Avoiding tickets

[oscar]

Isn't 80 MPH a felony in Virginia?  If so, that's quite fascist and ridiculous.  In Oklahoma, 80 is five over on the turnpikes.

I don't think it's a felony, but it is a crime (reckless driving) rather than an infraction, which means a court appearance and potential jail time.  Ditto for going 20mph or more over a speed limit of less than 60mph.

Now that Virginia is starting to post more Interstate segments at 70mph, having only a 9-mph cushion between driving at a 70mph limit and getting slammed with a reckless driving ticket is going to become more of an issue.

[bugo]

2. Do not use the brake when you see them.  They know then that you know you are guilty.  Let up off the gas and coast.
9. Never pass the cop in front of you unless he/she is going slower than the legal speed limit or he/she is way out of his/her jurisdiction (i.e. Cook County Sheriff in Will County - he's busy going to a jail for a visit).

I tend to think the whole "never pass a cop" thing is overblown. In the same vain as not braking when I see a cop car, if I'm going 5 over or less I'm not going to adjust my speed at all. If I'm on the freeway and I'm going 5 over and the cop is going the speed limit, I'll pass. I've done this a couple dozen times and not received a ticket or even been pulled over. On a two lane road if the cop is going the speed limit I probably wouldn't pass, however.

If I come up on a cop car doing the speed limit, I will slow down to about 3 miles below the speed limit.  I'd rather have a cop in front of me than one behind me.

And as somebody else noted, never hit your brakes if you're just going a few miles an hour over.  Just take your foot off the gas (or turn the cruise control off) and slow down to the speed limit.  Hitting your brakes just draws attention to you.

[agentsteel53]

And as somebody else noted, never hit your brakes if you're just going a few miles an hour over.  Just take your foot off the gas (or turn the cruise control off) and slow down to the speed limit.  Hitting your brakes just draws attention to you.

you can use a brief touch of the emergency brake - not too much, or you'll skid, and certainly don't do it while turning unless you know what you're doing.  It does not flash the brake lights.  I got myself down from 60 to 40 in a 35 with much haste once in Mississippi as I observed a cop car turn out of a side street behind me. 

[bugo]

A few years after that, a Kentucky Vehicle Enforcement officer got killed very close to the spot where I got pulled over when he lost control when he cut through the median to go chase a speeder. The desire to write a speeding ticket cost him his life, cost his wife her husband, and I think cost their child its father if I remember the details correctly.

That happened on the Will Rogers Turnpike a few years ago.  U-turns should be illegal for everybody.  But if the cop is stupid enough to do that, then he deserves to die.  Too bad they take somebody else out with them.
Post Merge: August 24, 2010, 08:13:21 PM

hbelkins--- was that the one that crashed into a 18wheeler trailer? I've witnessed several KSP going thru the median and directly in front of traffic to catch a speeder, and not a 100mph speeder either! They seem to feel everyone should lock up their brakes when they come thru median....very dangerous!!! IIRC a couple of KSP have died because of this practice. Not setting a good example are they??

I saw a cop very nearly cause an accident on I-40 in Arkansas when he did just that.  If a civilian did that, they would go to jail.  But cops are rarely held accountable for what they do, and as a result they believe they are above the law.

[realjd]

If I come up on a cop car doing the speed limit, I will slow down to about 3 miles below the speed limit.  I'd rather have a cop in front of me than one behind me.

Be careful doing this at night. In one city I lived in, the cops would cruise below the speed limit on a 4-lane road and anyone who wouldn't pass them got pulled over on suspicion of DUI.

[KEK Inc.]

I've only used the e-brake once, and that's when I was going 77 on a 55 in Southern Oregon (US-101).  The cop obviously knew I was speeding, but he passed me to take care of a drug bust with other Rozzers.    (A mile down the road, I saw the cop that passed me with 5 others around a white van with white bags.)

That was called luck. 

Yeah, while driving at night, I speed a lot less.  I just did a 12 mile night ride from San Jose to Portland, and I did all of my serious speeding in California (particularly the mountains).  In the Shasta and Siskyous, if the road was empty, I would try to take the sharpest turns on the road.  Mind you, I still signal (since I believe people who lane change without signalling are child molesting murderers). 

Anyways, I rarely see cops in Northern California and CHP is painfully predictable.  Southern Oregon cops aren't as predictable, though, but once you get in the Willamette Valley at 3 AM, it doesn't really matter anymore.  Unfortunately, I dropped down to 70 most of the way through Oregon.

Another trick to speeding is to have a flusher and stick with him.  There's still a chance you'll be pulled over, but it's less likely if you stick about 500'-1000' behind someone speeding. 

[rickmastfan67]

A few years after that, a Kentucky Vehicle Enforcement officer got killed very close to the spot where I got pulled over when he lost control when he cut through the median to go chase a speeder. The desire to write a speeding ticket cost him his life, cost his wife her husband, and I think cost their child its father if I remember the details correctly.

That happened on the Will Rogers Turnpike a few years ago.  U-turns should be illegal for everybody.  But if the cop is stupid enough to do that, then he deserves to die.  Too bad they take somebody else out with them.

One time, when my dad was driving, we were heading NB on I-79 in the Morgantown, WV area.  A trooper was right infront of us and a few other cars were behind us and we all were in the left lane passing some slower cars.  Then all of a sudden, the IDIOT cop decided he didn't want to go NB anymore and wanted to go SB instead.....  So, he slams on his brakes infront of us with about 2-3 more cars behind us!!  And we had a car on our right preventing us from dogging to the right to avoid a wreck.  Thankfully, my dad was able to slow down and avoid the cop as well as the cars behind us so no wreck happened.  I have no freaking idea what that state cop was thinking because that could have caused a dead or two because we all were going 70mph because that was the speed limit.

[KEK Inc.]

Following distance.  If you weren't tailgating, you wouldn't have an issue unless he went below 55 MPH.  You're supposed to keep a 3-5 second distance from the car in front, but most people don't.

[rickmastfan67]

He went down to 25 mph (or maybe less) to make a U-Turn....

[agentsteel53]

He went down to 25 mph (or maybe less) to make a U-Turn....

probably less.  not even a Crown Vic Police Interceptor can make a u-turn at 25mph across a standard median.

[Alps]

Following distance.  If you weren't tailgating, you wouldn't have an issue unless he went below 55 MPH.  You're supposed to keep a 3-5 second distance from the car in front, but most people don't.

2 second distance.  Most people keep closer to 1, at least now.  That's why theoretical capacity is now 2400 vehicles per hour per lane on the fastest highways (40 vehicles per minute = 1.5 seconds per vehicle), and sometimes you see volumes even higher.  Back in the 60s, theory said first 1800 vehicles per hour (2 seconds per), then upped it to 2000.

[corco]

Following distance.  If you weren't tailgating, you wouldn't have an issue unless he went below 55 MPH.  You're supposed to keep a 3-5 second distance from the car in front, but most people don't.

Good luck with that on an urban road- I don't even think it's possible. If you leave a gap that big, somebody(s) will fill it as quickly as it opens up.

[KEK Inc.]

Morgantown, WV doesn't really sound like an urban road.  And following distances should be dynamic based on your speed and amount of traffic.  Regardless, you shouldn't tailgate unless you're at low speeds.

[rickmastfan67]

But we weren't tailgating.  That's not my dad's style.  And as I've said before, the State Trooper slowed down to under 25 mph in the LEFT LANE of I-79 to make a U-Turn...

[corco]

Morgantown, WV doesn't really sound like an urban road.  And following distances should be dynamic based on your speed and amount of traffic.  Regardless, you shouldn't tailgate unless you're at low speeds.

Morgantown is a reasonably large city that certainly has a good amount of traffic. It's not downtown Portland, but there are cars there. I define urban road as anything multilaned that is within a community of some kind.

It would be like driving in Laramie- if I left three full seconds of following distance, I guarantee somebody would enter the gap within a few seconds.

And following distances should be dynamic based on your speed and amount of traffic.

Exactly, but that's an entirely different claim than "we all need to keep a 3-5 second cushion." That giant cushion works if you're out in the middle of nowhere and going the same speed as another car and aren't passing or in the middle of the night on an urban road, but during most driving time in urban (and yes, I may use that term loosely) areas the giant cushion just isn't that feasible. Example- I-25 in Front Range Colorado from Fort Collins down to Denver. Traffic goes about 80 down that road, but there's enough traffic most of the time that it's simply impossible to maintain more than a car length's gap. Dynamic based following distances are just "the faster you go, the more cushion you should leave, and the more traffic there is the smaller that cushion will be." That's almost impossible to assign an arbitrary driver's ed book numeric cushion to. 3-5 is ideal, but the vast majority of driving situations aren't ideal.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

If I come up on a cop car doing the speed limit, I will slow down to about 3 miles below the speed limit.  I'd rather have a cop in front of me than one behind me.

Be careful doing this at night. In one city I lived in, the cops would cruise below the speed limit on a 4-lane road and anyone who wouldn't pass them got pulled over on suspicion of DUI.

Now that is bullshit incarnate. "You're not driving faster than me, so you must be drunk".

[deathtopumpkins]

When driving on local roads (Virginia and North Carolina), I do no more than 5 over on surface streets and go the flow of traffic on interstates. I've flown past cops doing 20 over on I-64 before, but only when the left lane is doing 40 over, and not often at that. However, even this system isn't foolproof. My city (Hampton, VA) is infamous for having a cop who writes tickets for 1 mph over the limit, and I got a ticket back in May for 10 over (I was passing someone I suspected of being either lost or drunk, and briefly sped up from the speed limit for about a minute). From every experience I've ever had with a cop, regardless of who was driving, I've learned that cops are almost all assholes (trust me on this one, my mom's first husband was a Norman, OK cop), and have never successfully witnessed talking oneself out of a ticket. However, if you get a ticket in Hampton Roads for speeding, DO go to court. I chose to just prepay it rather than go to court, and all was good for 3 months, until I got a notice of license suspension in the mail, which I got out of by taking a driver improvement class and paying another fine. At said class I discovered that EVERYONE else had gone to court and the judge said "take driver improvement and I'll dismiss the ticket", even for one woman who got a ticket doing 82 in a 55, which is a Class I Misdemeanor.

While I've never even considered a radar detector (probably because they're highly illegal here), I've found that cops are almost always highly conspicuous. I'm not sure whre the one who pullled me over came from (I never saw him until he was behind me--he followed RIGHT on my bumper for about 2 miles--during which I did exactly the speed limit--before pulling me over), but I suspect he was sitting at a speed trap and got me while passing, because I did the speed limit before and after.

So, yeah, now I am just always VERY cautious, because I do NOT want to deal with another cop any time soon. People who fly up behind me and then around me on the right,
SCREW YOU.
I don't hog the left lane, and do 5 over, so anyone who needs to go faster and ride right on my bumper are just being aggressive.

Anyway, rant over.

[agentsteel53]

However, if you get a ticket in Hampton Roads for speeding, DO go to court.

because I can afford to do that.

I've never been to traffic court, because every time I get pulled over it's way out in the middle of nowhere far from home.

[J N Winkler]

2 second distance.  Most people keep closer to 1, at least now.  That's why theoretical capacity is now 2400 vehicles per hour per lane on the fastest highways (40 vehicles per minute = 1.5 seconds per vehicle), and sometimes you see volumes even higher.  Back in the 60s, theory said first 1800 vehicles per hour (2 seconds per), then upped it to 2000.

It has been observed since the 1950's at least that observed maximum capacities (2400 VPLPH being observed by Moskowitz et al. on a slight falling grade on US 101 around 1955, IIRC) are inconsistent with maintenance of the recommended minimum following distances.  This is part of the reason it is good practice to fix DHV at a level which corresponds to a significantly better LOS than that associated with maximum capacity.  Some drivers will choose to follow others too closely, but it is better that they do so without the tacit encouragement of the public authority having responsibility for the highway.

In general I try to stay off highways during their hours of LOS D (or worse) operation.  Of course I cannot always do this, and sometimes wind up following other vehicles too closely.  My own approach is to try to adjust speed and position so that my following distance is increasing whenever it is close to the two-second minimum.  On the open road, when I am cruising at the speed limit (which is generally the highest steady speed I will choose), I tend to maximize following distance.

[deathtopumpkins]

However, if you get a ticket in Hampton Roads for speeding, DO go to court.

because I can afford to do that.

I've never been to traffic court, because every time I get pulled over it's way out in the middle of nowhere far from home.

Well of course that's only if it's feasible to do so, and not as important for out-of-state drivers.

[rickmastfan67]

From every experience I've ever had with a cop, regardless of who was driving, I've learned that cops are almost all assholes (trust me on this one, my mom's first husband was a Norman, OK cop), and have never successfully witnessed talking oneself out of a ticket.

My dad talked himself out of a ticket to a warning once in SC.  Was in Olar, SC on US-321 where the speed limit drops from 55 to 25 for an insanely small town that, IMO, doesn't need a speed drop that low (maybe 40 at the lowest).  And they had 2 cars patrolling it!  Waste of tax payer money right there!

[Scott5114]

(trust me on this one, my mom's first husband was a Norman, OK cop)

Yikes!

[deathtopumpkins]

(trust me on this one, my mom's first husband was a Norman, OK cop)

Yikes!

He's still there too. I think he's a detective now though.

I never really noticed before this post that you were from Norman. My mom's side of my family is from there, and my grandmother still runs a gas station on Alameda St. that's been in the family for a LONG time. You might have stopped there before even.

[Scott5114]

We may have even had the displeasure of dealing with the guy during the recent debacle involving my Cavalier getting stolen and wrecked. Norman PD is pretty awful. They didn't even have the report ready for two weeks after the incident. It took three days of pestering the captain before it was released. And then, it was obvious the officer couldn't remember the details of the incident and was just writing shit down to get the captain off his back.

What kind is the gas station? If it's the 7-11 at the intersection with 24th E., I was just there today!

[deathtopumpkins]

It's a franchised Shamrock: B&B Country Store. Has old gas pumps, and lots of random stuff for sale outside like sheds and used cars.