and white and I know how to play it.
We can debate the merits of this all day (legal, moral, financial etc). At the end of the day, 80% of these tickets are revenue inspired, not public safety inspired. That is what government's do and I don't feel bad about playing in their sandbox and exploiting their weaknesses.
I hadn’t owned my 991.1 GTS long when I was out on the highway in a long open area without much traffic and I was seduced by the car to see what it could do. I wasn’t cutting in and out of traffic or driving like a maniac or rudely, but I was going seriously fast in the left lane. Sometimes cars will get out of the way of a Porsche in that mode, sometimes not. That day was a good day. I had an open road and I was using it to go faster than I should have been when next thing I know there is a cherry top lights twirling behind me in an SUV so I pulled over cursing at myself. A very nice officer got out and asked me if I knew why he pulled me over. Now, I am the kind of guy that an obvious question like that will and usually does tempt me to say something stupid in reply, but for once I merely said, yeah, because I was driving like an *******. I slumped down in my seat waiting to take my medicine when I noticed the SUV was marked K-9 Patrol. The officer said yeah, slow down and let me go. I guess he didn’t have radar or couldn’t verify how fast I was going, but anyway I was grateful and chastened. Good thing, too, because just up the road the state patrol had a speed trap waiting. I am a little intimidated by guys dressed completely in brown with very short haircuts who wear their hat straps over the back of their head and there was one looking intently at me as I approached at a few MPH below the speed limit with his radar gun levelled at me. He gave me one of those finger nods off the brim of his hat and looked away letting me know he knew I was coming and it was a good thing I was behaving myself.
In answer to the question, I am still waiting to get my first ticket in the Porsche, but after the incident above I know I have used up all my luck in the speeding department and that it is only a matter of time. I am prepared to accept that ticket when it comes with grace knowing that I can’t escape the laws of probability or the long arm of the law forever and that I have already received one reprieve on a ticket that would have been painful indeed.
In that vein, does anyway know of a good shop that installs radar detectors in the Baltimore/D.C. area?