Curious if others have had similar experiences
For the second time in as many weeks I've received tickets with my new Jag... Not that I'm whining or saying I'm innocent and the "authorities" are picking on me but...
This is beginning to irk me because on both occasions the "authorities" have insinuated that they were compelled to write their tickets because "you have an expensive car"... or "your car costs more than my house" (exact quote!!). This second time I was in traffic, driving with the flow of traffic (not an excuse or defense as I admit I was speeding) with about 10-15 vehicles in my general vicinity. Mr. deputy, who is our local Barney Fife decided to come after me probably 1-2 miles down the road (almost forced the car behind me off the road trying to get in and hit his lights)... had I known he was coming I had plenty of opportunities to do a left right left as there were roads intersecting the highway between where he was sitting and where he finally pulled me over... Enough of my stuff... lol
Really what I'm wondering is does anyone else have similar stories... about being singled out because of their car? Oh yea... here in NY window tint is illegal but usually it's never enforced (except by Mr. Fife)... he's the tint enforcer here in Mayberry (Columbia County NY) and sadly I crossed paths with him after having tinted cars for the past 20 years. He wrote me separate tickets for all windows!!

 

I've been told that I have "a very nice car for someone my age" a few times (I have an Infiniti M56S) and I've been asked what I do for a living but I've always been let off with a warning.

 

I can relate: I have received more dirty looks than I can count, been followed on several occasions for no other reason than DWY (driving while young), and pulled over twice - once for speeding and once for excessive acceleration.

Speeding: told officer that it was a nice clear day, straight road and minimal traffic - he agreed, bumped it down from a 15 over to a 5 over ticket, and told me to slow down. Nice guy.

Excessive Acceleration: never heard of it as punishable offense until then. Again, nice day, straight road, and minimal traffic. Sheriff pulled me over after what was perhaps one of my best street launches ever - no tire squeal, nearly red line on all shifts. He came over barking mad. Took my license and insurance back to his car, ran it, came back, gave me a verbal warning, and told me to cut it out, he'd be watching.

I guess I have learned my lesson from these run ins though, as I now rarely speed in excess of 5 over and my WOT accelerating is limited to on ramps (traffic permitting) and the occasional light when no LEO is present (and traffic permitting).

 

A few years ao, I bought a bright red Pontiac Solstice convertible. Less then a week later, a local deputy drove over to where I was parked idling at the local mall. He pulled up to where his driver's window was directly across from mine and motioned me to roll my window down.

"Nice car", he says...

Before I can respond, he added, "wrong color", flashed a twisted smile, and drove off.....

 

I got pulled over by a young cop in july for passing on the left. I thought the guy was breaking down in the middle of the street cause he was going so slow and slowing. I told him this and and he had my insurance and liscense in his hand. Of course i was in my blue color uniform and then he asked if it was "my" car. Yes. What does that have to do with it, you see my name on the insurance and for petes sake its a 1996. Hell i could buy 4 or 5 of these for price of your police car. None of this i said but come on a 2000 honda accord is worth more
yeah i got a ticket for it...

 

You must have a more mature police force John... I was just down to my local State Police barracks with the emphasis on the State Police to get my equipment ticket (tint) signed off on... Man, I was fit to be tied last night scraping the tint out of my car. She said "I hope you took it to a professional to scrape your tint because that's too nice of a car to do it yourself." She also gave me advice on what to do at court in hopes of getting a reduced sentence. Sorry to say a ticket of 74 in a 55 apparently holds quite a stigma up here... When I told her about the circumstances of my being stopped she said she and many of her colleagues might have let me off did add salt to the wounds... My ASL was set to interstate speed and I forgot to set it lower when I got off the highway... I had it set to 72mph and I was going down a hill after passing two trucks before getting to the next light which is the part of the road that turns to a two-laner for the next 30 miles... expensive lesson to say the least.

Excessive acceleration?!? How did he/she prove this? At least you had a reasonable officer who cut you a break... which is usually the case in my past experiences...
Mine was also a Sheriff and in my county the sheriffs are wannabee State Police... We have friends who are State Troopers and I even had an official trooper sticker in my windshield... the ones they get personally to hand out to family and close friends... The wink and a nod sticker that has given me many breaks throughout our state for window tint and not running a front plate (my old car) and for speeding once... Usually if I was stopped for speeding the officer wrote a non-moving ticket so I would have to pay some kind of fine... usually quite steep but no points. This Sheriff said he was ticketing me in spite of the sticker and even said it too was illegal and he could write me up for it too!!!
I have friends who constantly get harassed by this Sheriff for tint, "excessive music," even not waiting long enough after coming to a complete stop at a stop sign... The story is; he was picked on relentlessly as a kid growing up and has a bone to pick as someone with power... but he is careful to operate within the law when being such a *****... he must have studied real hard as a child... lol But... I was speeding and am guilty so I only have myself to blame... it’s too bad when an officer of the law singles some out though...

I'd be afraid with that one... lol At least he had a sense of humor...

I used to have a sticker in my rear window that said... "If I'm passing you on the left... you're in the wrong lane." It simply shocks me that people can be so envious over a car... I get the wow... expensive car and must be nice statements a lot since purchasing my Jag this past July... The funny thing is... someone driving a brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee said this and I told the guy... you paid more for your vehicle than I did. I buy my "expensive" cars at least two years old when the bulk of the depreciation has already occurred... I looked at a 2011 Jeep a month before I bought my car and immediately turned away after seeing the 44K sticker price on it.

 

I suggest you get Valentine V1; should cut the number of speeding tickets down considerably. Doesn't save you from envious cops though...

 

I do have one with the concealed display but sadly, When you hear the laser warning it's too late... It went off alright but I figured I was safe and slowed down immediately but, if you're the one they pick out of the crowd... you're effed. The first thing he said to me was... you have a laser detector? He thought my V1 was strictly a laser detector because he was so proud of his new toy... I wanted to tell him it was a radar detector too but it probably wouldn't have gone over to well. The laser warning should sound like... you're screwed...you're screwed... you're screwed... lol I have been looking into a laser jammer (or I should say Laser Elite Diffuser/Parking Sensor) The reviews and testing done on the newer units are supposedly reliable at confusing the signal from LIDAR... My ticket was the result of a new laser gun recently purchased by our Sheriff's Dept... used by an overzealous deputy. But, keeping it real, I got caught.

Does anyone know how or where to get a wire through the firewall with minimal trouble? If there is such a place I'm going to purchase one of these units soon...

 

I'm pretty sure any sort of jammer would be illegal, Wife's Tech. Be careful. Very careful.

 

Recessions provoke more ticket writing, any excuse to add to tax revenue.

I have noticed that my XF feels slower than the speedometer suggests. The speedo is off by only 3% (actual measured test) so I know the XF is fast when one feels one is just driving with the flow.

 

I think it depends on where you live. In the San Francisco/Marin/Silicon Valley area, if having a "nice car" (BMW, Mercedes, Jag) meant more tickets, then they'd be handing out tickets like candy. Around here, you'd need a Ferrari or Lamborghini to get "special" attention, although I will say that because of the relative rarity of XFRs compared to BMW 5ers and Mercedes E class, my car gets more attention than those other cars. Everyone seems to like the XFR's lines, and I often get asked "What kind of car is that?!" Good thing my 2011 model still has the J-A-G-U-A-R script across the rear chrome strip!

 

Excessive acceleration?!? How did he/she prove this?

I believe that is why I got a verbal warning - he had nothing to go on in order to prove I went too fast (and I made damn sure not to speed on that stretch of road). Additionally, our former governor Jesse Venture once quipped that there is no law that says how fast you can get to the speed limit.

Well, unfortunately it is a law on the books at the county level, and my insurance even has a points section for that infraction (I looked it up afterwards). I think it is typically applied to crotch-rockets, burning rubber, and in cases of street racing (thought there are street racing and burning rubber laws as well). All I know, is that it seems as if all the fun things my parents could do in automobiles has been legislated away over the years.

 

I was stopped in my Lotus Elise for excessive speed by a deputy...I was crossing a two lane street that was under major construction (i.e. part of it was dirt and part being prepped for paving) and once crossed continued down a potholded rough road. Barely got it out of first gear...He was sitting on the corner . Said he could tell by my exhaust sound I was speeding. First time I have ever laughed at a cop. Then proceeds to ask for insurance and registration, I motioned and motioned that they were in the trunl of the car (the Elise has no glove box) So I open the door to get out and he slams the car door back shut and says I am not to exit unless he instructs me to. It went from bad to worse. Well at that point, cell phone came out I locked the doors and I called my Law Enforcement friend who called the Sherriff in my county whom she knew well. After a few minutes of this deputy screaming for me to get out of the car, she told me it was being taken care of, then all of a sudden he stopped and told me to have a nice day..Guess he got "the call" from the sherriff.

I will admit it was the most nerve racking experience I have ever had with a LEO.

 

I checked into this and found Laser Jammers are illegal in VA, SC, TN, OK, IL, MN, CO, UT, CA and TX as of 9/01/2011. There are some good sites that test these units that are not affiliated with selling them... even one unit that tested 100% on all trials... the idea is to give the driver enough time to hear/react to the V1. Plus it would give me great satisfaction to have this Barney Fife deputy frustrated by the inability to get a reading on his toy... lol
On a serious note, I'm not condoning speeding but all of us who have nice cars... especially the r's and supercharged versions have to be extra careful because in reality... I'm going 0 to ticket in under 6 seconds conservatively and 0 to jail in under 10 seconds... I have looked down sometimes on the highway coming home at night and been well in excess of 80MPH and many times at or above 90. It's not my intent to go this fast but it happens, usually driving on the interstate and I use my V1... and if I do pull the trigger on a jammer to keep me alert for such instances. I also realize the use of ASL's and cruise control but I like to have personal control and input of my car.

I agree with recession and being more aggressive/creative raising revenue. The feeling of the XF does make it tough to relate the speed we drive to the feel/noise of the road because the suspension and sound proofing these cars have is amazing. This is also why I'm considering getting a louder aftermarket exhaust...

This would get me nervous too... the guy that stopped me never attempted to look in my car, ask me any questions or move from his initial position slightly behind my door... He did whip out his "tint tester" like he was in a gun fight though... lol

 

Speeding is illegal. Why worry about the legality of jammers. If they work ( and they probably don't) then use them if you intend to speed.

 

The issue is not speeding for the sake of speeding; it’s for the sake of having a fail-safe to remind me of those times when I drive and not being aware of the speed I'm going. I realize the car has a speed limiter but to set it at the speed limit is a royal pain in the butt. Mine happened to be set at the interstate speed at 72 mph and I simply forgot to re-set it after getting off my exit. This car could use a louder exhaust note because to do 90 feels like 50.

The issue with a radar detector/laser jammer is to afford enough of a reaction time to first, look down to see that the speed I'm driving is reasonable or if I’m going faster than intended and secondly, to drive this car by constantly watching the speedometer makes the trip to and from a destination silly. I do realize that speeding is illegal and I’m not using any excuses... I got caught plain and simple. I was not driving like a fool nor was I trying to "get away" with anything... simply unaware of how fast I was traveling and being in the wrong place at the wrong time...

My V1 saved my butt an number of times when all I was doing was driving on the highway at what I consider a safe speed... if I had three seconds more (jammer) I could have realized this but the deputy has a new toy and is known to be a *****... thus the Barney Fife example. If anyone remembers the time when Barney first got this new radar gun and stopped every truck out on the main road for going what he considered too fast... Speed limits are speed limits but there is a time to add a human touch to the job as a law enforcement officer and not being a cop for power... Talking to the State Police they seemed to agree with my idea... plus they said my story would have gotten me off because it was original and truthful… She did say she’s hear most of the excuses for speeding like bathroom, wife’s in labor, house is on fire etc… but mine… she never heard it… lol

Besides... what's the sense of owning, or for that matter, manufacturing a 400+ hp car...

 

+1. It's all too easy to exceed the limit unintentionally. Also, exceeding the limit isn't automatically unsafe, although some enforcement authorities behave as if that were so.

 

My point wasn't that you should not speed but rather why worry if detectors are also not legal? Two wrongs don't make a third wrong. Still only two offences.

 

I agree with Wife's Tech. I have Passport 9500's in all of my cars, they do give me time to react and keep from giving the local city, county, state any additional of my hard earned money. I use mine to detect dreaded speed cameras (ATM's) and other such devices. Mine did warn me about a cop sitting on the shoulder of a highway running Ka. Speed limit was 65 I was doing about 80. Had plenty of time to slow down and avoid a $160 (or more) ticket. Thanks, Passport.

 

I never fly without my bel passport. BTW I receive money from my ATM, perhaps you are using the wrong PIN?

Our speed cameras operate more like an EFT ( electronic funds transfer). We have recently been treated to the new innovation of green light speed cameras. The declared intent is to reduce the severity of intersection collisions. Good to know that red light runners are getting some government protection. Prosecution evidence is by affidavit, no government witness needs to show up. It's getting like Switzerland here, which is where the cameras were invented.

Our legislation also allows the black box evidence to be used in prosecutions!!!! Self incrimination?

Still, EFT tickets attract no demerit points so amount to a tax on the poor.