Yes, and no. Most of "our" street code states that any part of the car can not be modified for x reasons. it seems that in every page there is an excuse to say that again. Its true that they are lookin at ways for gettin my money in their pockets, but also the goverment DO care about our safety, not because they are nice, but becuse in case of severe injury they would pay for my medical expenses, and they rather avoid that. This is the reason why seat belts and helmets are mandatory. italy sucks, well, europe sucks. we have 4 police forces, 2 military and 2 public. one is the municipal police, those who stopped me. Their unique purpose is to make sure the street code is enforced. i met a few nice guys during the years, but they can be the biggest pain in the ass if they want. Once i was advised to mount a stock internal rear view mirror cause the one i had,although perfectly functional was not "DOT" approved..jeez. im out.
I was surprised when reading the thread because a car show in Tucson every year is called Cops and Rodders. It's a smaller show to me but usually a good time. I have had run ins with cops in small towns years ago, usually because I was showing off to girls I had with me at late hours. So I probably deserved it. My wife now teases me because I drive like a grandma and complain about bad drivers. I guess I'm getting old.
exactly! stop trying to irritate people with your loud exhaust.... i have a LOUD harley but i don't intentionally piss people off. - well, unless they're being assholes... - but lots of harley guys keep blipping the throttle and busting eardrums and it even pisses me off. sounds like you got a nice-guy cop. stop bitching.
While in college in the late '60s in Weatherford, OK, I had a '65 Mustang we had cammed and breathed on a little. I also had Midas put on a pair of pipes with glasspacks. We used to do a little street racing for $10 or $20 a race on a rural road on Saturday nights. A local cop had a Mustang and I regularly cleaned his clock. He kept wanting to know what I had done to my car and I always told him the only thing was the "custom" exhaust system. Sure enough, one night he pulled me over and gave me a ticket for loud pipes. So we just removed the pipes and put on a new set with '57 Thunderbird resonators instead of mufflers. Louder and sounded nicer than the glasspacks. If you went to the judge with the offending equipment fixed, they would forgive the ticket. The judge wasn't happy, but the "mufflers" were oval with official Ford logo stamped on them, so he let me off. No sooner had I gotten home than the cop showed up wanting to buy the old exhaust "system". Of course I sold it to him for a good price. A couple of weeks later he showed up at our rural get together, challenging me to a match for $50. Of course he didn't go any faster and he made another donation to my college fund. He also didn't come back. But I was very careful how I drove while in town until he got fired from the police force.
If he is an officer of that little burg, or a deputy, his hatred of our sport may come from an over abundance of people disturbing the peace. I admit it can be fun, but I don't particularly like the Harley riders in my little town firing them up and nudging the throttle a couple times at 5:30 in the morning...to "warm them up" before they leave for work... Our sport and others for that matter are judged by a officers that have only dealt with a small handful of representatives..if he has had trouble with alot of them, he will have a negative attitude...Thats why I rev my small block through dual FLowmasters in the middle of the afternoon.. =D
You said no one was around. Well either someone complained or you never saw the Officer,cause he sure was around. he gave you a warning, so no foul.
in fort worth, texass, one fine friday night, there was a group of weekend warrior bikers on their V-twins. these morons were intentionally being as obnoxious as possible. i was walking down the street and i heard them pull up to a light ahead. there was a woman at the corner with a 1yo boy in a stroller. i hastened my gate to warn her to cover her kids ears because I KNEW these "bikers" were going to be ASSHOLES. just as i got to her the light changed and mom -without my prodding- held her kid's ears but a little too late and he got a blast of five v-twins ripping it from the light. HE STARTED CRYING! i was fightin mad! .... not only will this juvenile behavior cause physical damage to peoples ears, it will eventually force the cops to start ticketing EVERYONE with loud pipes.
It was HIS town...not yours. When in Rome....blah blah blah yes, you were immature and stupid - might not have been such a problem had it been in the middle of the afternoon. You showed no respect for his town or the residents thereof. Some people actually hit the sack before 2145hrs, so you were disturbing their peace. He (as you acknowledged) had every right to stop you. No different than somebody walking by YOUR house after you'd gone to bed, with a boombox playing whatever genre of music you find most annoying and at 140db. I like car noise, and I like making it - I'm just a little more judicious about how and where I share my infatuation. that being said, he turned out to be a cool guy...after he had his say and had properly remonstrated you for your thuggery and hoodlumism...you were released into your own custody to continue home.... dj
Wow really? 9:45pm and they are giving you a hard time about noise? I wonder what time the towns "Quiet time" is 7:30? Close the blinds and its bed time? Listen I can understand distubing the peace, but it was 9:45 not 0' dark 30........
Want to know why you got stopped driving a Hot Rod, read some of the dumbass posts on this thread. It's like my buddy who bitches to me that he gets stopped everytime he drives his Gasser. This is the same buddy who was doing a burnout on a public street in front of a cruise in with two hundred people standing in a parking lot fifty feet away and he didn't stop until he was so crossed up he damn near didn't get it back. One of our Troopers just happen to be coming down the road (to drive through the cruise in- he has a Hot Rod) and through the smoke covering four lanes of highway, he sees a car sideways in the middle of the road. That Trooper is never going to forget that car, trust me...
So, you're complaining about being admonished and given a verbal warning? Would you rather have gotten a citation and no admonishment? You know what you did, and you fully admitted it. You even realize that you fully deserve a ticket. Yet you still run off to the internet and bitch about the free ride some cop gave you. I'm sorry if he hurt your feelings. And so what if you feel it was still early enough to make some noise. Some of us have to get up at 4am to put food on the table for our families six days a week, and don't want to be rudely awakened by someone who rolls into town thinking they own the place. It comes down to this: if you don't want to have contact with law enforcement, then don't do things that get their attention.
I live in a small-ish town, surrounded by other small towns. That being the case, most of the cops around here really seem to dig the old stuff. I've gotten away with things I shouldn't have, I've had cops roll up on me in a parking lot to check my car out and tell me about the car they're building, etc. My town has a cruise every 4th Thursday when it's nice out, and it's right down the street from the Town Police station. You see a bunch of cops walking around, checking out the cars and talking with the owners. Elkton cops (my town), Cecil County Sheriff (my county) and the MD. State Police I have has zero issues with. They pretty much just do their jobs and you gotta be asking for it to get pinched. The only spot the cops are just plain dicks is in the college town (Newark) right across the line in Delaware. These guys are legendary. I'd liken them more to tax collectors than law enforcement. Young guy with a hot car? Tax him. Didn't stop for 3 seconds at a stop sign? Tax him. Drove through a yellow light? Tax him. I've gotten clocked on radar THROUGH A BUILDING, got a ticket for spinning wheels on a car with a noisy turbo bypass (cop thought the blow-off was tires squealing, yet saw no smoke, no marks, etc.), and don't bother taking it to court, you're guilty and they look at it as money already in the bank. I literally had a judge tell me "Are you sure you want to do this" and "I appreciate you sticking to your guns, but I'm finding you guilty" when I fought the spinning wheels ticket. Guilty until proven guilty. I'll admit when I screw up, and do so when I screw up. I've gotten more tickets for stuff I didn't do than I did. I know how John Milner must have felt. Major beef with these guys, just like pretty much every other car guy in the area. All their concerned with are the college kids, their parent's money, and generating revenue for the city. Meanwhile, unsolved murders, sexual assaults, huge drug problems, robberies, muggings, all that stuff continues. You got a warning, I hope you appreciate the leniency you were shown, many of us never get any.
Good story.....and glad you did not get a ticket.... Cops can be very different with older cars... Some years back, I had a '63 Caddy two door, with glass packs that was quite loud...just a fun car, nothing great, but looked real good. My (15 year old son-at that time) asked me to escort him, his girlfriend, and another couple to the high school Prom in it. We went to eat, cruised a bit, and when leaving the small town just a few miles from prom, while at a stop sign at the main road, they saw a "Geek" drive by on his way also. They all said, "Hey, blow him off the road".... So I pulled out, floored it, and did just that..... Well, as I was close to pulling into the school for the Prom, (with all of them laughing) I see the flashing lights coming......That small town cop had seen me, and took him all that time to catch up to me....Crap I thought... BUT, as he gets out his squad and saunters up to me, to my surprise he says "Hey, what in the devil do you have in that thing???...I couldn't catch you.." We chuckled for a while, then he said....Cool it now...and went back to his own little town... Sometimes it ain't so bad !!! Cheers.....
That's one of the reasons I moved to the US. Couldn't drive my truck in Austria for the very same reasons you noted. And I'm really happy I was able to move over here!
I MAY have gotten a few disturbing the peace tickets.. couple of 'em at about 4pm.. (wasn't in my hot rod, that's just a pile of parts...). one was for driving around with the open headers in my old '94 Chevy PU, 425 BBO under the hood.. driving past a bunch of my friends in their hondas revin' it up quite a bit... the tires may or may not have broken loose a few times resulting in massive clouds of smoke.. The cop searched my truck, ran the vin, triple checked the registration.. because it was a Chevy, but the grill was from a GMC.. I told him I could take the emblem off if it would speed the process up.. didn't like that too much. The other tickets were for my stereo... 2 DC Audio 12" subs on a 2200watt AQ amp, plus 16 component speaker sets (on 4 JL amps) in my '80 Cutlass get me in trouble all the time.. Weather it's rattling a burger king giving a friend a demo of my system, driving down the interstate shaking cars up... sitting at a stop light blaring music etc. I always turn it down in neighborhoods, and switch the subs off.. but on the main streets I tend to torture my ear drums... Cops seem cool about exhaust, but when it comes to big stereos they're ass holes..
On the pro-cop side, I have a buddy with an 11 second 59 'vette, white with black coves, dual quad 355, 4 speed, always on a drag radial. He's an older guy, skinny as a rail and a real smart-ass if you get him going. So he's a well liked guy, most local guys would know him and who I'm talking about. Several years ago, he got clocked out on a 4 lane at 140mph (having driven my dad's 59, there's no way in hell I'd do it) by a county cop. He pulled over, admitted what he did, and the cop said "Nice car, try to slow it down a little". If you're local, ask him next time you see him. Local guys would also know "The Dude" as well. He died a few summers back. Huge Ford guy. One of the few guys I can say I genuinely looked up to. I learned a lot from him. I think I broke his heart a little when I bought my 55 Chevy. He had a nasty 64 Fairlane, clean as a whistle, Clevor engine, low 10 second car on the hit. He's a legend at the Ocean City, MD. cruise weekends. He always told people he was all motor, but if you knew him well enough, you knew better. Word got around that he was squeezing it, but he had the kit hidden so well, he'd challenge people to try and spot any piece of the kit. Anyway, he was street racing another well known and liked guy with a 502 powered Nova, who is famous for challenging people to a "race to 60mph". They were going at in a 4 lane in a business district and got lit up by the man. Well I know what happened to The Dude, he got busted for street racing and lost his license. Luckily, they don't impound and crush your cars here, because that would have been a national tragedy. Only guy I know his age to lose his license for street racing. Didn't phase him, he was out kicking ass the next weekend. He just didn't care. Hell of a guy, just maybe not too smart.
I used to kick it up pretty high in my home town. (Santa Clara, CA) I could go into detail, but won't. I was road testing a straight car I had done major engine repair on, and just after a few blocks, steam was coming out of the exhaust. (the previous damage had filled the muffler and cat with antifreeze) I turned around, and headed back to my shop... A local Santa Clara police patrolman put the heat lamps on me, pulled me over, and I shut the engine off. He approached me, said, "What's all the smoke for?" I answered, "It's steam." He said, "Drivers license and registration for a citation." I asked what he was writing me for. He said, "Excessive smoke, do you know what carbon monoxide is?" He wrote the ticket, and I started the car and gave it more throttle than necessary...There was quite a bit of steam, and I hoped he'd see it disapating, unlike smoke. When I went to court, he wasn't present...I was called, pled 'guilty? Of steam?' The judge asked for particulars, and I explained about the water (didn't mention Glycol!) in the exhaust, showed him my certificate and a business card, and verbally assured him the substance was STEAM. I further asserted that folks that don't know smoke from steam probably don't know... and stopped there. I finalized, "If I'm to be fined for steam, Your Honor, I don't mind an assessment for Police Education..." He grimaced, said "Case dismissed", and I knew enough not to push this any further. I was at our monthly 'rod & custom get together' at Sonic the first Friday of the month and advised someone of a certain loudmouthed individual's mechanical limitations: "Aww, that guy don't know smoke from steam." Much laughter.
Not gonna mention any of my stories cause the statute of limitations may or may not but up on some of the shit Ive done, but I can share a work story: <O</O Where I work we do most of the major services on the local State Patrol fleet of Crown Vic's. My buddy had just put a transmission in one and took it out on a road test to make sure everything was ok. Well halfway thru the test another mechanic I work with, who is road testing a civilian car, pulls up besides the mech. in the cop car at a light. The guy in the civilian car decides it to play a prank on the people in the cars around them, so as the light turns green, he reaches out the window, flips off the guy in the cop car and lays a little rubber leaving the light. What he didn't realize was that there was a REAL COP in an unmarked car right behind him, who immediately pulled him over, put him in cuffs and detained him until he was able to contact our boss and the state patrol office to verify his story. The cop was pretty cool about it when he found out the real story, let the guy go with a warning. <O</O
It will most likely take me 3 years b4 i will be able to move. I hope i will not need to, but i always take it into consideration. My girlfriend knows it, if i will ever get into serious trouble for my cars im gonna move no matter what, and shes not happy, but would go to the USof A w/ a biggger grin than i.. its just the reason that she cant stand.
"Yes sir", "No sir", "Sorry sir", and "Thank you sir". Memorize. Repeat as necessary. Using these key terms I've only gotten two tickets in the last twenty years, but I deserved so many, many more!
I agree, having an attitude with cops is an expensive hobby. Generally, I don't get along with coppers either but the older I get the better I am at keeping my mouth shut. It's not all their fault, they have to deal with scum 24/7 and occasionally I do an excellent impression of scum.
In high school I learned that a healthy big block chevy isn't faster than a radio. haha. But you have to realize, if you're a cop in a little town, you are bored to DEATH! Get this: the cops in our town were so bored, they dressed up in black night-ops gear and surrounded the box canyon we were having a party in one late night. One cop drove up to the party, clicked his lights on, we all took off sprinting up the hills and got tackled by these black ninjas out of nowhere...hahahaha.....I didn't even know what hit me... I was a wrestler and in good shape but this guy seriously took me out. Those cops were having so much fun, they literally high-fived each other after us kids were all handcuffed. Funny stuff, looking back on it. They even had black face paint on....LOL, that was probably the highlight of their career!
Cops stopping hot rodders? That must be a new concept! Lol It's like dogs chasing cats...ain't ever going to end...wish we could still out run them past the county line.
You hotrodding hoodlums should be ashamed of yourselves! That's a funny story! Glad he let you off with just a warning! Kids these days!
I am also a police officer, rodder and I have a very load chopper that I turn off and coast home once i hit my street so not to wake my neighbors. I cant remember the last time I wrote a ticket we are just to busy but we do have guys who will write their own family, so I say a warning is a fair punishment. I like telling guys they wont get a ticket if they can smoke the tires all the way down the street some dont know what to do but most enjoy being able to show what the car can do.
The Jalopy Journal
