Traps that aren't speed traps

[hotdogPi]

Andover MA: Expired registration/inspection stickers. (The police do hide, like speed traps.)

Anything else?

[signalman]

Mouse traps, bear traps, etc.

Seriously, Sparta, NJ is known to bust balls over burned out tail lights and other dumb crap like that.

[1995hoo]

I've seen seat belt enforcement checkpoints in both Durham, NC, and Washington, DC, over the years. The one in Durham was usually set up near Duke's East Campus and messed up the traffic big-time. We don't have those sorts of checkpoints in Virginia because the seat belt law here is secondary enforcement.

I used to see the Fairfax County police running checkpoints for the county sticker, but since we no longer have those in Fairfax they stopped. (For those unfamiliar, in Virginia you pay personal property tax on your car, and for many years every city or county except the City of Virginia Beach also required you to pay a separate fee for a windshield sticker proving you paid the car tax. Nowadays some counties and cities still require those stupid things, but others don't; in Fairfax, we have to pay the fee but it's now a "county registration fee" and you no longer have to display a sticker.)

[briantroutman]

I suppose DUI checkpoints or sting operations where officers wait outside taverns would be an example.

Andover MA: Expired registration/inspection stickers. (The police do hide, like speed traps.)

Are you saying that the police actually hide behind a shrub or something to catch a glimpse of inspection stickers on passing cars? It doesn't seem that hiding would be necessary.

One autumn back in the '70s, an uncle of mine realized his inspection sticker was expired and tried to hide it under a freshly fallen leaf. A pathetic attempt, surely, but it must have been common enough because a PA State Trooper pulled him over almost immediately and ripped the leaf off.

[oscar]

I used to see the Fairfax County police running checkpoints for the county sticker, but since we no longer have those in Fairfax they stopped.

Arlington County, which still requires the sticker, has its cops look for expired Arlington stickers, or no stickers on vehicles regularly parked in the county, right around this time of the year after the old stickers' November 15 expiration date.  I think it's usually cops on foot looking at parked cars, but occasionally I see checkpoints where it's obvious the cops are looking at windshield stickers.

I recall, when Fairfax County dropped its sticker requirement, some busybodies who really needed to get a life complained that they would no longer be able to rat on their non-complying neighbors.  I'm sure some such people still exist in other Virginia counties.

Virginia also requires current safety inspection stickers, with about one sticker in twelve expiring at the end of each month.  (Emissions inspections are also required in some counties, but that's enforced through the vehicle registration process.)  But the one time I let that slip (out of state the month of expiration, and didn't immediately realize when I got home that I had an expired sticker), I was able to get a new sticker without getting busted on my way to the shop. 

[1995hoo]

When Fairfax dropped the county sticker I kept mine on the car for a couple of years because Arlington and Alexandria didn't abolish theirs and I didn't want to risk a ticket from an overzealous meter maid. I eventually removed the stickers because of the risk of getting a ticket in DC for having an expired sticker (they've been known to do that even to non-DC-registered vehicles).

[Pete from Boston]

Inspection traps?  You sure this isn't a bored cop running radar that sees the wrong color sticker and tries his luck? 

Cops everywhere go after burned-out lights, particularly in small towns.  Hardly unique to Sparta.  The logic is, I guess, that the averages ate better on finding other offenses among people indifferent to the problems with their car.

I got stopped at a seat belt checkpoint (not really a "trap," which implies hiding, etc.) for speeding.  Because the checkpoint was paid for by a grant for seat belt enforcement, said the cop, they weren't ticketing for other offenses, and he let me go.  Too bad I didn't go for a bigger offense.

[1995hoo]

New Rome used to give tickets for having a dirty license plate (among all sorts of other bullshit). Doubt anybody misses that little shithole.

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/town-without-pity

[SD Mapman]

SD Highway Patrol can legally give tickets for something hanging from your mirror.

This is why I don't have fuzzy dice in my car.

[empirestate]

How about a parking ticket trap? There's a legend about Boston that after a snowstorm when everyone has parked up against the snow banks, they'll sometimes bring in a small plow, clear the snow from between the vehicles and the curb, and then ticket everyone for being too far from the curb.

Then you have here in NYC, where traffic cops routinely issue tickets for things that aren't illegal, such as parking in front of a pedestrian ramp that isn't in a crosswalk. Of the fellow New Yorkers I've talked with about this, almost none realize that these spots are legal, so either the police are equally ignorant of the law, or else they are counting on the citizens' ignorance to blindly pay tickets for offenses of which they're not guilty, in which case it's a different sort of trap.

(Of course, that would be a pretty lousy strategy, since because everyone thinks those spots are illegal, nobody parks there, so nobody gets the tickets except those few of us who know better!)

[The Nature Boy]

Small towns are notorious for bored cops finding any little reason to pull anyone that comes through over.

Can you blame them though? It has to be boring to work the small town beat, especially at night.

[roadman]

Andover MA: Expired registration/inspection stickers. (The police do hide, like speed traps.)

Anything else?

Just curious, if the police are "hidden" from approaching traffic, then how do they see the annual registration sticker, which is only on the BACK plate of the car in Massachusetts?  An invalid inspection sticker (which is on the lower right corner of the windshield in Massachusetts) does seem more plausible, but only for cars with stickers that aren't the current year's color.

[jeffandnicole]

Shouldn't this thread be titled "Towns that enforce laws?"

[roadman]

Shouldn't this thread be titled "Towns that enforce laws?"

Bingo! 

[jeffandnicole]

SD Highway Patrol can legally give tickets for something hanging from your mirror.

This is why I don't have fuzzy dice in my car.

Obstruction of view. In most states, the only thing legally permitted on a windshield are inspection stickers and the rear view mirror. Technically, EZ Pass tags, GPS suction mounts, oil life stickers and stuff hanging from the rear view mirror are all illegal.

[roadman]

Don't know about other states, but in Massachusetts anything obstructing the rear window is only illegal if the vehicle doesn't have a right side mirror.  As for EZ-Pass transponders, the common placement I've seen is behind the rear view mirror, which doesn't constitute an obstructed view - especially with the current generation transponders.

[jeffandnicole]

As for EZ-Pass transponders, the common placement I've seen is behind the rear view mirror, which doesn't constitute an obstructed view - especially with the current generation transponders.

That's the correct placement. People will stick them everywhere though. I've seen them literally stuck directly on the windshield in front of the driver's face.

[SD Mapman]

SD Highway Patrol can legally give tickets for something hanging from your mirror.

This is why I don't have fuzzy dice in my car.

Obstruction of view. In most states, the only thing legally permitted on a windshield are inspection stickers and the rear view mirror. Technically, EZ Pass tags, GPS suction mounts, oil life stickers and stuff hanging from the rear view mirror are all illegal.

They use it here to target out-of-staters. If you have an in-state license plate, I think you can get away with a lot of the ticky-tack violations. I think.

[robbones]

Being a trucker going into an Ohio rest area is a trap. DOT always doing inspections there.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Red light cameras. Although I've never seen any.

SD Highway Patrol can legally give tickets for something hanging from your mirror.

If I were to drive into South Dakota I'd be driving into troubles! Luckily I can't reach SD (and anywhere in the US) by car yet. At least until a link across Bering Strait gets built (Unlikely in our lifetimes). BTW, I have an orienteeing control hanging from my car's mirror.

[Laura]

I suppose DUI checkpoints or sting operations where officers wait outside taverns would be an example.

Andover MA: Expired registration/inspection stickers. (The police do hide, like speed traps.)

Are you saying that the police actually hide behind a shrub or something to catch a glimpse of inspection stickers on passing cars? It doesn't seem that hiding would be necessary.

One autumn back in the '70s, an uncle of mine realized his inspection sticker was expired and tried to hide it under a freshly fallen leaf. A pathetic attempt, surely, but it must have been common enough because a PA State Trooper pulled him over almost immediately and ripped the leaf off.

Haha, they do traps in Delta, PA for inspection stickers because a lot of people live there now as an exurb of Harford County, MD (and by extension, Baltimore). I had a friend who went five years on an expired sticker. His logic was why bother updating it when he only drives 1/2 mile in PA per day.


iPhone

[Pete from Boston]

I suppose DUI checkpoints or sting operations where officers wait outside taverns would be an example.

Andover MA: Expired registration/inspection stickers. (The police do hide, like speed traps.)

Are you saying that the police actually hide behind a shrub or something to catch a glimpse of inspection stickers on passing cars? It doesn't seem that hiding would be necessary.

One autumn back in the '70s, an uncle of mine realized his inspection sticker was expired and tried to hide it under a freshly fallen leaf. A pathetic attempt, surely, but it must have been common enough because a PA State Trooper pulled him over almost immediately and ripped the leaf off.

Haha, they do traps in Delta, PA for inspection stickers because a lot of people live there now as an exurb of Harford County, MD (and by extension, Baltimore). I had a friend who went five years on an expired sticker. His logic was why bother updating it when he only drives 1/2 mile in PA per day.


iPhone

The problem with this, at least here, is that if it's recently expired and you get the inspection done, you're likely to get the ticket overturned, but if it's been months or years it's clearly no longer "an honest mistake."  Then it becomes a moving violation on your record for six years.

[J N Winkler]

In Wichita the police occasionally run enforcement blitzes on turning-related violations, such as:

*  Turning without signalling

*  Failing to turn left to left or right to right (the most common variations of this violation are turning right into the left lane, or left into the right lane)--this is not a violation in Texas and some other states, but in Kansas and most other UVC direct adopters it is

On this forum, we have had reports from people who have been pulled over for signalling but failing to do so with the required lead distance (100 ft on low-speed roads and 300 ft on high-speed roads), apparently as a pretext for drug searches.

[agentsteel53]

California seems not to care too much about expired stickers.  I see plenty of expired 14s and 13s, and the occasional 12. 

[SSOWorld]

In Wichita the police occasionally run enforcement blitzes on turning-related violations, such as:

*  Turning without signalling

*  Failing to turn left to left or right to right (the most common variations of this violation are turning right into the left lane, or left into the right lane)--this is not a violation in Texas and some other states, but in Kansas and most other UVC direct adopters it is

On this forum, we have had reports from people who have been pulled over for signalling but failing to do so with the required lead distance (100 ft on low-speed roads and 300 ft on high-speed roads), apparently as a pretext for drug searches.

Robot tuning.  oh boy...