Dodged a bullet today

[RSBob]

On the way to work, I was driving a fun 2 lane back highway posted at 60. It has several sweepers and winds through the farm lands and forested areas next to the hills. Plenty of oncoming traffic but for a change my lane was wide open. I was running at 75 and came around a corner to see at State Patrol sitting at a 90 degree angle to the road with radar gun hanging out the window. My heart stopped, knowing full well I was dead meat. I was about ready to start looking for a place to pull over when I saw he was gunning the opposite direction. Whew. This was one of the few times I got lazy and left my V1 in the glove box. Finding religion, and a new insurance company 2 weeks ago, I minded my Ps and Qs the rest of the way in.

Now what's your story?

[scottb]

A couple of weeks ago, I was headed up to the German Auto Fest in Ventura. I was blasting up the 101, shall we say, vigorously. Suddenly my Passport 8500 X50 starts blaring. I downshift, but the other cars in my caravan keep going. Just past the onramp, I see a CHP cruiser accelerating on to the freeway. He passes a bunch of P-cars, and pulls over a Pontiac of all things. I don't drive the P-car enough to justify the expense of a V-1 (I paid just $240 for the Passport), but I'm convinced the Passport saved my butt that day. Ironically, the Passport had been sitting for about a month since I bought it, and that Sunday was the first day I'd used it.

[Rufblackbird]

while on my roadtrip three weeks ago, while passing a rest stop (I think it was in Ohio) I saw a trooper sitting by the exit. I was going pretty fast and suddenly my heart skipped a beat. But then as I passed him just as he brought his radar gun up to the window to start shooting...

[dpriebe]

Rick-
I see that you are in Fall City. Was this on 202 by chance? I drive it every day, so if the troopers are now out there using radar, I'd like to know where to watch out.

[djmcmath]

x

[jazzbass]

Originally posted by djmcmath
I swear we made eye contact, and aside from swiveling his head to watch me go by -- 115 in a 75 -- he didn't move. I was amazed.

Lucky bastard. You should play the lottery with luck like that. If it were me, I'd probably still be in jail.

[RSBob]

Dave,

He was sitting about 1 mile south of the new roundabout being built just out of Duvall. Luckily he wasn't thinking since the heavy traffic going south couldn't exceed the posted limit - but the cars going my way easily could.

Another place is coming into Fall City from Carnation, where the speed limit is now 45. At times a trooper in an Expedition sits in the dirt parking area next to the horse arena and shoots oncoming traffic.

Good luck! - Rick

Another close one was going over the Siskyous (sp) into Calif. I was purposefully #2 in a pack of 3 cars doing about 80, heading down towards Weed. The CHP are thick as flies there and I saw one flip a U-turn, hit the lights. I immediately backed off, which slowed the car behind me too. The lead car just kept going, totally oblivious - he paid for it.

[midlife]

I think he decided he needed to send his gun out for calibration.

[DavidI]

So there I am driving in my police car down one of the beautiful streets of South LA when I saw two cars weaving in and out of traffic running other cars off the road. Having the foresight to think that something may be wrong, I decided I need to talk to them. When they see my black and white, one quickly shoots southbound on a sidestreet and the other takes off right past me. My keen police mind tells me that something may have just happened......hmmmmm

I pull over the car, and what do I see? A gangster with a GSV passenger. For those of you who do not know what a GSV is, it is a Gun Shot Victim. He kind of looks like something is wrong by the way his intestines are hanging out of his stomach. I ponder the thought, should I give the guy a ticket for speeding? Maybe not signaling when he changed lanes? Should I ask for his insurance? The bullet wound was from a fully automatic AK47.

Gents, in my world tickets are the last thing I care about. It's all about the action and going home to my family every night.

David

[banjomike]

One night late many moons ago I was in my old VW golf on 95 North between DC and Baltimore. There is a section with a series of hills and dips. We were blasting along at a near terminal velocity of 105 to 110 mph. I came over a hilltop and my generic brand radar detector beeped just a bit. I slowed way down to the speed limit. The Crysler K-Car that had been trying to follow caught up and was passing me as we went over the next rise. The radar detector went wild this time. There were 4 patrol cars on each side of the road and at least 3 more with pulled over cars over the next mile. The chump in the K-car was thorghoughly busted probably doing about 80mph in a 55 zone.

[mwbaum]

Sheesh David...harsh. I dont like speed-cops any more than the next guy but I do respect you guys putting it all on the line every day like you do with the drug-dealing gangsters and road-rage idiots that are multiplying like rabbits. Bet you were really pleased they let the assault weapon law drop off the books.

[conquest]

Our PCA region did an overnight trip from Edmonton to Jasper, AB this weekend. On the return trip, four of us --- a Boxster S, two new C4s, and me in my old SC --- got tired of the tour leader's slow pace of 135kph (about 85mph) and blasted out in front of the pack. We had been doing about 210kph (120mph) for about 5 minutes --- which is quite literally flat out for me in my old SC --- on a straight wide-open stretch of divided four-lane when suddenly the BoxsterS at the front of the group slammed on the binders and the hands of both people in the car shot up in the air and motioned like revolving lights. Needless to say, the other three of us got the message and hauled it back down to the posted speed (which was 100 kph or 60mph). Marked RCMP officer drove by in the other direction, and no tickets.

About 10 minutes further up, and after another flat-out romp, we made our next scheduled turn and pulled over to the side to wait for the rest of the group who were now probably 10 minutes or so behind us ... and wondered what speed they were doing when the RCMP came upon them.

Amazingly, and although no one in that group had a radar detector, no tickets there either.

Perhaps our tour leader's being a Deacon in his church had something to do with it ... I'm not a particularly religious man, but no other explanation seems to fit.

[DavidI]

Not to hijack the thread, but the cops stuff is unbelievable at times. I see so many strange things.

OK, one more....One of my crew got a call of a 261N (rape in progress)at about 2:00am in the morning. The location was in an alleyway north of an apartment complex resemlbing the complex on "New Jack City." The alleyway is a very narrow and long passageway that ends in a bowl-type area (kind of like a cul-de sac). When the cops get there, they see that the walls are covered with "Jesus Loves Me" written on every square inch of the wall in very small writing. It reminded me of the movie "The Shining" when Jack Nicholson wrote "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." The words must have been written thousands and thousands of times.

Anyway, a completely nude female crackhead was straddling a nude male crackhead. He was laying on his back. Her left hand up to her wrist was stuffed down this guy's throat and he was gurgling. Her left hand was holding a jagged broken crackpipe that she was using to stab the male's face with. His face was so ripped up, it looked like a hollywood mask. Next to them was a crate with lit candles and an open bible. The woman was reciting bible verses as she was stabbing him over and over and over with the crackpipe. She told us that the male was "possessed by evil spirits" and that she was performing an exorcism on him! Man, that was something else!

After all was said and done, it was not a rape at all....

Like I said before, traffic tickets are at the low end of my priority in law enforcement.

As Rick James said, "Drugs are a MF."

I have so many stories that I could bore you to death and horrify you at the same time.

SCWDP lives.....David

[Lukesportsman]

When I was younger and doing the Saturday cruise, I saw a scene that has stuck in my mind. 4 lane intersection and up pulls these drag cars. One was a Pinto wagon with induction through the hood, the other was an early Camaro. Engines reving, I look over a see two police cars sitting perpendicular to them. Light turns green and the Pinto carries front wheels across the entire intersection. Remember this is before FnF and police cars were slow. The police didn't even move....I guess they figured it would be unsafe and ridiculous to follow in pursuit.

I heard many local police state that they won't even pursuit sport bikes because of the insane speed potential.

[RSBob]

David, thanks for inserting your perspective on priorities. Even cops working traffic do much more than write tickets. My current wife and ex-wife were both married to cops (local police and state police) and so I hear a lot of stories. I appreciate you being out there hanging it all out.

And tell the truth, does it matter when you stop a car with a Fraternal Order Of Police Supporter sticker on the car, if you treat them just a touch more leniently? Inquiring minds want to know.

[david c.]

One of my friends had a cop put a gun to his temple when we were about 17. This was in suburbia, and as the result of him going through an (arguable) red light.

No ****.

[jorian]

Heading home from Idaho to Vancouver this summer on Hwy 20 (Cascades) I passed about 5 Police SUV's with their lights on going the other way. Figuring that they were responding to armageddon and had bigger fish to fry, I lit em' up. 80 - 100 in a 60 zone. No other cars, perfect dry roads and the Carrera running great.

The Cascades Highway is the Promised land for a P-car. Great scenery, well maintained road, little traffic and 5 MPH S curves every where.

I passed a rest stop with the usual suspects, 5th Wheels, RV's, station wagons etc. About a minute later a green speck in my rearview began to get bigger. He caught up and I pegged it for a Buick Park Avenue. I accelerated into a couple of turns and figured I had dusted him off. No such luck. A few minutes later he was right there again. This continued for about 25 miles at speeds close to 100.

At this point I started to worry about him. His safety that is. I'll bet most of us on this board have been followed by some reckless ass who has to show you that his POS car is just as quick as ours. What ends up happening is that Mario ends up driving way beyond his, and his cars' ability and endangering everyone around him.

I figured he must be really sawing the wheel back and forth to keep up and I didn't want a dead idiot on my conscience. So I slowed down. We entered a long straight stretch with a wide shoulder and I pulled over to let him pass. At that point he turned on his super-stealthy, grilled mounted cop lights and pulled me over!

He sort of skipped over to my car with that "I just nailed a Porsche" happy cop-walk, stuck out his hand and said, "Hi, my name is Randy, I'm the Chief of police." I shook his hand (what are my options at that point?) and gave him my license & reg.

"All those SUV's you passed had you clocked on Radar at well over the posted limit and every one of them wanted to pull you over." I figured I was already nailed so I gave him my armageddon theory as my excuse for speeding. Turns out there was a forest fire and they had to evacuate a town.

"I told them all to keep going 'cause I wanted you for myself", he said. Can you hear the banjos and squealing pigs?

I told him that I slowed down because I wasn't sure his car should be driven at that speed. He laughed and said he was a pursuit driving instructor and wanted to have a little fun. He said, "I don't carry a ticket book and I'm disappointed you didn't go any faster." He could see I was pretty blown away. "I appreciate your concern for my safety. You can go now and by the way, THERE ARE NO MORE COPS FOR THE NEXT 50 MILES!"

Errr... what was that? "I said, THERE ARE NO MORE COPS FOR THE NEXT 50 MILES....."

With a wink he jumped back in his car and took off! Coolest Cop I ever met. By the way I didn't catch up to him during the next 50 miles.......

[DavidI]

Originally posted by RSBob
And tell the truth, does it matter when you stop a car with a Fraternal Order Of Police Supporter sticker on the car, if you treat them just a touch more leniently? Inquiring minds want to know.

It does not make any difference whether or not someone has a "I support the police sticker" or not. It is kind of funny though...

In my area, the cops know whether or not they are going to give you a ticket from the moment they see the violation. There are several books out that tell you how to talk your way out of a ticket and all of them are BS. I have heard theories on quotas and revenue generation, but those are both false as well.

Cops get annual evaluations based on their work performance. A supervisor is the rater. We encourage pro-active (looking for bad guys before they commit crimes) policework as well as reactive (responding to calls for service) policework. Traffic cops must do their job, and that is enforce the traffic laws. Writing tickets is a portion of their duties. I am no genious, but usually the more traffic enforcement in a given area, the fewer the accidents. The same is usually true of criminal law enforcement too. Imagine if you were hired to do a particular job and you underperformed.

As far as revenue generation goes, the average street cop could care less about what goes on with the local government. The money that is generated from violations disappears into coffers. The street cop does not deal with budgets or anything of that nature.

I usually just give warnings. Each cop has certain violations that they do ticket by choice though. For example some that I dislike particularly are kids not in car seats, no insurance, or no license. Seeing the aftermath of a traffic collision in which irresponsible parents do not seatbelt their children would give most people nightmares-including cops and firemen.

Each of us on this board lends a different expertise, and that is awesome. I have learned about so many things it blows my mind!

I am more than happy to add a law enforcement perspective as well.

David

[IXXI_carrera]

Check out this link. Talk about young and foolish!

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040922/D858M7MG0.html

[Schrup]

A couple of years ago my wife & I were on vacation in Florida. I was driving a rented car out to the Keys. We wanted to make it there in time to see the sunset, so I was haulin ass. I was doing about a 100 across one of the long bridges & there was a car in the left lane right behind me. I saw the troopers sitting at the end of the bridge in the median before the other guy because I was in the right lane. I slammed on my brakes but figured he would get both of us. The other guy passed me then slammed his brakes. The trooper pulled out with his lights going & when he came up behind me I started to pull over, but he passed me & went after the other guy. I wasn't about to pull over & wait for him to come back & give me a ticket, so I pulled out & continued on my way.